Legacy of the Drow Collector's Edition (Forgotten Realms: Legacy of the… (edition 2003)

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0786929081, Paperback)

Think of it as an opportunity to give all those tattered old paperbacks away to younger adventurers. Just as Wizards of the Coast did with the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogy hardbacks, this 1,000-plus page collector's edition pulls together some of Drizzt Do'Urden's best stories--Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, and Passage to Dawn--into one whopping volume.

Starting way back with 1988's Crystal Shard, the Icewind Dale books kicked off the celebrated Drizzt saga, while the Dark Elf prequel trio that followed detailed the scimitar swinger's shadowy beginnings in the drow city of Menzoberranzan. This third series essentially rolls up a bunch of random encounters from both worlds--all of Drizzt's cherished friends and newfound foes on the surface world, along with his old adversaries from the Underdark--throwing them into combat after combat to see who shakes out.

Legacy begins amicably enough, with Bruenor back on the throne and Cattie-brie and Wulfgar getting ready to tie the knot. But along comes a spider (the demon queen Lloth, in this case), and pretty soon the tunnels below Mithril Hall become a bloodbath. Starless Night takes Drizzt deeper into the Underdark in search of his lost friends, to Blingdenstone and on towards Menzoberranzan. Then Siege of Darkness nearly closes the series with its giant drow-dwarf battle finale, but the sea-faring followup adventure Passage to Dawn reveals the fate of one of Drizzt's fallen comrades, held in the Abyss by the demon Errtu. --Paul Hughes