Halfling's Gem by R. A. Salvatore

Given the empire of Forgotten Realms fiction that R.A. Salvatore has put upon this earth (nearly 22 novels), you'd think the first three novels of his would be classics. Forbes did a great interview with the author, and in it Salvatore gives us a plausible reason for this:

“You don’t have to start at the beginning,” he tells me. “Contrast that with George Martin or Robert Jordan and the way they did their series. You couldn’t pick up the sixth book of Wheel of Time and read it, I don’t think, if you hadn’t read the first five. With the Drizzt books you could pick up the 6th book, the 10th book, the 15th book, the 20th book. It’s more like Sherlock Holmes or James Bond.”

Of course, that is the very definition of pulp fiction, and why Martin and Jordan are hailed as serious authors who shook up the world of fantasy fiction.

Halfling's Gem was an atrocious train wreck that I barely feel deserves a review. Not as bad perhaps as Spellfire, but up there.

Halfling's Gem concludes the Icewind Dale Trilogy. The plot continues the drama between the Calishite assassin Artemis Entieri and the dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden, as they fight over possession of a Halfling thief. Also appearing for the first time, the man who put the price on the halfling's head, Pasha Pook.

Artemis Entreri

The plot ... is ok. Where this book repeatedly fails is in the juvenile level of the text. Juvenile isn't quite correct because even teen literature is often more nuanced.

Character: Halfling characters get the worst treatment. At least Douglas Niles and Kate Novak used female dwarves and halflings. The D and D rules made these characters pretty limited but creating an interesting back story could have at least made Bruenor more palatable. So SPOILER: Bruenor is assumed dead at the start of the novel having ridden a flaming dragon into the abyss. And a neat part of the book is the discovery and fight through the abandoned city, but for whatever reason Salvatore spoils the surprise for his characters and has the all knowing and all powerful Drizzt realize long before the reveal that Bruenor may yet live. Salvatore had a chance for his characters to explore the very real emotions of raw grief, and he shied away from it to point out, yet again, how cool Drizzt is.

Wulfgar is also pretty terrible. We discussed in my review of The Blade Itself the Barbarian cliche. Wulfgar is that cliche, no twist, no subtlety, if you wanted to describe the Barbarian cliche in one word, that word is Wulfgar. The emotions that Wulfgar feels are simple: love, anger and grief. About as skin deep as you can imagine. Grief is not the mere absence of that which is held dear, it is the cacophony of successive failures, missed opportunities and piercingly poignant memories replayed continually within a mind unwilling or incapable of stopping itself.

I guess what I'm saying is that Salvatore keeps telling us when he should be showing us. A classic writing criticism.  This was 20 years ago, I'm hopeful that Salvatore's technique has been honed by 20+ books.

Last, we have Drizzt, in the second novel in the trilogy we learned that he felt his meeting with Entrieri to be a fateful one. That there was a strange connection through skill of arms with the assassin. While this morbid curiosity might have added a dimension to Drizzt's personality, it fails as Drizzt is forced to utter trite truism after trite truism.  It's sad because I've begun to suspect that Drizzt is actually a fairly deep character. For example Drizzt is offered a magic mask that makes him white. And he uses it because people fear the drow. But he comes to quite enjoy the anonymity and access the mask allows him. The notion of "passing" is an extremely loaded one for African Americans and its place in this banal fantasy novel is notable. Another moment has Drizzt stealing a kiss from the unconscious Cattie-Brie. A kiss which is never addressed again. 

As a general rule: If you were to strike every single line of dialog from the book, it would be immeasurably improved.

Cliche: all the usual D and D cliches apply, so I won't waste any time but to list them: Dwarves, halflings, elves, Dungeons and Dragon's Race Cliche, barbarian.

Some new ones include The Kidnapping, the Middle East and the Thieves Guild.  The Kidnapping is pretty self explanatory: it's a common fiction cliche, helpless child/girl/Halfling taken by force on a long journey, vengeful heroes hot on the trail, always close, but never quite catching until the final pages. One difference here is that the Heroes give up catching the assassin fairly early on and simply make for the final destination. One famous example of the Kidnapping motif would be from Tolkien's Two Towers when Pippin and Merry get taken by the Orcs.

Agrabah, or Calimport by Disney

The Middle East cliche  is a common one as well, Calimport is clearly a middle eastern city, and it's denizens, though magical (halflings, humans and wererats follow the same dress and speech patterns. This type of Orientalism would be offensive to some, but the point of the cliche is to save time and space. Calling to mind a westerner's idea of a 1300th century Middle Eastern city provides leagues of description without straining the readers imagination.  As I get older, and my anthropologist wife teaches me to be more sensitive to and less tolerant of micro aggressions that form the undercurrent to overt racism, I begin to wonder about such tropes, and I begin to understand why so many authors have attempted to create whole new worlds, absent of these cliches.

