GameBanshee Forums

Does anyone have a favorite author, character or series of books from the famed fantasy setting?
My personaly favorite has to Salvatore's Cadderly from the Cleric Quintet, and Ed Greenwood would be my favorite author (there would be no FR without him). Though I've read more of Salvatore's books than everyone else's combined, Drizzt has started to grow old IMO. He's become soft and preachy; Bob can't bring himself to kill off any of the characters (though sometimes I swear he tries and decides against it at the last second... see Bruenor's recent forays) and the little chapter prologues (or Drizzt monologues) were cute at first, but now have become whiny and annoying. Greenwood's characters never grow old and he has fleshed out the FR better than anyone else to date, as his stories take place all over the world. Anyway this is, of course, my opinion; what are your guys' thoughts?

I don't like Salvatore much, because he don't include many mages or clerics ( I'll use the two first Icewind Dale books as an example). Drizzt and his companions seems to survive alot of damage without help from potions (except when they get a few healing potions from one of the seven sisters) or clerics. That is why my favourite Author is Ed Greenwood. His books is full of both mages, clerics, warriors etc. And the plot he uses in his books are much better than Salvatore's IMO.

My favourite character is Elminster. The comments he got on certain things in the books about him and in the Shandril's Saga ( I haven't read the rest of Greenwood's books yet) is hillarious.

Guess what my favourite books are?
The Elminster series and the Shandril's Saga. No big supprise there

My favourite Forgotten Realms novel will always be Elfshadow. Favourite character being Arilyn Moonblade, favourite author: Elaine Cunningham. I enjoy the way she writes, and the characters she's created. Her other novels (Silver Shadows, Evermeet, Elfsong, Thornhold, The Dream Spheres, as well as the Starlight and Shadows trilogy) I've enjoyed nearly as much as Elfshadow. I haven't read the Counselors & Kings trilogy yet (in fact, I haven't read any of the Forgotten Realms novels for quite some time) but I plan on doing so eventually.

One of my personal favourite series in FR is the 'Return of the Archwizards'. It was probably among the first Forgotten Realms books I've read and I just liked all the elements inside and the storyline.

My Fav...

I liked Masquerades by Kate Novak and Jeff Grub. I liked the idea of a Saurial Paladin, a very interesting character. Alias is more than a fighter. The Faceless is more than a villian. The interactions with the characters represent a rich role-play environment and an engaging storyline that is full of political intrigue. It's nice when you see characters out of their element and having to deal with it. I was captivated by the storyline and concept almost immediately.

Whle it centered around certain characters, I felt immersed into the entire setting, not just seeing things through the heroine's eyes.

I agree with your sentiments, I absolutely loved Alias in Grubb's novels; she' enigmatic and very believable as a person. They did a character study on her over at http://www.cadlekeep.com if you want to look. Go in forums, general FR discussion and search for Character Study: Alias.


... If we can only Grubb him to write some more novels .

He was in the books, technically speaking, BUT I like him mainly because of a game I played. I rather enjoyed kicking Eleminster's arse.

I rather liked the Avatar trilogy and the Moonshae trilogy. I was more into the Dragonlance novels.

I gave one of my books written by salvatore. she read the book and she said that he is just jumping around sth writing it too long, I mean he can keep the meaning of the written and write it shorter. All this here is crap : I think this author is better because he includes more clerics and gold wyrms. We don't say that "this" author is better because because he includes that it's the way he writes it.

@Fallout Staker, please don't use profanities. They aren't needed and are against the rules.

Siberys wrote:@Fallout Staker, please don't use profanities. They aren't needed and are against the rules.

Moste certainly sorry It's juss that they aren't right about the authors it's not right to judge the authors on the base of what kind of characters they include in their stories.

Fallout skater wrote:Moste certainly sorry It's juss that they aren't right about the authors it's not right to judge the authors on the base of what kind of characters they include in their stories.

Actually, that's not totally true.
Let's have a small imagination game. You have a book, which good story, but the characters are uninventive, hastly made, even boring. Now, would you read that book?

Good author should be able to create interesting characters, maybe introduce something new or inventive to characters (contrary to those too-much-used Drows dualwielding scimitars, or dwarven fighters...). If the author is not able to create interesting characters, I woulnd't count him/her as a good writer.

Kipi wrote:Actually, that's not totally true.
Let's have a small imagination game. You have a book, which good story, but the characters are uninventive, hastly made, even boring. Now, would you read that book?

Good author should be able to create interesting characters, maybe introduce something new or inventive to characters (contrary to those too-much-used Drows dualwielding scimitars, or dwarven fighters...). If the author is not able to create interesting characters, I woulnd't count him/her as a good writer.

Now look u r right that the cgaracters have to be good that's an obligation but it doesn't matter if they are elvish or arcane tricksters do u agree?

Well, not about you, but at least I get bad feelings when in any book I see characters like exiled drow ranger dualwielding scimitars, or any other too widely used character stereotypes. For me it's bad sign of the authors ability to think by himself/herself if (s)he uses only characters and stereotypes of characters used by almost every other author billions times. The fact that the characters and the types of characters has been used numerous times before by other authors and thus doesn't bring anything new to reader makes them so boring. And boring characters are leading quickly to the doom of the book.

Fallout skater wrote:I gave one of my books written by salvatore. she read the book and she said that he is just jumping around sth writing it too long, I mean he can keep the meaning of the written and write it shorter. All this here is crap : I think this author is better because he includes more clerics and gold wyrms. We don't say that "this" author is better because because he includes that it's the way he writes it.

Sigh....

I never said Ed Greenwood was better than Salvatore. I said I like Ed Greenwood better than Salvatore.

I think my favorite character of all was Caramon from Dragonlance. He had a lot of depth and made you feel genuine sympathy for him. Cyric from the Avatar trilogy was great, too. Cadderly irked me, lol.

Bruenor Battlehammer from the Crystal Shard series is probably one of my favourites.

Jarlaxle Baenre is the most interesting and potentially exciting chars developed for the realms in a long time.