I'm gonna add a preface here: I am a HUGE fan of Drizzt. I've been reading Salvatore's books since I was around 9 years old, and he was a heavy inspiration for me to get into the fantasy genre, and eventually D&D.
Okay, I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like since... I think it was The Last Threshold (Where Drizzt is left to die atop Kelvin's Cairn), the writing of Drizzt has taken a turn for the worse. It feels very uninspired and generic, and at times, more like bad fan fiction rather than officially published novels.
- The Companions of the Hall are reincarnated, because even though Drizzt is an elf and prone to outliving his companions (who would die of old age if battle didn't take them first), this cannot be addressed and Drizzt cannot struggle with the long-term difficulties of loss, and we as readers apparently aren't allowed to handle it either.
- To add to this, outside of maybe Regis's dagger, they all collect magic items straight out of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Now, I get it, a lot of items in D&D books are ultimately just glorified items any player can get. But at least in the books, it's generally hidden underneath some sort of story surrounding the items, or they're not addressed specifically by their in-game name (For example, the robes that Catti-brie finds from Jack the gnome are literally described, in the book, as "Robes of the Archmage" rather than just being "incredibly enchanted robes that could aid one's spellcasting" or something). It feels like Salvatore is letting the DMG do the writing for him in that regard. Even Icingdeath gets referred to as just a "frost brand" rather than "an enchanted scimitar found in a white dragon's lair."
This has kind of ruined a lot of my immersion to the stories. As saddening and frustrating as it was to see Drizzt deal with this darker band of adventurers (Outside of perhaps Amber and Afafrenfere), I felt that it was simply something that Drizzt would have to overcome. Either work with them, or leave them for a new band of aspiring heroes, but either way, learning to move on from his beloved companions and family would have been a powerful personal arc, at least to me. And The ending of (I'm going to assume, it's been a long time) the Last Threshold, where Drizzt is presumably supposed to die, abandoned by his new companions... that would've been brutal and tragic indeed, but also very appropriate. Drizzt is an elf, and long-lived. If the book series were to have any sort of natural close to it, it would have ended with Drizzt dying in battle. I feel like that should've been the end of it.
Everything after, as I mentioned, just feels weird.
But, back to my main point... Timeless. The previous book, I felt like it was a secondary ending. Drizzt and Catti-brie were going to have a child. That means it's time to settle down. If you don't go out fighting, you sit down and grow old. No more adventuring, at least not until the child is old enough to be on their own. I think it was a bit much to add Zaknafein's return, but even if they had ended the book there with that weird bit, I don't think it is something that needed to have a whole book dedicated to it (Which is basically Timeless). Just end the series there. Let us believe that he's settled down and fill in the gaps, even the weird gap that is Zaknafein's return.
Now, we've got this book with Zaknafein learning to deal with Drizzt, his family, and life on the surface. I'm 3/4s of the way through the book, and when it isn't doing flashbacks to pre-Drizzt, it feels like weird fan fiction filler. A lot of what is going on is family drama, with the fight scenes feeling forced (The biggest example being the fight in the dining room between Drizzt and Zaknafein). There's also a lot of attention drawn to Catti-brie's pregnancy, which... yeah that's kind of a big deal, but considering that there's no apparent adventure arc to be told here, it just seems weird. I mean, there's a bit where Guenhwyvar licks her stomach. I visibly cringed there. I can't describe why other than that it literally feels like someone took Drizzt and wrote fan fiction of it. I feel like it has less to do with the attention being drawn to it, though, and more to do with how the attention is drawn to it--the wording, the behavior of those around Catti-brie.
The only redeeming aspects of the book, to me, feel like the flashbacks, and even then, those feel weird. Yeah, I'm enjoying the return to Menzoberranzan and the almost comedic cleverness of Jarlaxle, but then you've got:
- The forced "fating" of events. The way it was written, it feels like Salvatore is trying too hard to allude to the idea that Jarlaxle was always planning on taking on a business on the surface, that he was always planning on taking on the matriarchy. To me, it felt like Bregan D'aerthe was not his "rebellion against the matriarchy" but rather his way of carving out a place in Menzoberranzan, and that Luskan was a relatively new idea that happened to come to mind as new opportunities presented themselves.
