Customer Reviews

The Ghost King: Transitions, Book III

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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.

This last book in the latest Drizzt trilogy ends as a disappointment for several reasons. However, it is only fair to start with R.A. Salvatore's strong points in the story. As always, Salvatore has the market cornered in action sequences, and I've yet to find a fantasy author who can come close to matching the images this man can evoke in my mind. In addition, the characterization of Drizzt is spot on in The Ghost King as he visibly suffers as his wife slowly dies before his eyes. The frustration at his powerlessness is masterfully written. Unfortunately, the other characters suffer the opposite problem; they lose dimension and become flat. Jarlaxle looses any of his moral ambiguity and becomes a clone of Drizzt, the children of Cadderly are bland and uninteresting, and Catti-brie and Regis are stripped of their agency and become non-characters. Plot threads are dropped, such as when a rift into the Shadowfell is opened and nothing pertinent to the plot happens with it. Worse yet, the end of the book feels nonsensical and disappointing. I'm still not sure as to how Cadderly assumes the mantle of the ghost king or why he is bound eternally renewing a ward over the Shadowfell when it has already been established that other portals out exist. Finally, the death of Regis and Catti-brie falls flat as they have literally had nothing to say for the entire novel. The intervention of the goddess of nature into Catti-brie's fate is also strange since she doesn't even worship the nature goddess. The capstone on this disappointment comes from the last line of the book, implying that Drizzt and Catti-brie are eternally separated, and will never meet in the afterlife. This ends the book on an especially depressing note. Overall, a lackluster effort by Salvatore.

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.

Spoiler alert!

What a mess of a book! There are so many things that make this book lame I almost don't know where to start. Well, lets start here....

1)The Ghost King: He is the title of the book after all. A dragon, an Illithid, and Crenshinibon all wrapped up into one being, yet each are separate, but two of them want to be together, but one doesn't, so that one takes over Ivan, but decides to go back, then he gets kicked out,then tries to go back to ivan again, then gets kicked out again, then he talks to Kimmurial who gets him hooked up with the astral plane where he might find a hive of illithid to take him in... etc. This is actually a confusing side plot that goes nowhere and has no purpose in the end. Holy Page Filler!

2)Cattie-Brie and Regis spend the entire books in a helpless daze before they die without so much as a fight. But more on this later.

3)Drizzt is annoying, whining the whole book, crying at least 7-10 times, being generally unreasonable and unlikable (such a change from previous RAS books). Get it together man! You are supposed to be the biggest baddest mofo in town.

3a)However if you like drizzt's combat skills they are back and he is as invincible as ever. He performs all of his typical moves that involve phrases like "sidelong roll", "spinning slash", "jumps off two heads", and of course: "but Drizzt was to fast for that". Why cant anyone land a hit on this crying elf!!??

4)Danicia is back. Quite possible my least favorite character RAS has ever made. She survives being thrown off a cliff by... kicking the cliff to slow herself down... Ughh. If even gravity cant kill a Salvatore character, how could the Ghost King?

5)Danicias kids are in this book and are a super annoying side-plot which involves alot of whining and "but uncle pickle.. naaahhh". You will cringe when their pages come up, which appears to be about half of this book. These kids are uninteresting carbon-copies of their parents and are on their very first adventure... yay! Too bad Pickle is left babysitting these fools: OOOOooooohh...

6)Athrogate is back. He has squared off against both Entreri & Drizzt yet survived unscathed; so why should he get hurt in this book either?

7)Jarlaxle is here, and is the highlight of the book. He continues to hint that he is becoming a "good guy" and has a sensitive side. But hey Jarlaxle, dont you start hanging out in Drizzt books again; his crying might be contagious. Stick with Artemis FTW!

8)Near deaths: Ivan is in a hopeless situation and is about to get crushed by the dragon but dives into a hole that happens to be right where its foot crashed down at just the last moment. I get why Drizzt is invincible, but Ivan? Who cares if he dies. Can anyone die? Comon, did this dracolitch go to stormtrooper marksmanship school? If there is a small hole in a dragon cave that leads to a pool below the main chamber, its probably where the dragon "drops his eggs off at the pool" if you know what I mean.