The internets are loaded down with Skyrim images.  Best I could come up with.

The Thieves Guild cliche is an incredibly common one in fantasy.  One the one hand it gives voice to a real world occurrence in a fantasy world, that of organized crime, and on the other hand, it speaks to the shadow economy that likewise exists in every city and state, the sale of untaxable, untrackable, and unregulated goods.  One thing that the Thieves Guild cliche does frequently in fantasy, however, is to neuter the more dangerous and pyschopathic elements of such a community.  To Salvatore's credit, his thieves guild is pretty despicable.  Pasha Pook the crime boss of Calimsport runs the guild with the aid of three henchmen, a dark wizard (fairly servile, as evil wizards go) the deadly assassin Entrieri, and a runaway pack of were-rats.  Though the subplot in Halfling's Gem of trouble in Pasha Pook's organization is never really explored or prevailed upon in any major way, it does give voice to the fact that such an organization would be almost impossible to govern.  But If you're looking for fantasy mafia stories to thrill and awe you, leave Halfling's Gem on the penny shelf, and pick up Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard trilogy.

Completeness:  Sadly, I think Halfling's Gem is not the end of this pitiful story.  As the action closes and the heroes sail away righteous and victorious, we know a larger battle is on the horizon as the dwarves of clan Battle Hammer are massing to retake the mines of Bruenor's father.  Still, this story does wrap up the unexplained nature of the halfling's powers and the mystery of how he obtained his magical gem.  It also sheds further light on several new areas of the Realms.

As I become more home in the world of the Realms, I see that there is very little overlap or common knowledge.  Virtually none of the stories I've read or reviewed so far even occur within the same thirty year period.  While, this excites me on some level to know that the breadth of the history of this place is huge, it also feels sloppy and haphazard in the retelling.  I have attempted to follow the date of publication for these books rather than take a timeline version of the books approach.  I chose that route because I want to see the vision of the realms as its actual creation was occurring, not as a second-guessed, revised version.  However, this choice has lead to some frustration on my part.  Right now the only common element is Elminster, and he's kind of crotchety and fallible for an Old Wizard type. 

On the whole, I'd say feel free to skip the Icewind Dale Trilogy.

Shadowdale by Richard Awlinson

So this may be the first book in the Forgotten Realms series that I have really enjoyed, and have found to be a fairly mature story. It also was written in 1989, and while it still follows a fairly staid Dungeons & Dragons, hero's quest, type of format, it's characters have a great deal more depth, then even R. A. Salvatore's entry into the realms
over the same time period, (Streams of Silver). The troubled heroes actually have back story! Best of all, the story ends in a large, well detailed battle scene with gods, demons, and thousands of troops.

One thing I found troubling, if only in a vague way, was that the premise of this series of books is that the Gods have been banished from the planes by the über god Ao. And as such, they are sent to dwell as humans in the Realms. Now, alongside the release of these books, were actual campaign materials detailing the stats of everything that existed in these worlds.  So, when gods are killed in the  course of this story, were these gods listed in the materials? Or were they Awlinson's creation for the purpose of this particular tale.  The Arrival, as it is called, would have to be a pretty big deal in the worlds history, particularly in light of the fact that magic seems to stop working, and clerics spells only work in the physical presence of their god. So, is Shadowdale adding to the canon of the Realms, or is it just a one off? From this link, it turns out that the Realms Creator, Greenwood actually did conceive of Bane.

When I start reading the books written in 1990, I hope to see reference to the Arrival and the events that followed.  I know that the events that occur in Darkwell, and Streams of Silver are quite independent of this apocryphal event. Though, they could well have occurred prior (or long after) the events herein.

The most enjoyable attribute of Shadowdale is story's heroes, Midnight, Kelemvor, Cyric and Adon. The story begins as these unlikely adventurers skip town on a guard duty contract, although why you would want your city guarded by men on forced contracts enforceable by prison sentences is beyond me. Why? To aid a mysterious girl, whose mysterious mistress is trapped in an old ruined castle.

