A little off topic maybe, but I'm a big fan of the forgotten realms novels. What I wanted to know is if you too:

a> think Ed greenwood really, really sucks
b> think Elaine CunningHam is great (and not just because of her last name)
c> think Salvatore's goody characters are just TOO goody-goody for comfort
d> hate Drizzt
e> love Jarlaxle and Entreri
f> adore, and i mean ADORE Liriel Baenre

Yes, Drizzt does get on my nerves from time to time too.
Salvatore made a god damn priest out of him. Kinda makes you wonder where the hell did Drizzt get those noble morals from, because none of his enviroment or upbringing supported them in any way. Neither did he have a moral row model to look up to. I mean, ok, Zak was his row model of sorts, but certainly not enough to sprout that happy-happy do no evil character.
I would much more prefer Jarlaxle as the main character of those novels. He has great potential...
Btw. Silksteel, the off-topic forum is called Whatnots. Post stuff like this there. Too many people leave BG messages on BG2 boards as it is.

I'm a fan of Jarlaxle and Entreri as well. They go well together in Salvatore's The Silent Blade. I'm currently reading the second book in that series, The Spine of the World, and it isn't as good as the first. I do however like Morik the Rogue.

Entreri and Jaraxle are definitely cool and Drizzt has lost his "Dark Hero" status. You have to remember though, he IS a follower of Melekki. I would like to see Artemis get his own book, or even series.

I would like to know how Ed Greenwood's "work" was ever published. He just can't write for sh*t. None of his characters or dialouge are the least bit beleivable, his plots are incredibly trite, and a third grader could come up with better fantasy character names than him (Elminister?!? Come on Ed, let us have a hit of whatever you were on when you came up with that one!).

This spoken from someone who didn't make up his name but borrowed it from a computer game. :rolleyes:

Drizzt is one of my favorites but yes he is annoying, just the two scimitars are awesome.
I agree with everything else, except that Ed Greenwood sucks.

[This message has been edited by The Fat Egg (edited August 01, 2000).]

I see, and Lord Balduran is so original? I think that Elminster is one of the best characters ever to grace the pages of a fantasy book. And that 3rd grader comment went a bit to far, don't you think?

Okay, I don't actually own many of the books since most I get from the library so forgive me if I don't remember the names for sure

Best D&D writer is whoever wrote the original avatar series (time of troubles) or whatever it was called. This was by far the best series in my opinion.

Most overated is Salvatore. His books are like candy: they taste really sweet going down but you soon realize there isn't much substance to them. Also, I'll never forgive him for bringing Wulfgar back. Death and sacrifice become meaningless when characters just pop back to life. It cheapened the whole series.

But the worst writer by far is Greenwood. I only read one book of his (spellfire? I think was the name) and it sucked. It reminded me of books I read in third grade. I never read another one.

Once again, a third grader comment. How original.

Okay I'll take back my third grader comment. Greenwood writes like a second grader. At least that seems to be the target audience based on the diction, the short sentences he uses, and the simplistic plots.

How can you all not bow down and heartfully thank Ed Greenwood? Without him, there would be no Forgotten Realms, hence none of the other writers for Forgotten Realms, and NO Baldur's Gate. The Realms were Greenwood's personal D&D world that he DMed with his buddies. And to Jarron, The orignal avatar series was a compilation of 3 authors under one nom de plum, Richard Awlinson. They are Scott Ciencin(Shadowdale &Tantras) Jim Lowder(Tantras) and Tory Denning(Waterdeep). However my vote for best author of this genre goes not to a forgotten realms author, but to David Eddings for the Belgariad series, which if you haven't read, you should.

Okay, if were going to get out of the strictly D&D series then there are lots of authors who by far eclipse any in the forgotten realms series. Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Joel Rosenberg, are just a few of the authors who have written much, much, much, better stories than anything that the forgotten realms bunch have offered up. Even Gary Gygax, the granddaddy of all stuff D&D, wrote a much better series than the current bunch ever dreamed of.

There are many writers for the forgotten Realms that are good and bad. I have read them all. Even if I did think they were bad. Dark Pheonix is right, if it wasn't for Ed, there would be NO forgotten Realms.

I lived in Chicago up until I came here to Iceland, and I use to travel to TSR inc. I knew alot of the gamers up there. But I am biased because I got to play modules before they came out and other games (those were those every saturday night games).

And there are many, many fantasy authors out there that are good. There are also many that arn't.

Funny how opinions differ;
- I read the 'time of troubles trilogy', and found it among the WORST fr books I have read.
- Spellfire was the only Ed Greenwood book that I thought was Ok, not even close to say Tangled Webs, but readable. Probably because nearly every really powerful character in the entire reals puts in an apearance.

The fact that Ed Greenwood thought up the FR doesn't mean he's a decent writer though,
because he simply isn't.
Best TSR trilogy sofar is not an FR trilogy but the original War of the Lance books (by Weis & Hickman i believe?) .

I'll second that about the dragonlance books.

I liked the original dragonlance stuff as well, I also enjoyed the second trilogy 'Legends' about the twins. I read a trilogy by Weis and Hickman several years ago that wasn't very good tho' (I can't even remeber the name. Something about a sword and a rose I think)

I was always a huge fan of Dragonlance (especially the earliest works). The Chronicles trilogy was probably some of the best written work I have seen (overall that is). I also wish they would continue to write about Raistlin.

I thought the Avatar Trilogy for FR was decent. I have yet to finish all the Drizzt books, so I can't really take an opinion on him yet.

Lord Moeken - I believe you're referring to the "Rose of the Prophet" trilogy. Let me see... I've got them right here... "The Will of the Wanderer", "The Paladin of the Night" and "The Prophet of Akhran". As I recall, I enjoyed them at the time, but that was many years ago, so I hardly remember what they were about now...