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Homeland - Introduction and Prelude(s)
Aug. 15th, 2021 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinaraOkay, so I'm unfairly irked right now and it is NOT the fault of this book. However, I managed to fuck up when checking my preview and formatting and lost my COMPLETED draft of this review. Kaput!
So here we go again.
--
So this is Homeland, the first book of the Dark Elf Trilogy, and the origin story of the legendary hero, Drizzt Do'Urden. It's also where most fans of Drizzt will tell you to start reading, treating the Icewind Dale Trilogy as something of an old shame.
I don't think that's completely fair, because while the books did have a lot of flaws, they did also ably introduce Drizzt, his boon companions, one of his more infamous adversaries and the general conceits of the series. But I do remember Homeland being a significant improvement in form and style.
So let's talk about a few things first.
Obviously, as I said before, I am not fond of drow as a concept. I think they're racist. And I think they're sexist. But to be fair, I don't entirely know who to blame for what. I believe the drow, and their spider goddess Lloth/Lolth had their origins with Gary Gygax. But I'm not sure how much of the version that we see in the Forgotten Realms comes from him, Ed Greenwood (who definitely seems to have a thing for sexy powerful women), or R. A. Salvatore, who likely fleshed out the city of Menzoberranzan at the very least, but may have had some editorial constraints that he had to follow.
Because of that, I'm going to try (TRY) to focus more on the execution of the concepts, rather than the concepts themselves. We'll see how well I succeed.
I do think that I should give Mr. Salvatore some credit though. This article, which was published this month, is a really interesting look at how Mr. Salvatore and Wizards of the Coast are attempting to address and remedy some of the inherent issues regarding the drow race. I think Mr. Salvatore does a pretty good job of acknowledging the issue and demonstrating that he has learned a lot since 1990.
But that said, we're not critiquing 2021 Salvatore. This is 1990 Salvatore. Warts and all.
( So now let's talk about covers )
So here we go again.
--
So this is Homeland, the first book of the Dark Elf Trilogy, and the origin story of the legendary hero, Drizzt Do'Urden. It's also where most fans of Drizzt will tell you to start reading, treating the Icewind Dale Trilogy as something of an old shame.
I don't think that's completely fair, because while the books did have a lot of flaws, they did also ably introduce Drizzt, his boon companions, one of his more infamous adversaries and the general conceits of the series. But I do remember Homeland being a significant improvement in form and style.
So let's talk about a few things first.
Obviously, as I said before, I am not fond of drow as a concept. I think they're racist. And I think they're sexist. But to be fair, I don't entirely know who to blame for what. I believe the drow, and their spider goddess Lloth/Lolth had their origins with Gary Gygax. But I'm not sure how much of the version that we see in the Forgotten Realms comes from him, Ed Greenwood (who definitely seems to have a thing for sexy powerful women), or R. A. Salvatore, who likely fleshed out the city of Menzoberranzan at the very least, but may have had some editorial constraints that he had to follow.
Because of that, I'm going to try (TRY) to focus more on the execution of the concepts, rather than the concepts themselves. We'll see how well I succeed.
I do think that I should give Mr. Salvatore some credit though. This article, which was published this month, is a really interesting look at how Mr. Salvatore and Wizards of the Coast are attempting to address and remedy some of the inherent issues regarding the drow race. I think Mr. Salvatore does a pretty good job of acknowledging the issue and demonstrating that he has learned a lot since 1990.
But that said, we're not critiquing 2021 Salvatore. This is 1990 Salvatore. Warts and all.
( So now let's talk about covers )