Book of Challenges: Dungeon Rooms, Puzzles, and Traps Book

Just acquiring this novel turned into a bit of an issue. First, I ordered it from a secondhand book website. Actually, I ordered the two Salvatore books that I intended to read this year that weren't available at my library. I received my shipment and put the books into the “to read soon" pile without looking at them too closely. Earlier this month I intended to get going on this book and went in search of it. Blimey! I did indeed get two Drizzt titles, but this was not one of them! Undaunted, I whipped off an interlibrary loan request and felt somewhat triumphant when I was informed that it was waiting for me. Was it worth all this fuss and bother?

This is a more typical Drizzt book, less gritty than the last couple of books and reverting to the tried and true formula of plenty of fight scenes. Drizzt brandishes his scimitars, Twinkle and Icingdeath, regularly. It's not Salvatore's fault that those names make me think of cake decorating implements rather than weapons. The fights are fun to read, but I'm not convinced that all of them are necessary to move the plot along.

This is the book that finally sorts out the Drizzt/Wulfgar/Cattie-brie love triangle. Bruenor, Cattie-brie's adoptive father, gives Drizzt a firm nudge and urges him to get on with things (as does Cattie-brie herself). It also eventually features the reunion of the Companions and gives a template for how to overcome the awkwardness after major misunderstandings. Wulfgar gets a romantic interlude or two with Delly, but if Drizzt even kisses Cattie-Brie, we don't get told of it. We are back to being much more coy about sexual relationships.

I had such high hopes after the last two books! But Salvatore seems to have retreated back to the “violence is okay, but sexual attraction is not" school of thought. More kissing, Mr. Salvatore, more kissing! I don't require detailed sex scenes, especially if you are incredibly uncomfortable writing them, but let's at least have Drizzt & Cattie-Brie sharing a bed roll and/or a passionate kiss. Quit teasing me with possibilities that you don't intend to deliver on!

A small detail was annoying. Salvatore dramatically over uses the verb “to skitter.” Everyone seems to be skittering everywhere. Once seen, it could not be unseen. I had at least one instance of the word being used three times on two pages. Several times it was used in two adjacent paragraphs. Blargh!

Book number 412 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

Cross posted at my blog: