Siege of Darkness

Not bad for a Drizzt novel as Salvatore raises the stakes considerably, scoping out to look at a massive conflict between Drow and above-ground civilizations. As usual, the Drow villains are more interesting than the Drow hero and his boring "good guy" companions.

Not a bad book, but it really moves the focus from our main cast of characters to the drow city of Menzoberranzan, which is a place I grew tired of much earlier than the author did.

Will a Drizzt book ever not be two stories in one? probably not. do I care? also probably not. The politicking in Menzoberrazan was delightful, and the fight for Mithral Hall in the latter half was a great sequence.

As opposed to my other Drizz't" reads by Salvatore, I actually enjoyed this read. And halfway through I realized why.

Salvatore stopped writing about specific characters and got into "Big battle" mode. I realized Salvatore can't do characterization worth a tinker's pot. His characters are 2D, flat, boring, unemotional, etc, etc, which is why I did not like the previous books. I enjoyed the battle, a lot.

So while this was going to be my last "Drizz't" book, I think I'll give Salvatore another chance at Redemption [not that I'm holding out much hope mind you]."

yeah, it was fine.

like, i liked a lot of the drow infighting & stuff. it was also nice to know what was up with the drow during the time of troubles. but the suuuuuper long battle scene that took up the last big chunk of the book was kind of just like, "... yep. this sure is a thing that is still happening."

i don't mind battle scenes, i just like a lot more character conflict in them. there just wasn't enough juicy character stuff here like there have been in previous battles in this series imo.

it wasn't bad or anything, and i'm happy to keep going with the series, though next up on my forgotten realms dance card is actually elaine cunningham's daughter of the drow, so drizzt will have to wait a minute. i'm sure he'll be fine with it. show more he's a good boy llike that. show less

While I still had a blast with this book, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the rest of the series. I think this was because so much of the book dealt with the invading drow rather than the series' main characters. I still found these machinations interesting, just not as interesting.

7/10
The unbelievable close calls and miraculous escapes are a bit much, but still, an enjoyable, traditional fantasy.