I Remember when I first cracked open the “Crystal Shard”.

After reading the Dragonlance Chronicles, Legends and subsequently being engrossed with all things Dungeons and Dragons during my formative years, I had remembered the cover from a D&D calendar that once hung on my wall.

The hooded dark skinned character on a snowy hilltop really stood out to me as something I should investigate further.
And so, there it was, staring at me, promising me a tale of adventure.

That first book, that taste of a different part of the Realms with characters that were every bit as legendary as those from Krynn renewed my hope in these modern day fantasy pulp novels.
And now 24 of those novels later I wonder where it all went wrong. Sheesh, I just realized that I have put down “24″, and that’s just the ones in the Forgotten realms series by R.A. Salvatore, there are an so, soooo many more.
The Road of the Patriarch is the 3rd in the “SellSword” series. It’s a “spin off” of the normal Drizzt Do’urden books, following the adventures of the not so good guys Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri, a drow elf from the Underdark and the Assassin from Calimport.
Though I think that the world that Salvatore is moving through can be fun, it lacks any real structure. It seems to meander more than anything, not really sure of what story it’s trying to tell. That’s the problem really, He seems to be so busy in churning out books, he’s forgotten that there should be a point in churning them out. The first of the books was lackluster enough but it had improved by the end of the second book (though I am completely bored with the “Crystal” in this world), and now we moved to a different part of the Realms that held a lot of promise but fell flat when the book went on 200 pages too long to no real kind of resolution.
I think his downfall was somewhere along the lines of 5 or 6 books ago. He’s exhausted his stories with Drizzt, and everything he’s done with him as of late, seems more like a character going through the motions, no real peril or danger or depth to him at all. Then he’s moved on to side stories with Wulfgar and Artemis and Jarlaxle, almost transparently as a tool to try and get the mojo back, the spark of working on stories in the Realms. But it’s all fallen flat. Though for the life of me I’m not sure why he doesn’t go back to the fantastic stories of Cadderly at the Spirit Soaring. Those were great and I feel like there is so much more to explore there.
Whatever the case I’ll still be reading the books. It’s like bad TV that you’ve been following for years, you know you should stop but there is this hope for a better season, and hope that he finds that season fast. Maybe it’s the speed by which he writes these. There might be some smarts to just hold back for awhile, let the Realms sit for awhile while he generates some excitement back into his creative brain.

But as far as the Sellsword series…eh, He could do better, and I bet he knows it.