BookBlogWriMo – Days Nineteen, Twenty

BookBlogWriMo.  Book Blog Writing Month.  Created by “Book Bumblings” as a book bloggers’ version of NaNoWriMo.  I found it through “Shattered Hearts Reviews“.

Day Nineteen – TBR (To Be Read) Books

(reread) Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

(reread) Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Beowulf as translated by J.R.R. Tolkien

Five Kingdoms:  Rogue Knight by Brandon Mull

Five Kingdoms:  Crystal Keepers by Brandon Mull (to be released March 2015)

Storm Siren:  Siren’s Fury by Mary Weber (to be released June 2015)

Neverwinter Saga:  Charon’s Claw by R.A. Salvatore

DEAD POET…Once Removed:  The Poetic Works of Walter J. Wojtanik (Volume I)  by Walt Wojtanik

There are, of course, many other books I plan to read, but these are the ones off the top of my head that I hope to read sooner than later.

Day Twenty – Best Books of 2014

While I read many good books this year, including most of the Harry Potter series (again), these are the only that I can identify as new this year, so they make my best of 2014.  They are also very good books, which is why Mull and Weber have sequels on my TBR list above.

Storm Siren by Mary Weber

Five Kingdoms:  Sky Raiders by Brandon Mull

The Fury Triad:  This Crumbling Pageant by Patricia Burroughs

Review: Neverwinter, The Neverwinter Saga, Book II by R.A. Salvatore

Title:  Neverwinter, The Neverwinter Saga, Book II
Author: R. A. Salvatore
Published: October 4, 2011
Author’s Website: http://www.rasalvatore.com/
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy

Spoiler Alert:  Character-based

Review:  Having successfully prevented the primordial from escaping at the cost of his good friend Bruenor Battlehammer’s life, Drizzt and his new companion, the beautiful and deadly elf, Dahlia, head to Luskan so that Drizzt can learn whether Jarlaxle truly perished in Gauntlgrym.  Along the way, Drizzt gets to know his new companion a little better, and she provides quite the quandary for him.  Throughout most of his life, his decisions had been mostly uncomplicated because he saw things as fairly black and white as it pertained to right and wrong, but Dahlia questions his decisions and motives, forcing him to re-evaluate his thinking…how many different shades of gray are there?  Another piece of her personality that draws him to her is her reckless, excitement-driven attitude toward everything.  Why be completely stealthy when being mostly stealthy provides a bit of risk and excitement?  And her desire for that excitement leads Drizzt to realize that the rush of being on the edge of dying is something he’s been missing for a while.

Over the course of this book, we learn, with as much certainty as is possible in fantasy, that Jarlaxle did perish in the battle in Gauntlgrym.  We also meet Barrabus the Gray, an incredibly skilled fighter and assassin who is tortured and not allowed to die by his connection to a sword held by his “master.”  During a conversation with Drizzt and Dahlia, Barrabus discovers his own identity that he’d lost long ago due to the swords control:  Artemis Entrerei.  If you know the name, you’ll know that spells big problems for their mutual enemies.  If you don’t know him, his backstory could take pages.

Bottom Line:  Another solid book.  I liked the first one in this series better, maybe because it had Breunor, but my problem is the same as I find in many movies and TV shows:  The final battle, the cliffhanger, just doesn’t have any real “gotta keep reading,” “I wonder they survive” suspense.  I knew Drizzt wasn’t going to die, but I was almost 100% positive his companions in the final battle weren’t either.

Review: Gauntlgrym, Neverwinter Book I by R.A. Salvatore

Let me start this review by saying that I might be a little jaded…

• R. A. Salvatore is one of my favorite authors.
• Drizzt Do’Urden is one of my favorite characters.
• The Forgotten Realms is one of my favorite fantasy settings.

This story of Drizzt Do’Urden, the famed Drow elf ranger, and dwarf Bruenor Battlehammer, King of Mithril Hall, starts 24 years after the Spellplague, in which Catti-brie and Regis were lost to them.  Wulfgar, too, has parted their company sometime over the years.  Drizzt’s and Bruenor’s paths again intertwine with Jarlaxle’s, the Drow elf, and Athrogate’s, the dwarf, and even Thibbledorf Pwent, King Bruenor’s long time friend and dwarven battlerager, gets some face time.  As Drizzt spends a bit of the story reflecting on and trying to convince himself that he’s done with the past, R. A. Salvatore introduces a new character:  the incredibly beautiful and deadly elf Dahlia.

Initially serving the Thayan Lich lord Szass Tam, Dahlia leads Jarlaxle and Athrogate into the lost dwarven city of Gauntlgrym on a mission to create a Dread Ring by shutting down the magic that keeps a primordial trapped deep below a mountain.  That mission is ultimately completed by another of Szass Tam’s agents, resulting not only in the creation of the Dread Ring, but also in the destruction of the city of Neverwinter.  Dahlia eventually joins with Drizzt, Bruenor, Jarlaxle, and Athrogate on a quest back into Gauntlgrym to re-trap the primordial.

In typical R. A. Salvatore (writing Drizzt Do’Urden) fashion, well-written fight scenes abound and our pensive and very complex hero has believable inner turmoil and friends and acquaintances who help him work through some of it whether he wants to or not.  Most of the characters are multi-dimensional, with the aspects of the personalities added seamlessly through the story and I’m  most interested to see them fleshed out over the rest of this series and, hopefully, accompany Drizzt on other adventures yet to come.

I could hardly put the book down and spent too many nights with not enough sleep as a result.  I highly recommend this book and fantasy readers who are familiar with Drizzt Do’Urden and Bruenor Battlehammer and their friends from previous adventures should consider this as a must read.

At this point, this is my favorite R. A. Salvatore book about Drizzt, long may he live to entertain us with stories of his journeys and exploits in the Forgotten Realms.

**This was originally posted on a different blog I am terminating/have terminated

[Almost three years later, I’m adding a link to this book on Amazon.com:  Gauntlgrym: Neverwinter Saga, Book I]