The sea of swords

[Ned Flanders]

Anyone else delved into this book yet. I just picked it up and started reading it last night.

Salvatore, as always, opens the book subtly inviting a little quick combat. WTF! Our heroes of Mithril hall have gone soft. This is the first sequence they've settled for a knockout punch instead of termination.

Anyway, I'm still excited to read again about Drizzt. The rest of 'em, take 'em or leave 'em. Is Salvatore going to pick up where servant of the shard left off. That book was awesome. The transcendence of Entreri and Jarlaxle was captivating. I wonder where he plans to go with those two characters?

[CM]

No i haven't read it.
Is this the 4th book of the series?
If it is, it is time for me to buy all 4 at once!

[Ned Flanders]

The series is somewhere in the teens back to the crystal shard

[HighLordDave]

I picked up the book the first day I saw it at Border's. I thought it was okay, although it seems that Salvatore's primary function was to wrap up a bunch of loose ends and fix things up with Wulfgar.

Spoilers follow:
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Sea of Swords was a disappointment to me compared with Salvatore's benchmark books, The Dark Elf Trilogy. I found that the emotional connection to the characters was lacking. In part this may be due to the fact that two of the four books in the Paths of Darkness series, Servant of the Shard and Spine of the World, have centered on secondary characters not our favourite dark elf.

Where Servant of the Shard settled things up Jarlaxle and Entreri, Sea of Swords does the same for all of the major characters in the North. Deudermont, Morik, Kemp et al make appearances, sometimes superflously, although often as plot devices. Robillard was used refreshingly, both in his distaste for Wulfgar as well as the one who sets him back on the path towards redemption.

On a happy note, the overt romance between Drizzt and Cattie-brie begins, Salvatore having teased us with it beginning back in Passage to Dawn with on again and off again references since. Our friend Sailor Saturn will be happy to hear that there is lots of fighting and sword play, although as I have said before it gets kind of repetitive after a while.

There are some new villains, although none as epic as Errtu or Matron Baenre. The problem for Salvatore is that Drizzt's best nemesis, Artemis Entreri, has been wussified and phased out since the end of The Halfling's Gem. Without killing Entreri, Salvatore has effectively eliminated the rivarly between the two. One of the rules in writing is that every hero needs a villain (Batman and Joker, Xavier, and Magneto, Adama and Balter, Sherlock and Moriarty, etc.), and if you kill/remove the villain, another villain of comparable power must take their place. Neither Sheila Kree nor Le'Lorinel was worthy of true villainy; Kree is a thug and Le'Lorinel dies at the end as more of a tragic character than a villain.

My biggest beef with Salvatore comes with his use of Le'Lorinel. He is a mysterious character with unfathomable hatred for Drizzt Do'Urden. We know he has a secret agenda, but little is revealed to us. His unexplained blind hatred makes him first interesting but later unsympathetic as a villain. I think Salvatore took a minimalist approach to Le'Lorinel because he wanted to save the surprise for us at the end, but it left the character as a bit shallow, but also transparent to long-time followers of the dark elf books.

Also, why does Le'Lorinel impersonate a man? This was never fully explained or made clear to me. I did not see any clear reason except to provide the book's only major plot twist. A female elf could hate Drizzt just as much as a male elf and I think it make Salvatore cover up too much when he could have used Le'Lorinel's hate for Drizzt to add much-needed depth to an anti-hero.

I believe this will be the last Drizzt Do'Urden book for some time. I think Salvatore has worn out many of the characters and also wants to be known for other works (like killing Chewbacca). All of the major loose ends are accounted for; Wulfgar (with Aegis-fang) and Delly even move to Icewind Dale with their child at the end.

All in all, Sea of Swords is pretty good. Hell, it's better than 90% of the other novels with the Forgotten Realms stamp on them. But for Salvatore, it seems he has been phoning in the last two or three of these (much like Anne McCaffery with the later Pern books), and it falls short of some of his other books. I give it 6 out of 10 overall.

@Fas: Beginning with The Crystal Shard, there have been 14 books in four series plus a half-dozen or so short stories. Sea of Swords is the fourth book in the Paths of Darkness series.

[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: HighLordDave ]

[Ned Flanders]

@ High Lord Dave,

Nice analysis, I had to wait to read it until I finished the book. I agree with you on all points. Ironically, regarding Le'lorinel, is the fact I just gave Sea of Swords to a friend whom I have fueled for the other 13 books. Strangely enough, he mentioned how disappointed he was nothing else ever became of the surface elf he saved back in homeland. It was difficult to hand him the book without bursting into laughter.

Anyway, how many more books can he do? Sea of Swords was a little flat but I've enjoyed the characters for so long, it is difficult to conceive there is an end of the road for the Companions of the Hall. Do you think there be more concerning Artemis and Jarlaxle?

I believe he's got one more trilogy left in him to bring everything to a head. It will be a shame to read the very page where Salvatore kills Drizzt, his breadwinner, for good. Is there any other way to end the series??? I guess he could hang out and watch all of his friends die of old age.

