Book Series Wednesday: The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

Michael Blaker
Game Industry News is running the best blog posts from people writing about the game industry. Articles here may originally appear on Michael's blog, Windborne's Story Eatery.

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This week for Book Series Wednesday, I’m talking about a fairly well known series by R.A. Salvatore, it’s The Dark Elf Trilogy.

Plot Synopsis: Drizzt was born to the tenth noble House of Menzoberranzan, Daermon Na’shezbaernon (more commonly known as House Do’Urden). He was the son of Malice, the Do’Urden Matron Mother and her consort, Do’Urden weaponmaster (and sometime Patron) Zaknafein. As the third son, drow culture demanded that Drizzt be sacrificed to their goddess Lolth. However, the death of his older brother, and the first son, Nalfein, (incidentally, at the treacherous hand of the second son, Dinin) in the battle against House DeVir which raised Daermon Na’shezbaernon to the 9th ranked in the city during his birth, made him the second son and spared him.

Plot: Serving as a character backstory for the immensely popular character of Drizzt Do’Urden first introduced in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, The Dark Elf Trilogy is fairly good for a Dungeons and Dragons book. I read this book when I was in middle school and loved the characters, although looking back I realize that it’s not the greatest of series. That said if you enjoy a decent fantasy series, you’ll probably love this one. That said what does stand up to my standards today is R.A. Salvatore’s wonderful fight choreography, it’s very well done and is probably the saving grace for this series.

Characters: Drizzt is the star of the show, and while I enjoyed his character as I was growing up, looking back he isn’t as deep as I thought he was. He is a little too perfect, and there just aren’t enough flaws in his character to make him interesting to me now. I’ve probably been spoiled by Brandon Sanderson’s work.

Overall: Like I said above, if you like fantasy and want a decent plot to a somewhat interesting character read this series.

For those who like: Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Excellent combat scenes.

Not for those who don’t like: Too perfect lead characters, or any of the above.

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