Kelemvor is ostensibly the most developed of the heroes. A fighter with a terrible curse laid upon him. This curse forces him to only engage in human relations on a contractual basis whereby he is promised a reward, and then actually receives it.  If he does not, (spoiler alert) he turns into a hideous beast. This makes him seem hard hearted. Now, if Awlinson had opted for a shallow character, the curse not withstanding, once removed, would allow Kelemvor to be the selfless hero we all want him to be. However, it turns out, that he is, as all real people are, much more complicated then this. He stays to defend Shadowdale against the Zhentarim, but not because he cares one whit for the people of Shadowdale. He stays because he loves Midnight, and is promised her love, as the basis for the contract. Imagine knowing, as a lover, that your partner may love you, but they can only be with you while under the terms of a very strict contract.  I quite like this twist, and it is in stark contrast to Salvatore's Drizzt Do Urden, the dark elf with the heart as big as the Realms itself.  As a note, if you are, as I am, reading these chronicles for the first time, DO NOT google Kelemvor.  I just inadvertently spoiled the next two books for myself!  Don't click on this.

Cyric is another interesting guy. A thief, turned multi-class, fighter. That's a term from the old days. At first in the D&D world, you had to choose, fighter, thief, or magic user. In later editions, more classes emerged, and in the advanced rules, your fourth level thief could choose to become a fighter. He would retain his thieving skills up to that level, but he would then have to level up as a fighter instead. You could also choose to level up both, but it'd take forever, so most people usually simply switched.  As a boy, I thought this was cheating (having your cake and eating it too. Don't like the paltry hit point scores of a thief? Multi-class him and have the best of both worlds). Now, as an old man, I know that we wear many hats in this lifetime, and we frequently put earlier chapters in our lives completely to bed.

I digress. Cyric was born in Zhentil Keep. First in Spellfire, and now in Shadowdale, we are introduced to Zhentil Keep, as a city that worships the evil gods of the Realms. I find this to be a really interesting concept. Say what you like about cities, but for them to exist, a certain amount of cooperation is required. A certain amount of trust. After all, a contract is a promise, and not all goods can be paid for up front. For a promissory note to hold value, you must trust its issuer to fulfill the obligations therein. And trust cannot exist in a city of Evil. Unless, of course, it's not all Evil. Which reminded me of my favorite St. Augustine quote, "And even when men are plotting to disturb the peace, it is merely to fashion a new peace nearer to the “heart'’ desire; it is not because they dislike peace as such.  It is not that they love peace less, but they love their kind of peace more."

So I was eager to learn more about Zhentil Keep, from the character of Cyric. He was a thief and a murderer, but his most ardent desire is to be free of his past. To be free from the shackles of the Thieves Guild that made him what he was. He too could care less about the people of Shadowdale, and in fact despises them for their apparent weakneses of trust, love, faith and optimism. And he too, opts to stay and defend it from the approaching army. He's also an atheist, which is pretty hard to be in a Realm where there are actually gods. Like I said, for a fantasy novel of the late eighties, this is pretty deep stuff.

My favorite character, is Adon. Adon is a cleric of the goddess Sune, the Realms' Aphrodite. He is incredibly vain, in a harmless, humorous way, and finds himself being chased out of town by a woman who somehow managed to resist his charms. Adon loves the ladies, and he is a firm believer in beauty. Which makes his devotion to Sune all the easier to believe. After all, to believe in beauty one must only know desire and possess eyes. This would all make Adon pretty one dimensional, save for the fact that as a cleric in a time where the gods have descended, he has lost his powers, and has made no effort to find the avatar of the goddess living within the Realms. Neither for his belief, nor for the powers it gave him.  Which, is, odd.  And then, in the last sixty pages, something happens to Adon which is definitely not expected. And he becomes a completely different person overnight. Who he is, we do not yet know. His tale will likely be continued in Shadowdale's sequel, Tantras.

The last point I'd like to bring up is about that old sage, Elminster.  I've been hearing about Elminster for nearly two decades.  He's the Realms version of Gandalf, a long lived wizard of power to rival the gods.  Up till now we haven't learned much about him.  In Spellfire, we learned he had a dalliance with a student, who turned into an evil sorceress.  We also learned that he is short tempered, and humorous.  In my mind, I had always equated him with Dragonlance's Fizban, the bumbling old wizard who happens also to be the God Paladine.  But Elminster is definitely human.  This will probably make him a better character over all.  Though I must say, I rather miss old Fizban and his disastrous Fireball spells.

One last note. Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep were all released in the same year. Leading me to believe that they were written as one novel and broken up to sell more books, and to be more readable. It also suggests that Awlinson began these novels around the time that Niles, Greenwood, and Salvatore were composing their own founding works.

This was a good read, and if you're looking for some lite fantasy to get you through à lull, this would be a good choice.