[HighLordDave]

Originally posted by Ned Flanders:
<STRONG>Do you think there be more concerning Artemis and Jarlaxle?</STRONG>

I think he left Entreri and Jarlaxle in a situation where he could come back to them, but I don't think he will, at least in the form of a novel. Jarlaxle has always been a character of moral ambiguity. There's no doubt in my mind that he can be as ruthless and evil as any other drow, but the characteristic drow bloodlust is absent from his character. Jarlaxle enjoys physical pleasure and the intrigue of Menzoberranzan, but he's not megalomaniacal like Matron Baenre or Briza Do'Urden.

Entreri started his literary life as a hired gun, very similar to Boba Fett. Like Fett, he was at the top of his craft and was willing to hire out his services to the highest bidder (who happened to be Pook). As Streams of Silver and The Halfling's Gem progressed, Entreri developed into an evil character and rival to Drizzt; indeed they appeared to be mirror images of each other.

However, after the Legacy of the Drow series, Entreri was "shown the light" after living among the drow and became a simple mercenary again. In my opinion, that was the worst way for his character to go. Instead of being an anti-Drizzt, Entreri is not reformed but neither is he seething with the evil and hatred that made him such a great villain. Plus, he's aging quickly while Drizzt Do'Urden is still young for an elf.

Salvatore has written Entreri and Jarlaxle into a position where they may appear again, but that also could have been their "riding off into the sunset" scene. I think that the only times we will see them again will be in short stories or in bit supporting parts. Having been basically de-villified, the pair may turn into allies of Drizzt in the next crisis when he saves the world, or they may just disappear.

<STRONG>

I believe he's got one more trilogy left in him to bring everything to a head. It will be a shame to read the very page where Salvatore kills Drizzt, his breadwinner, for good. Is there any other way to end the series??? I guess he could hang out and watch all of his friends die of old age.</STRONG>

I think that Salvatore has written himself into a corner and doesn't know how to get out. Drizzt is at the pinacle of his life; he's found a home among friends in Icewind Dale, his romantic aspirations have now been fulfilled with Cattie-brie, and he's at the top of his craft as a fighter and ranger. In short, there's nothing more he can do to become a complete character.

Part of Salvatore's problem is that many of his main characters are of the short-lived races. Wulfgar, Deudermont, Cattie-brie and Entreri are human. Bruenor is a dwarf, but he is growing old and is already well over two hundred. Regis can expect to live to be about 150, but Drizzt will still out-live him by 500 years or so.

Two of Drizzt's major nemeses have been disposed of: Matron Baenre is dead and Errtu is banished to the Abyss, at least for as long as the other Companions of the Hall have left to live. Entreri is gone from the dark elf's life, probably never to return (at least as an antagonist).

So what does Salvatore do with Drizzt? He can write another book 100 years down the road, where Bruenor has just died with his heir taking the throne at Mithral Hall and Drizzt's own half-elf child at his side. But even then the drow will only be 150 or so, right in the prime of life for an elf. It won't be Wulfgar's son, but his great-grandson, joining the party, maybe as a wizard. Hardcore fans will scream bloody murder because their favourite "other" characters are missing and the chemistry isn't the same.

On top of that, from a product standpoint, WOTC doesn't want its authors going too far astray, because then they can't market products and sell you RPG campaign setting stuff. For instance, if someone writes a book that is advanced 100 years ahead of the other Forgotten Realms books, how are you going to explain how half of the main characters (Fzoul, Khelben, Alustriel, Danilo, etc.) just died. Marvel tried that with their 2099 comic book series (remember them?) a few years back and it failed miserably.

There are a lot of ways Salvatore can go, but I feel like there's not much more he can do with the literary character of Drizzt. In his soliloquies between chapters, Drizzt has explained that he is at peace with himself and the world around him. Unless Salvatore invents another epic villain for Drizzt to fight, the drow has bested everything that has crossed his path.

So how do you sate your audience's desire for more Drizzt Do'Urden? Sadly, I don't know that you can. Part of what made people like him so much in the Dark Elf Trilogy was that the drow was constantly an outsider who never fit in, either among the drow, the svirfneblin or the humans. Many people identified with him because of his status as an outcast. As things stand at the end of Sea of Swords, Drizzt is not longer an outsider; the people of Icewind Dale revere him as a protector, Clan Battlehammer values him as an ally, and among all the goodly folk of the north (Silverymoon, Longsaddle, even Waterdeep) he is known and appreciated despite his drow heritage.

I just don't think that there's a lot Salvatore can do with Drizzt. Plus, I think he's probably a little bit tired of writing him. Of course, when he tried to venture out with new characters, the nicest way to describe the result is "mediocre". (Sorry, I just never cared about Cadderly; you'll also notice how he tried to get you to buy his other books by doing a crossover in Spine of the World, a classic Marvel trick).

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: HighLordDave ]