9)The ultimate munchkin Cadderly is back and is still (twenty some years later) casting spells yet not knowing how he is doing it. Enter subplots that go nowhere such as a metatext and the weave and trying to figure out whats up with magic and where are the Gods. Cadderlies repeated answer? "I dont know". Unfinished side plots urgggh!!!

9a)Cadderly somehow becomes the Ghost king (which isn't explained), and he doesn't kill the dracolitch even though he clearly won the battle with (which isn't explained), so instead of killing the dragon and coming back he decides to walk circles around his burnt up library forever as a ghost so if the dragon (that he should have killed) comes back he becomes trapped. Great way for a hero to go out huh? I guess he kind of died but not really. Unexplained & unsatisfying end.

10) Regis and Cattie-brie die after being completely useless this entire book. The ending is ridiculous and makes no sense. They are stuck forever in a bubble and died in their sleep. Didnt even go out with a fight. Dont worry though...

*Spoiler alert for the books that haven't come out yet*

Salvatore wants to move his FR books 100 years into the future for his next set of books. Let me see:

1)Is everyone who is still alive able to live hundreds of years? Bruneor, Drizzt, Jarlaxle, Athrogate, Pwent, Ivan, Pickle. Entreri (the dagger and the shade) CHECK

2)Is everyone who cant live hundreds of years in some kind of suspended bubble/heaven or shadowfell world? Cattiebree, Regis, Cadderly. CHECK

3)Looks like the whole gang will be back in a hundred years for the next set of unstoppable adventures.

2a)Notable exceptions:

Cadderlys kids: They become annoying superpowered munchkins that find their various own ways to beat death.

Wulfgar- probable gets frozen or something. They get jarlaxle to cast a fireball on him 100 years later and thaws him out.

Danicia- she kicks time to slow it down, then punches something when she lands in a "sidelong roll".

The book was okay but I just didn't like the ending at all

Events had to take place in order for the D&D developers to go to 4th edition as such R.A.S didn't seem to have much creative licensing when writing this book.

SPOILER


I never cared for Regis or Catti so I didn't care that they died but the little heaven that R.A Salvatore described was so depressing. Regis sits around carving bone for all eternity waiting for guests that will never arrive. So depressing. Catti just dances around like a junkie on ecstasy. Maybe if R.A.S. left us with the impression that she would see Drizzt again I wouldn't have found it so depressing.

Cadderly is the most devout cleric in the realms and now he gets the honor of spending eternity walking around in circles in order to keep the ghost king from returning. Doesn't sound like a fate deserving of a hero. Again depressing.

I've enjoyed all of the Drizzt Books, except for this one.
It had the potential to be the GREATEST DRIZZT BOOK EVER, but every single story arc is anti-climactic.
As a result, the book flops like a knucklehead trout out of water.

Note: There are some clearly marked SPOILERS at the end of this review.

Story:
This book is like a finale / tribute of RA Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books. It takes parts of almost all of his previous books and weaves them together to create an epic quest for the ages. Three of Drizzt's toughest villains become one. Crenshinibon the Crystal Shard, Hephaestus the Red Dragon who destroyed it, and Yharaskrik the Mind Flayer, all become merged as a Dracolich! So, you basically have a Psionic Mind-Reading Dracolich with Godlike Powers with seven liches and an army of dark creatures and undead at their command! Meanwhile, Cattie-brie and Regis are struck by errant magic and end up in nightmare comas. Drizzt and company must team up with Jarlaxle and head to Spirit Soaring to get help from Cadderly, Danica, and the Bouldershoulders.

Ok, so you've got the Greatest Villains in the Universe vs. The Greatest Heroes (and Jarlaxle) in the Universe minus Wulfgar.
Wulfgar isn't mentioned in the book, so I assume he's busy uniting the barbarian clans, drinking ale, and hunting.
This story is an RA Salvatore Fan's Dream!

Characters:
They're all here except for Wulfgar.
Drizzt, Jarlaxle, Cadderly, Danica, their children, Buenor, the Bouldershoulders, Cattie-brie, Regis, Pwent...
And they're all written in RA Salvatore fashion.

