Book-The Legend of Drizzit: The Collected Stories

Author– R. A. Salvatore

TL; DR-Context hurts an otherwise excellent short story anthology.  85%

Basics-Wizards of the Coast gave everybody a GenCon present with this collection of short stories written by R. A. Salvatore.  Each story is from a different part of Drizzit’s life and the Forgotten Realms in general.  Each story narrated by different famous people ranging from Sean Aston to Weird All Yankovic.

Characters-I’ve never been a huge Drizzit fan, but this collection of short stories featured characters ranging from a young King Battlehammer to dragons is a fun listen.  Each character was well developed in the short period you got to spend with them.  My main complaint is each character was adrift in the sea of the history of the realms.  Everybody was a full character, but there was little context to each character besides what I knew about Drizzit from reading the books previously.  That kind of randomness hurt the overall story of Drizzit and his legacy as the stories range from long before Drizzit to the current day. 4/5

Setting– R. A Salvatore does a great job bringing the Forgotten Realms to life.  I enjoyed the different stories and parts of the world that I got to experience.  The each story’s world is well constructed and felt like a real place.  However, like with the characters, you won’t be able to place the setting in time and space with the other stories.  Unless you know where each location and story takes place, you will be somewhat lost as each story will feature a completely random place. 4.5/5

Story-The different stories are all well done.  Each story is a self contained bite-sized story explaining a bit of the history of each character in Drizzit’s legacy.  It was fun to learn so much back story in a quick way.  However, these stories really don’t have a context if you don’t know the world or how they’ve interacted with Drizzit.  Some stories feature connected characters and settings, but unless you’ve been reading Drizzit books for the longest time, you won’t have a clue who is being discussed and why. 4/5

Audiobook Extra but not Extra- This book is free through audible.com, so you get an audio anthology.  Each story gets a separate narrator.  Some are there because they are famous.  Ice-T was fun to listen to for about five minutes as he struggled to deal with the “nerd shit” (his words, not mine!), but others were excellent readers.  You know who I really want to hear do more audiobooks?  Wield Al Yankovic!  He has a little bit of the nerd slur to his speech, but honestly he did an excellent job as a narrator being serious when he needed to and an even better job bringing the characters in his story to life!  That was an amazing surprise. 4.5/5

Summary-This was a fun listen.  I think I’m more of a Drizzit fan now that when I went in.  The stories really helped me better understand the people I’ve been listening to for such a long time as well as build up the understanding of the Forgotten Realms.  This book isn’t bad, but what hurt this book a lot was the lack of continuity.  Everything was free in space, and that lack of connections or explanation would leave new realms reader lost in a sea of words.  If Wizards and Audible get a chance, I’d love it if Mr. Salvatore would give a minute or two introduction to each story and explain who the major player is in this story and who they are to Drizzit’s story.  Do that and I’ll revise this to a 100 % easily.  But as it stands it a 85%.

Story-Night of the Hunter Companions Codex, I

Author– R. A. Salvatore

Buy It Here– http://www.amazon.com/Night-Hunter-Companions-Codex-I/dp/0786965118/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1403096780&sr=8-2&keywords=NIght+of+the+Hunter

TL; DR– Almost TL; DR! 57%

Audiobook Extra– Well done performance. 4/5

Basics– Drizzit’s back!  With all his friends back from the void, Drizzit embarks on an epic quest to save his one time friend turned vampire.  Along the way, drow scheme to take over the world and kill one another.  What are the drow up to now, can Drizzit stop it, and what is Drizzit’s place in the world?

Story- I suffered through this because I love the realms.  There is just way too much going on at any given time to make me really interested in one thing.  Too many plots with too many moving parts made me not care about any one in particular.  Unlike the Game of Thrones, I didn’t care about any one of the plots to make me want to see them juggled.  Also, since every main character is bad ass, I never was worried about any one character in particular.  Drizzit will survive and be as self absorbed as ever as he battles monsters but still wonders if HE is the monster…like every other Drizzit book.  Honestly, the most exciting thing will happen in the last moment of the book, and even that is pulling a punch.  1.5/5

Characters- No one here is consistent.  All the characters want to be the good guys, but they are acting pretty neutral to evil!  Also, all the work that the characters did before is being undone (no surprise), but the actions seem massively out of place for the characters.  Most of them worship a nature god of good, but all of them are moving toward an ork genocide.  (Don’t worry; events behind the scenes are making that genocide ok!)  I felt things were just off. But, Drizzit is as much a stable rock as ever, and he gets the most screen time, so it’s a wash. 3/5

Setting– This is the Forgotten Realms.  People, places, and things all feel like a FR DnD Game.  I was pretty happy living in this world, but then again, I’m also a veteran of the realms.  I think your average person will need a bit more introduction to know all the background the author is playing with though. 4/5

Summary– This was kind of painful.  I alternated between podcasts and this story to get through it.  Nothing hooked me and the characters seemed off, but I did like the setting.  To me it seems that the author is working to dismantle his own work piecewise, and given Mr. Salvatore thoughts on 4e DnD, I believe that’s what he’s doing right now.  Will I read the next book?  Yes, but keep in mind that I also will sit and play a boss battle for four hours straight to get to the end of a video game to the point where this is now a job and no longer fun.  I want to know what’s going on in the realms, so I’ll endure the next book.  If that’s not for you, then choose accordingly. 57%

Audiobook Extra– The reader of the audiobook does a good job.  I’d like a bit more emotion, but he does do a decent job of making the characters come to life. 4/5

Story- Sail Away, Sweet Sister

Author- Patrick Goodman

TL;DR- Great Shadowrun story, but not a great introduction to Shadowrun story. 83%

Basics– Thomas McCallister is back!  This is a direct sequel to “Another Rainy Night”. In this story, a picture of Lenore, Thomas’ vampiric sister, is found as she is running across the fractured America of Shadowrun.  Can Thomas save his sister before she falls to the monster that lives insider her?  Who else is manipulating things behind the scenes….

Story-The story is pretty good.  It’s an ensemble cast with the story being told from the sister, Thomas, his friends, and several other’s points of view.  Each character has a different, well defined view of things, and, that variety makes the story come off the page.  Some of the story elements are kind of brushed over, but in a short fiction, that is a necessary evil. 4/5

Characters– The characters are also well defined.  Each one has their own goals and motivations, and that comes through in the story.  I felt the characters were real, not one dimensional caricatures.  You won’t get all the pieces as this is part of a trilogy, but where there were gaps, I felt that was mysteries for later, not poor writing. 4.5/5

Setting-Here things are interesting.  If you know Shadowrun, the story is an good story in the Shadowrun World.  Lots of locations and idea live and breathe as you know they should.  However, if you don’t know Shadowrun, you will be completely lost.  Terms are thrown around that your average read off the street won’t know.  A little bit of introduction to the more Shadowrun-esque element of the story would make things a bit better for all the readers out there. 4/5

Summary-This is a good short story.  It’s pretty long for the price you pay as it’s over 30 pages.  AND, you get some Shadowrun 5e/4a stats for your games.  That right there is worth the price alone for how starved for Shadowrun content I and most of the community are.  I haven’t read “Another Rainy Night”, but if the same writer wrote that one as well, I feel that I would be in good hands for that one.  Also, as soon as the sequel to this story comes out, I plan to buy it.  I like how this story turned out and I can’t wait for more! 83%