Darkwell by Douglas Niles

This marks the final installment in the Moonshae Trilogy.  And, as I am going to start writing shorter blog posts, let me simply outline a few points about the series, about the Realms, and about this particular novel.

The Moonshae Trilogy are some of the first books published in the universe of the Forgotten Realms, published in 1987 to 1989.  And this was a period of great schlock in the fantasy genre.  And these books fit the bill.  They are pure swords and sorcery.  Dungeons and Dragons at its most obvious level.  In some ways, though the books were intended to help sell the games, and vice versa, the books are fairly limited by the universe of the D&D world.  Anyone who has ever read the Players Handbook has had their eyes glaze over with the sheer number of rules, dice roles, and mathematical calculations required for even the simplest of actions.

So when a level six druid casts the level three spell Plant Growth, what happens can be described anyway the dungeon master wants, but at the same time has to adhere to a very specific set of limitations.  And in many ways these stories of the Forgotten Realms are just that, well DM'd stories by a group of players fulfilling quest objectives.

Or the DM can break the rules entirely, as they sometimes do.  But breaking the rules is dangerous business and it can backfire on the author.  One nice thing about writing in a new, or less proscribed fantasy realm is that the limit is your own imagination, and the rules are yours.  Breaking your own rules creates problems too, but a re-envisioning of said rules, an enlarging of the paradigm, is a simple escape from these sorts of problems.

And in each of the Realms books I've read (and I've only read up to 1989) you can literally see spells being cast out of the Magic User's guide.  When the dark god Bhaal creates his evil champions to battle the heroes, they came straight of the Monster's Compendium.  And they have to, because the main rule of writing in an open series like this is a certain consistency.  Still, I'm not sure how I feel about a Displacer Beast being a big bad.  On the one hand, it recalls my egregiously misspent youth (playing with dice and pencils when I should have been out drinking and having sex) on the other hand, the sense of horror and intrigue created by the unveiling of a "new monster" is almost entirely mitigated.

Up until now, just three years into the history of the Forgotten Realms, the books have no inter connectivity, save for a few common city names.  The tales have begun at the far ends of the Realms and have involved relatively little geography.  Though R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale series has some decent travel.  Ed Greenwood's own first novel, the man behind the Realms,  taking place in his own world was simply atrocious.  Spellfire has to be one of the worst books I've ever read.

This was never the case in DragonLance, which had such a serious and continuous narrative of the War of the Lance to underscore the personal dramas within.  That said, the Realm of DragonLance was much less flexible, and probably why the Forgotten Realms have, I think, ultimately triumphed in the worlds of TSR.  Anyway, my next book in this series is Shadowdale.  A town first discussed in Spellfire.  I am looking forward, finally, to some crossover.

Last point, about Darkwell.  This book was a pleasant surprise.  The characters took some dark turns, and some of the most intrinsic characters actually died.  That said, the book would have been vastly improved if Niles had NOT decided to make it a happy ending.  Meaning boy gets girl, boy gets forgiven, atonement occurs, and they have many happy children together.  If Niles had not pulled his punches at the last minute, his characters could well have lived on to a fourth or fifth book.  The druid heroine, Robyn, having turned Cleric after the death of her god, the Earthmother, would not have forgiven the King's infidelities.  And Tristan would have actually grown for it.  If Tristan had been wracked by actual guilt over the death of his friend, then he would never have forgiven himself, and the sadness this engendered in him would have made him a far better King.

That said, until the last six pages this novel was difficult to put down.  And that makes it the best Realms novel in the series so far.

For a nice history of D&;D, look here.

Homeland, R.A. Salvatore, Forgotten Realms

I was always a DragonLance man, so for many years I figured reading Forgotten Realms books would be treason.  How silly is that?  Of course, they never made a DragonLance videogame worth its salt, though attempts were made on the 386!  Did I date myself or what?!

So my first Forgotten Realms experience was actually through the truly excellent videogame, Baldur's Gate (which is really a precursor to DragonAge Origins.) And I loved it.  Years later, after seeing R.A. Salvatore books on the shelf, and being suitably intrigued.  I finally decided to go for it.  If you want a phenomenal history of the Realms go to Wertzone site

Since I'm taking a break from Memories of Ice to read this, it's interesting to note the stark differences in contemporary fantasy with fantasy from two decades ago.  Salvatore did not invent the Realms.  Far from it--Ed Greenwood did.  I actually a did some research for this post, something I rarely do, but the Realms have a complex history.  And unlike DragonLance whose seminal volumes were all penned by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the Realms were created by a collective of writers drawing on the maps and notes of an accomplished Dungeon Master.  The Realms were designed to be free floating, more loose than DragonLance which took place in the middle of a continent spanning total-war.

Anyway, the point of all this is to show, once again, that good fiction does not have to be genre busting.  In fact, it can draw on cliche's so overdone as to be boring and repugnant, and still make a good yarn.

Let me say from the outset, I thoroughly enjoyed Homeland, and intend to immerse myself in the Realms, 20 years after their creation.  I have one caveat.  The book, though an absorbing and fun read, is no poetic work of genius.  It's a good romp through an interesting world.