Action:
There's magic, undead, sword battles, dragon fights, undead battles, monsters, etc... Drizzt slashes, Jarlaxle uses magic weapons, Cadderly casts spells, Buenor swings his axe, Pwent does what Pwent normally does, Danica flips and kicks... About half of the book is loaded with Forgotten Realms action!

Writing Style:
The language is descriptive and the chapters are short. This book is a page turner.

Maturity:
Like all books in the series, it's good for teens. There's fantasy violence and a "they made love."

What Went Wrong?
This book has a great setup, but all of the story arcs end in some kind of far fetched anti-climactic way. When it appears that characters have died, they actually survived. When all hope is lost, someone casts an unknown crazy save the day spell doing 10000 damage to all enemies and healing all heroes. When you see things like this over and over, you become disconnected from the action and the drama. You start to think, "The author is cheating. The rules of magic are broken. The laws of physics are broken. The powers of characters are broken..." So, although grand things are happening, you've lost interest.

Overall:
This book has a great set-up and it has the potential to be a great book, but the characters are miraculously saved too many times. As a reader, you start saying, "No way! That's impossible!" At that point, all sense of drama is gone. Read it if you've read all of the other Drizzt Novels and want to see what happens next. I cannot recommend this book to anyone else.



* * * * *
SPOILERS - Here's what I'm talking about:
* * * * *
Danica is in a huge battle and she gets flung off of a 1000 foot cliff. A full chapter later, it is explained that she survived the 1000 foot drop by punching the cliff face as she was falling, defying all laws of physics. She hits some branches below that slow her down a bit and gets injured when she hits the ground. There are many believable ways that Danica could have survived this fall. Punching a cliff is not one of them.

A minor character was touched by the dracolich and her arm was withered. We're talking, a stick of beef jerky with an elbow in the middle. But Thippledorf Pwent and Drizzt can touch it, no problem. Characters repeatedly survive things that should have killed them.

Cadderly can suddenly use Godlike Spells for no reason. When asked, "Gosh, how did you do that?" Nobody knows.

The entire story is about Drizzt defending Cattie-Brie's helpless form as they get help. She is having nightmares through the entire book. In the end, she and Regis are picked up by a goddess and live in a paradise plane. They are supposedly dead, but RA Salvatore resurrects so many other characters in the main part of the story, it is hard to believe that he won't just bring them back to life. Also, having main characters that have appeared in 20 books, basically die in their sleep is terrible. Have them die in battle. Have them die heroically. Have their deaths be meaningful. Have their deaths be a warning for other characters. Have Cattie-Brie die of old age to show the pain and sorry of an elvin life span. But never kill them off in a way that seems totally random and then put them in a confusing plane of existence. It makes their lives seem cheap and meaningless and it makes their deaths seem like a ploy to sell more books.

To me, this book felt like a complete waste of characters, villains, and potential.

Sadly, I think I'm done with Drizzt.

Maybe I'm getting to old to read this genre anymore, but I can't help thinking that it's not just me.

I've read all of novels the that contain the companions of the hall, and most of the recent ones all follow the same recipe. Find a big enemy and write a way for the companions to over come it. The ghost King follows the same sad, melodramatic plot line. There's only so many times a character can almost die, or almost give up hope, before I just stop believing that the author has any conviction at all to develop the characters.

Worse than that is that the lack of character development isn't replaced by any additional knowledge of the world around them or the struggles they face. At least "The Orc King" has some interesting racial issues, but I learned nothing of what the characters struggles were actually about. I read another review, and they mentioned that Wizards of the Coast wanted to "change the source" of power for the world. Unfortunately, none of that is clear. In the end, I couldn't help but feel that the characters spent all their time fighting some big monster just to ignore the larger issue.

Spoiler alert:

The ending of this book is also terrible. Salvatore has a chance to advance the story. To actually make a statement that his characters and his stories will become original again. Instead, he leaves it completely open. Leaving the reader half wondering what just happened, and ultimately assuming, oh yeah, he's just going to bring the "dead" characters back to life again. What a great way to get me to buy his next book.

