The Two Swords by R.A. Salvatore (3/5 stars)

The Two Swords is the third (and last) book in The Hunter's Blade trilogy from R. A. Salvatore. This book, while slightly better than the last book, was just okay.

In this book the dwarves work to defend Mithril Hall against orc invasion. Drizzt and Innovindel continue their battle to rescue the Pegasus Sunrise and to deplete what orc forces they can.

The Good
- I really enjoyed the character development between Drizzt and Innovindel.
- The frost giant queen was a very enjoyable as a character
- You get a little closure between Drizzt and Cattie-Brie
- Well-written action scenes
- For once good does not necessarily triumph

The Bad
- This book just continues the battle from the second book
- The main characters survive unrealistic situations (I mean *really* unrealistic situations). It is as if Salvatore can't bring himself to loose any of the main characters.
- This book is a lot of strategic battle; there isn't a ton of personal quest type fights (which I like more than epic battle scenes)
- There is still a lot to be resolved at the end of this book

The Ugly
- Secondary characters are treated like fodder (similar to how we treat NPCs when playing DnD)
- Certain characters seem to be killed just because Salvatore doesn't know what to do with them
- The whole book is epic battle and more epic battle filled with mass slaughter or orcs and dwarves alike.

Overall this was an okay book. I personally don't enjoy books with epic strategic battles that much; especially when the epic battle goes across numerous books. I enjoy personal type quests a lot more. While Drizzt and Innovindel do go on a quest to save Sunrise; it is not the main focus of the book. I did like the fact that for once evil is not neatly put down; it looks like the good folk are going to have to really get their act together before they get rid of Obould...or possibly even strike a compromise with Obould. It was also nice to see that Drizzt can't beat everything he goes up against.

In all this was definitely not my favorite work of Salvatore's. It took a long time for me to get through it. I stopped reading it a number of times but was determined to finish it. Hopefully the next book will be better.

The Lone Drow by R. A. Salvatore (3/5 stars)

The Lone Drow is the second book in The Hunter's Blade trilogy by R. A. Salvatore. This book details the struggle of the Mithril drawven army to hold off increasing numbers of orcs and trolls and tells of the struggle of Drizzt to deal with what he thinks was the demise of all of his friends. Drizzt drops back into the "hunter" mode that he found so useful in Menzoberanzzan; and dispatches many of the orcs in his style. Drizzt continues to struggle with his killing of Le'Lorinel, while the two surface elves work to try and bring Drizzt to reason before he gets himself killed.

This book delivers all of what you expect from a R. A. Salvatore book. There are a lot of well-written action sequences and lots of battle. There are some heart-rending sacrifices in the heat of battle...oh and did I mention some battle?

There were a few things that really annoyed me about this book. The first was Drizzt himself. His story in this book was annoying. He is struggling with the fact that he believes his friends have all been killed, okay I get that. The thing that puzzled me is that he also mentions that he believes that some of his friends are still alive but he is too afraid to go and find out who made it and who didn't. So...he is upset because everyone is dead and he is upset that somebody might be alive? I understand that Drizzt is supposed to be a deeply emotional character but this logical loop is a bit much considering that he is also supposed to be intelligent.

Second thing I didn't like...the title of the book. This book suggests that the majority of the time is spend with Drizzt. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately given Drizzt's addled state of mind, the majority of the time is spent dealing with the dwarves and the orcs and their battle. I have a sneaking suspicion that this title was meant to draw people in to read about their favorite character Drizzt, when in fact Drizzt didn't get the majority of page space.

Third thing that bothered me was how fractionated the story was. I know Salvatore usually bounces between a few different storylines and that is fine. This book was his usual stuff to the nth degree. Sometimes you had less than 1/2 a page to read until he switched perspective on you.

All in all this book was okay. It was a necessary evil to get through the storyline to the next book. I found this book very hard to get through; it took me forever to slog through each page. The story started to pick up again in the end and recaptured my interest in the last couple chapters. I was going to take a break from this series before reading the last book, but the last few chapters convinced me to go on and read the last book of the trilogy right away.

The Thousand Orcs by R.A. Salvatore (4/5 stars)

The Thousand Orcs is the first book in The Hunter's Blades trilogy. The Hunter's Blades Trilogy follows Drizzt and his companions starting where the Paths of Darkness series left off. Although I have the collector's edition with the whole trilogy of the books in it, I decided to review the books separately.

Bruenor and company are on a trek to Mithril Hall where Bruenor is to be crowned king. Wanting one last adventure before he is stuck on the throne in Mithril Hall, Bruenor decides to go after some orcs that have been causing trouble throughout the countryside. Bruenor and company quickly find out that the orc trouble is far more extensive than they originally thought.

This book was basically what you would expect from R. A. Salvatore. So with that in mind, if you like Drizzt and his friends and in general like R. A. Salvatore then you should read this book. On a side note though there are some good and bad things about this book.

Good
- Excellent action scenes, just like you would expect from Salvatore.
- Good character development between Cattie-Brie and Drizzt.
- It was interesting to learn more about the frost giants.
- All-in-all a good old classic dungeons and dragons type tale.
- Drizzt's introspective interludes are interesting as always (if a bit predictable)

Bad
- The books ends without any wrapping up. Many of the characters are in the middle of literally running for their lives.
- A number of well-liked secondary characters are killed without even a backward glance.
- I got a bit sick of Drizzt *still* whining about how awful he felt for killing Le'Lorinel (I think that's how it's spelled) in the last book.

All in all I got what I expected and wanted out of this book. I think if I hadn't had the whole trilogy I would've been a bit peeved at how this book ended.

Here is a link to the trilogy on amazon: