Reception
Salvatore mixes neatly choreographed battles with philosophical musings from self-styled "renegade soul" Drizzt, lending a little depth to an otherwise straightforward hack-and-slash adventure.
Publishers Weekly review of The Orc KingThe Drizzt Do'Urden books are popular with fantasy fans, and the Drizzt character is author R.A. Salvatore's best known creation. All 18 novels featuring Drizzt by Salvatore have made the New York Times Best Seller list, starting with The Crystal Shard. The Orc King, which marked the 20th anniversary of the character, made it to #7 on the list, as well as #9 on the Wall Street Journal list, #6 on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list, and #36 on the USA Today list of top sellers.
The Two Swords peaked at #4 on the New York Times Best Seller list in 2004. It reached the top of the Wall Street Journal's hardcover bestseller list after only two weeks, a record for its publisher Wizards of the Coast. It also debuted at #4 on The New York Times's bestseller list and #2 on Publisher's Weekly bestseller list.
The Lone Drow debuted at #7 on the New York Times Best Seller list in October 2003. Publishers Weekly felt that The Lone Drow was clichéd, but that some of the characters did achieve "some complexity". They singled out two characters for praise: Innovindel, an elf who talks "pensively" of her long life in contrast to the short lived humans, and Obould the orc king.
A special Icewind Dale adventure was featured as the centerpiece at the November 3, 2007, Worldwide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day event, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the creation of Drizzt. According to PopMatters' Andrew Welsh, Drizzt is Salvatore's attempt to create a multifaceted character who faces internal struggles, in hopes of standing out from the drow, and fantasy fiction in general. Welsh feels that Salvatore fails in this regard, saying "any blood Drizzt finds on his hands is quickly justified and most “internal” conflict is superficial at best."
Read more about this topic: Drizzt Do'Urden
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)