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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The high quality once so common from Salvatore, October 25, 2009
The Ghost King completes the Transitions Trilogy, which started out quite slow and disjointed from the future scene that opened The Orc King to the more contemporary story of The Pirate King, taking place some eight years after the end of the second book in the series.
While Salvatore unites the disparate characters from his two Realms series once again, he does so more intimately, having Jarlaxle as the main focus of the antagonist's ire at the start of the book. Spanning a wide range of the canon of the Forgotten Realms, we see psionics in use, magic failing due to the spell plague, priestly magic failing as the Gods seem to have disappeared, but magic weapons and items seemingly unaffected. The story deals with the reincarnated Crystal Shard in a new guise, dissociated from the Lichs who created it in the ancient past, but united with the dragon whose breath destroyed it and a mind flayer. The three minds compete for dominance, so the foe serves as its own antagonist for some of the book.
The heroes are familiar, from the characters of the Cleric Quintet and their children, to the remaining Companions of the Hall (Wulfgar was split from them earlier in the series, for good it seems), to Jarlaxle and Athrogate. Artemis Entreri is mentioned but never seen, and it was noted that he was being hunted by the servants of the Shard so we might see another book or story featuring him in the future.
The heroes band together to face the evil, accompanied by extra-dimensional beings entering through a dimensional rift that replenishes the enemy ranks. Two of the Companions are laid low before any battle is fought and they only serve to distract the rest until their plotlines are resolved at the end of the book.
The title of the series, Transitions, reflects not only the changeover of the game system of Dungeons and Dragons, but also the changes that proceed in the lives of the primary characters as their world changes. The defeats and victories they have achieved and suffered in their lives are matched by their greatest challenge to date. The heroes show their mettle and the reader is rewarded for being patient in following the course of the action. This is not a pleasant story, as great changes are wrought both in the Forgotten Realms and in the lives of the characters we have grown to know and love. How they deal with these radical changes will have to wait to be revealed in whatever Salvatore delivers next.
Note that Salvatore has a long author's note to open the book, citing how difficult it was for him to write. It was not until the end of the book that this truly became clear to me. It is a pretty rare thing for a book to move me to tears, but this one accomplished that for the first time in a very long while. I cannot say enough good things about this book, though it did start a bit slow and some things were not explained terribly well and there were some consistency issues (such as Ivan retrieving his axe at one point, then not having it and using rocks, then suddenly having his axe again). However much I might not like such things, they are present and result in my not giving this a five star review.
This is a fantastic book that reads very fast, like the older books in the Drizzt line it is grand in scale and deals with the evolution in the life of this larger than life hero.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Keeps you going...but not his best, December 28, 2009
It's interesting how authors evolve over the ages. After taking a fantasy/sci fi literature course and studying the "greats" like Arthur C. Clarke, perhaps my tastes are a bit higher, but I always enjoyed Salvatore growing up and have read over 20 of his novels. Ghost King was amusing and gripping, but also disappointing - the guts seem to have been taken out of Drizzt, and the "This character is about to die!! Oh - they're saved in the nick of time! That was close." plot device was used so many times that it almost feels like Salvatore is saying "I know how to write better than this; you've seen it, but Drizzt makes me money and I'm under contract to write him, so here you are."
I look forward to more works on Jarlaxle, who's growing as a character as Drizzt is shrinking (played out?). I also look forward to Salvatore possibly stepping back and taking more than 5-6 months to develop a book; maybe then he'll rise above the serial fiction world and re-evolve into one of the "greats." He's certainly got the ability; now all we have to do is wait for him to show it again.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
No, not his best, February 13, 2010
If you are a fan of Salvatore and his 2 groups, the Heroes of the Hall and the heroes from Spirit Soaring you will have mixed feelings about the book. On one side it revisits -yet again- some old villains in a clever way but it starts to look like a Power Rangers season where the villains keep coming back no matter how many times you defeat them. One of the attractive ideas from D&D that I have always liked in his books is the opportunity to always face new enemies, not only new challenges. It started with Icingdeath, then Crenshinibon, then Errtu, drow, orcs, etc., but not so in this book. And the evolution of the characters -for those than evolve - is in a direction which isn't logic and its corny (mainly Jarlaxle and Cadderly in relation to Jarlaxle) for it reflects more the joining of the players behind the characters rather than the way the characters would evolve in a world real to them. If you are a fan you need to buy this book if at all to close the cycle, but it is as disappointing as real life can be.
Spoiler warning
Though I understand the value of writing about confronting a terminal illness, it is certainly not expected in a fantasy book. I also understand that not all stories should have a happy ending, nor I'm asking one on the heroes, but as heroes and fantasy stories go Cattie-Brie's and Regis' ending is not fitting for a fantasy hero and it also fails in showing the heroic quality that anyone facing a terminal illness has to have.
And if you add the annoying need from WoTC to justify a changing world because a group of upstarts came up with new rules for the game ... well Salvatore's treatment is certainly good to introduce the new sources of power but it is not because it was required by the plot, or the storyline, but because the new bosses need to earn their paychecks. Understandable, but it is unfair for the author, the characters and the plot.
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