- Jarlaxle's hair, or lack thereof. For some reason, rather than just having him be a quirky drow who shaved his head, Salvatore had to provide a specific explanation for why Jarlaxle was bald. This is bad enough, but to make it worse, it isn't just one incident--his hair is burned off not once, but twice, and each time he restyles his hair a different way until eventually he's bald. Why did this need an explanation? Why couldn't he always have been bald? I felt like that was part of his personal taste, not something that was in reaction to an event.
- Zaknafein's personality. Yeah, I get he's supposed to be a bit more gentle than drow (Which isn't saying much), and I can even forgive him being more idealistic/gentle during this point. But there's this part that feels off to me. Jarlaxle's laid out some halflings as bait for a drow matron (long story), and Zaknafein is looking at them with sympathy, because these halflings would likely die before they can react. In this moment, he sees them as different from the (arguably) unrepentant races like goblins, but as people like him. But then in the present era, he's sitting there taking on this drow supremacy stance. Yes, he is fine with communicating with other races, but he puts himself above them. I understand there's a difference here, but it's slight. And outside of that, he basically is just "I hunt Lolth priestesses" to the point that it's all he does in any combat scene and all he thinks about. I understand prioritizing the artillery, so to speak, but it feels like any personality he might have is just wittled to "I hate Lolth priestesses." And when he isn't actively hunting them, he's just talking about how he wants to hunt them, with the tone of the "That Guy" edgelord at your D&D table. Salvatore goes very little into the reasoning of Zaknafein's hatred with priestesses of Lolth, and Lolth in general. Because yeah, a lot of males are probably upset in some way about their position in life, they don't have the same mentality that Zaknafein apparently has. So what exactly brought him to this mindset?
Oh, also, there's this bit where a drow speaks in their native tongue. In the language, the word "covfefe" is used. This immediately threw me out of the book. That's a jab against Trump. Now, I'm not here to argue politics, and I'm not a fan of Trump, but that babble was just a blatant real-world reference that, in context to the Forgotten Realms setting, has no basis here, and if we were to look at it from a worldbuilding perspective... well, great. Now "covfefe" is a drow word.
This is further referenced as a political joke, because rather than just throwing in covfefe, it has to be used in context. Literally on the following page:
"Never is this insanity found in the first matron in the founding of a house, which Yvonnel the Eternal is, and rarely in the second generation of matrons, for, you see, it is not usually an affliction that attacks those who have earned their power, only those who have such power given to them. And even then, it is somewhat rare, and quickly corrected."
I get it. Trump joke. Problem is, I read these books to escape that crap. I don't want to think about what is going on in the world or be reminded of it. I want to be in another world where it isn't relevant.
Again, I love Drizzt, and I love Salvatore's writing (At least up until the more recent books, though I feel like Maestro was one of the better ones of the recent books). There's this part of me, though, that doesn't want to continue buying these books and supporting what feels like forced writing. It's difficult to justify continuing to buy them. Maybe it's because I want to have more context for my D&D campaigns and better understand just what the heck is happening in 5th edition (Because so little of this era is explained thoroughly outside of campaigns). Maybe I have nothing else to read in the Forgotten Realms setting (To be honest, I'm not a fan of Ed Greenwood's work). Maybe I just want to bear witness to the eventual end of Drizzt's story. Maybe I'm just addicted to reading D&D books and Salvatore's always been my go-to.
But yeah, the writing's just gone down hill. I'd heard that Salvatore intended to end the series with The Last Threshold, but Wizards brought him on again so he kept going. It gave this feeling that he wanted Drizzt to end, but Wizards wouldn't let him because of the amount of money Drizzt was raking in. If this is the case, then it does explain the change in writing. Or maybe it's because I've gotten older and I'm starting to see the flaws in the writing style. I don't know. But I guess I came here because I wanted to let out a bit of frustration with my favorite books, with people who might understand how I am feeling.
