fieldofhats's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I read this because I’m doing an essay comparing it with The Hobbit for my Young Adult Literature class, or else I would not have bothered after the disappointment of Sojourn. I remember liking this one the best of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, but still not as good as any of The Dark Elf Trilogy. I don’t plan on reading the other two Icewind Dale books, but this one was extremely meh, for many reasons.
Spoilers ahead.
To start on a lighter note, the fight scenes were okay. Not as good as the fight scenes in Exile, but not as lifeless as the few that I read in Sojourn. Largely, they were just kind of uninteresting. The most notable fights were the one with the ghostly pegasus, the brief tussle between Drizzt and Entreri, and the Shimmergloom battle. Other than those, I didn’t care all too much for the fights in this one.
Besides Bruenor, there was very little proper character development. Wulfgar was extremely flat throughout, Drizzt was discriminated against a few times, and Regis had a sense of ongoing guilt. But none of those served to further their overall arcs. I get that this novel was very Bruenor-centered, but some level of further characterization would have been nice.
The themes were all over the place. Each diary entry set up a distinct theme (beauty in mystery, danger in nostalgia, and responsibility in power, respectively), but only one, danger in nostalgia, is consistent throughout the story. The first theme seems like it should be prevalent since it relates to dragons and coincides with a long trek, like the one they’re on, but it just doesn’t. There are a few times where the band stops to admire the scenery, but they never ponder about dragons or even the mysteries of Mithral Hall, at least until the very end. They don’t even interact with Shimmergloom at all except to fight and kill him. The theme presented to us in the third diary entry simply isn’t brought up in the main book at all, even though using Shimmergloom as a device for demonstrating the dangers of power and responsibility could have been amazing.
The second theme, though, was well-developed and ended in a satisfying way. Bruenor is heartbroken at finding Mithral Hall defiled, but avenges his kin in a glorious sacrifice. I know he’s not really dead, which is an entirely different problem, but taken as a stand-alone book and assuming he’s just dead, it’s not a terrible ending for him. Especially since it paves the way for Catti-Brie and the Battlehammer clan in Icewind Dale to take it back more easily later on.
The plot progression was extremely wacky as well. I did not care about Entreri or literally anyone in his gang. I didn’t think any of them were compelling, and their storyline and motivations were not nearly interesting enough to follow them for the amount of time we did. For me, this diminished my enjoyment exponentially. I get that Entreri’s plot sets up the next novel, but I do not care. Why not do all of this in the next novel? That whole plotline stole time away from the moderately more interesting adventure of the main cast. One might argue that this plot served to bring Catti-Brie into the story, which leads nicely into my greatest critique of the story.
The portrayal of women is atrocious. In the very first chapter, Catti-Brie is captured, tied up, and tortured with a knife. She then spends almost the entirety of the novel in Entreri’s control. She eventually escapes, but the damage is already done by then. Every other woman in this story is a conniving rogue or an outright villain. The exception to this was Lady Alustriel, who didn’t let Drizzt into Silverymoon because of “perceptions.”
The problematic portrayal of people of color is still very prominent here, as it is in every Drizzt novel. It’s not new, but it does add to the overall disappointment of the book.
Overall, not a great book. After coming back to this series, I’ve found that The Legend of Drizzt was definitely more charming when I was 16, and that these books aren’t actually that good (with the exception of Exile). But if you love this series, you’ll probably like this book. If you don’t, you probably found that out before arriving at book 5.
Spoilers ahead.
To start on a lighter note, the fight scenes were okay. Not as good as the fight scenes in Exile, but not as lifeless as the few that I read in Sojourn. Largely, they were just kind of uninteresting. The most notable fights were the one with the ghostly pegasus, the brief tussle between Drizzt and Entreri, and the Shimmergloom battle. Other than those, I didn’t care all too much for the fights in this one.
Besides Bruenor, there was very little proper character development. Wulfgar was extremely flat throughout, Drizzt was discriminated against a few times, and Regis had a sense of ongoing guilt. But none of those served to further their overall arcs. I get that this novel was very Bruenor-centered, but some level of further characterization would have been nice.
The themes were all over the place. Each diary entry set up a distinct theme (beauty in mystery, danger in nostalgia, and responsibility in power, respectively), but only one, danger in nostalgia, is consistent throughout the story. The first theme seems like it should be prevalent since it relates to dragons and coincides with a long trek, like the one they’re on, but it just doesn’t. There are a few times where the band stops to admire the scenery, but they never ponder about dragons or even the mysteries of Mithral Hall, at least until the very end. They don’t even interact with Shimmergloom at all except to fight and kill him. The theme presented to us in the third diary entry simply isn’t brought up in the main book at all, even though using Shimmergloom as a device for demonstrating the dangers of power and responsibility could have been amazing.
The second theme, though, was well-developed and ended in a satisfying way. Bruenor is heartbroken at finding Mithral Hall defiled, but avenges his kin in a glorious sacrifice. I know he’s not really dead, which is an entirely different problem, but taken as a stand-alone book and assuming he’s just dead, it’s not a terrible ending for him. Especially since it paves the way for Catti-Brie and the Battlehammer clan in Icewind Dale to take it back more easily later on.
The plot progression was extremely wacky as well. I did not care about Entreri or literally anyone in his gang. I didn’t think any of them were compelling, and their storyline and motivations were not nearly interesting enough to follow them for the amount of time we did. For me, this diminished my enjoyment exponentially. I get that Entreri’s plot sets up the next novel, but I do not care. Why not do all of this in the next novel? That whole plotline stole time away from the moderately more interesting adventure of the main cast. One might argue that this plot served to bring Catti-Brie into the story, which leads nicely into my greatest critique of the story.
The portrayal of women is atrocious. In the very first chapter, Catti-Brie is captured, tied up, and tortured with a knife. She then spends almost the entirety of the novel in Entreri’s control. She eventually escapes, but the damage is already done by then. Every other woman in this story is a conniving rogue or an outright villain. The exception to this was Lady Alustriel, who didn’t let Drizzt into Silverymoon because of “perceptions.”
The problematic portrayal of people of color is still very prominent here, as it is in every Drizzt novel. It’s not new, but it does add to the overall disappointment of the book.
Overall, not a great book. After coming back to this series, I’ve found that The Legend of Drizzt was definitely more charming when I was 16, and that these books aren’t actually that good (with the exception of Exile). But if you love this series, you’ll probably like this book. If you don’t, you probably found that out before arriving at book 5.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Torture, Kidnapping, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Murder, and Racism
hannah_tang's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? No
chappellmw90's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
8bitlapras's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
junovverse's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
fieldofhats's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
leann_ange's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
king_taliesin's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.25
brentkendra's review against another edition
5.0
The ending leaves one on the edge wondering what might happen next with Drizzt and his companions. Amazing book with an unexpected ending.
dllh's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed the first in the series, but I did like it in the end. The big set piece toward the end was pretty solid, and I liked spending more time with Drizzt, Bruenor, and Wulfgar in particular.