1.)  Character.  Drizzt Do'Urden is the name of the main character for this volume.  I grew up with this cat, though I didn't know it.  I saw his picture on shiny hardcover novels all over the Barnes & Nobles of my youth.  Homeland is definitely a plot based story, nonetheless its characters are compelling.  The story begins with a race of dark elves called the Drow, dwelling in lightless caverns called the Underdark.  I've always found evil races to be an interesting study.  How can such a society function?  All societies are based on trust and cooperation--which is a flat impossibilty for the genetically evil.  And of course, this is a central conflict in Homeland.  The Drow worship the spider Goddess Lolth, who believes in corruption and greed, and encourages her priestesses to war with one another.  However, Drizzt, and his father Zak are different, possessing an inate innocence that puts them at conflict with the larger drow society.  They don't like to kill, yet both of them are singularly gifted fighters.  So the natural conflict set up here is between Drizzt and his entire race, his entire culture, and closer to home, his mothers, sisters and brothers.  Which brings us to cliche.



Mindflayer from FR wiki

2)  Cliche.  Elves, Dark Elves, Coming of Age, Dungeons & Dragons, are all cliches used by Salvatore.  Elves figure only as a distant enemy to the Drow, but as the Dark Elf cliche is built off the Elven cliche, much of the same is true about both.  Elves are long-lived, beautiful artisans, dwelling in nature, strong, yet slight, natively good, and are beautiful to look upon, and inherently magical. All this is true for the Drow, save the natively good part.  The city of Menzoberranzan is carved from stalagtites, and the buildings and temples are designed to look like spiders.  A thoroughly disgusting concept, yet one requiring a degree of skill in art and engineering to execute.  The drow live as long as elves, except for the fact that they keep on killing each other.  This means that despite the native difficulty of breeding (elven females ovulate infrequently, like every 50 years or so) a concentrated effort is made to breed, since family strength is a direct and certain route to power.  This culminates in some interesting breeding practices practiced by female drow. The drow is likewise beautiful to look upon, but they have black skin and pure white hair.  Like elves, the drow is capable of casting spells from an early age, and all drow are capable of casting certain spells, regardless of caste.  Which brings up the Dungeons & Dragons cliche.  Every single item or monster in this entire novel has a series of stats to back it up, from the adamantine twin scimitars which are Drizzt's hallmark, to the tentacular mindflayers who dwell in the Underdark.  Anyone who ever played Dungeons & Dragons knows the mindflayer intimately, even those who didn't ever have to fight one, the picture was just so frickin cool you had to look at it.  These cliche's for the most part are informative.  However, for a non D&Der, and we're dying out, some of the cliches are just obscure.  Halfling and Gnomes.  All manner of small people.  Halflings are familiar because of the Lord of the Rings, but most people are familiar with the term hobbits instead.  There are no hobbits in Dungeons & Dragons.  Just halflings.  Gnomes are another one.  We're all familiar with garden gnomes, those cone hatted, blue skirted small creatures, but just how are they different from dwarves?

3)  Scope.  The scope is immense and confined all at once.  The Realms are hard and fast.  Ed Greenwood's world is all mapped out, its creatures are decided, it's politics analyzed.  It's open ended in terms of story telling, but the world, like ours has a physics that is entirely determined by the roll of six, eight, twelve and twenty sided dice.  This makes for a very interesting fantasy setting.  Half of the joy of fantasy is discovery, does the comprehensive mapping elminate this joy?  It turns out, no.  I look at they world map, and I wonder what famous warriors have traveled to Cormyr?  Who is the greatest wizard in Waterdeep?  All this and more, after reading Homeland, I intend to find out.  Now of course, I wonder, how should I read these books?  Drizzt wasn't a character started in Homeland, far from it--he was first mentioned in the Crystal Shard, (again, hat tip to the Wertzone).  I have determined that the best way to do this is to read the books in order of publication, though I may drop off after the first ten books or so.  I always found that the splinter novels in the DragonLance series were of a drastically lower quality, and that the events that occurred in these books had no play in any of the more central literature.  Even so, the more limited scope is Menzoberanzan, the drow city.  And in this Salvatore is the acknowledged champion.

4)  Magic.  Dungeons & Dragons magic.  After having spent a lot of time with more complex brands of magic.  Sanderson's Allomancy, Jordan's The One Power, Erikson's Warrens, the system of magic in the Realms is reassuringly simple.  Most spells require ingredients, and must be memorized to be cast.  They can only be cast once or twice, depending on the sophisitcation and "level" of the wizard, and then they must be re-memorized.  Magic is important, of course, but having owned the 2nd edition Players Handbook, I know most of them already.  There is no magic to devastate an entire city here.

5)  Theme.  As stated above, this novel is no scintillating work of genius.  It's fast moving, absorbing, with interesting characters and a fun, unpredictable plot line.  It's candy, it's beach reading, even more so than most fantasy is considered to be.  That said, the writing isn't poor by any means--it's just there to communicate a story, not to edify.  There is a tone to Salvatore's writing, but its businesslike and not self-reflective.

This book is definitely worth a read, and it has definitely inspired me to read further.  Unfortunately, my wife has decreed an end to all fantasy books, and so I can't buy anymore of them unless they're grand slams.  (It's not the money so much as it is the space on our shelves)  I think I see a Kindle in my future.