The one good side of this book, and the primary reason I bought it, is because Jarlaxle is a principle character, and he does evolve nicely. Similarly, Arthrogate, is a fun side companion and far more interesting than the gutbuster Pwent. Without these two characters, I don't think I could have finished the story.

As I said, I've read many of Salvatore's works, and no doubt, I'll continue, if only in blind hope. I'm just very, very glad I waited for the paperback price of this and didn't waste my money on the hardcover edition. If this continues, I'll probably have to start using the library.

This review being late to the show, I think the other 3, 2, and 1 star reviews already listed here say plenty about how this book doesn't quite gel. Salvatore tries to do too much, wastes time on unnecessary subplots, and fails to really explain much of anything in terms of the Spellplague and the upheaveal the world of Forgotten Realms is going through. But despite all that, the core part of the book is okay, the plot more focused and less meandering than some of Salvadore's other works. If it was just that, I might have been more forgiving, and I might still have a desire to read future Salvatore stories.

But then we come to (SPOILERS)...

Catti-brie. And it's bigger than just the fact that she dies.

Salvatore spent many books fleshing out this character as a strong woman, a mighty fighter, and a love interest to Drizzt. At the start of the Transitions Trilogy (using the word Trilogy loosely, as they don't connect in one over-arching story), Catti-brie becomes a mage in order to circumvent her long-term injuries and stay useful to the Companions. She sits out much of the action, but that was understandable and the possiblities for her character's new direction were intriguing, so I was okay with it.

Then we get to the Pirate King, where she gets a small part in the beginning and then goes on a soujourn well and away from Drizzt. Okay, not the end of the world. The Pirate King was about wrapping up things with Luskan and Deudermont (such as they did). Again, I was okay with it.

Now, the Ghost King... and the sum total of Catti-brie's new direction in magic is to become a victim of the Spellplague.

WHAT?

Oh, and it gets worse. She's in a mystical stupor for most of the novel, reliving past memories. She's the excuse Drizzt and company needs to move the plot forward, in order to save her life. She stops being a character and becomes a plot device.

It gets even worse. At the end, she dies and goes off to her after-life in a fashion that is abrupt, trite, and in a manner more appropriate for an artist drawing young maidens riding unicorns than for a writer of seasoned warriors. Her "heaven" is a place where she literally dances around forever in a forest... instead of, I don't know, a heaven that honors her personality. Regis gets shafted in the book as well, but at least his after-life suits him.

I don't care if you like Catti-brie or not. You don't treat a long-running character like this. You don't dishonor a character like this.

I don't recommend this book, but I suspect that if you're a long-time reader of Salvatore's Drizzt novels you will be reading this anyway. Personally, this is the book that finally ended my readership of Salvatore. Make of that as you will.

I was torn between enjoyment and disgust...

I have been a fan of Salvatore since I first read "Crystal Shard". I quickly bought and devoured everything about Drizzt and his companions. Up until this novel I understood the character transitions as they arrived.

***SPOILER ALERT***
In this particular book I felt so cheapened by the ignoble ending to one of fantasy's most powerful female characters. Catti-brie has managed to hold her own in every novel prior, even after a rock fell on her for goodness sakes. To be laid low just because she wasn't paying attention was trite. I get that you need characters to move forward with their lives and if Catti-brie had died in battle I could've accepted it as tragic and moved on. But this?

On top of it, Regis falls into a similar trap trying to save Catti-brie. Granted his plight and subsequent death had more heroism than Catti-brie's but still. And what is the purpose of the glade where they ended up? To never see their loved ones again but Catti-brie doesn't care?

And then Cadderly is banished to a similarly depressing eternity of solitary watchfulness. He is and forever will be haunting the remnants of the Spirit Soaring.

I felt so cheapened by the end that I am seriously debating reading another Salvatore book. It's as though he got sick of his characters and decided to wipe them out wholesale.

As a Salvatore fan you will probably enjoy the book to some extent. His writing is quite good and his action is, as always, impressive and realistic. Still the end to these heroes we have grown to love is neither heroic nor fitting to the people they were. I'm not asking for a happy ending. I'm just asking for characters to be honored for what they were rather than sliding them off the cutting board like refuse.