R.A. Salvatore returns to continue his Saga of the First King series set in his world of Corona, as made famous in his DemonWars Saga. This is a review of the third book in this series entitled The Dame and my first journey into this new setting created by the author.
The Dame opens with the warring of two Lairds or Lords over who has the right to be King over a group of small city states. The clergy of the Church of Blessed Abelle are caught in the middle of this war as they desperately try to remain neutral, both for their sake and the citizens caught up in the conflict.
To the north, after beheading the evil Ancient Badden, Bransen Garibond and his five companions bring Badden’s head to the city of Vanguard as proof of his demise to its leader Dame Gwydre. Bransen hopes that his service to the Dame Gwydre is complete and that she lets him go home to the wife he has missed for many months.
But instead of a peaceful return home, Bransen is accused of assassinating King Delval, by his nephew the Prince who claims the sword used belonged to Bransen “The Highwayman”. Although he is falsely accused, Bransen is offered another deadly quest to avoid imprisonment. The Highwayman is outraged by the accusations and is forced into servitude once more. Begrudgingly, Bransen, accompanied by scout Jameston Sequin begins another dangerous and unexpected task. He also must face his accuser and prove his innocence before all he knows is lost including his life.
The Dame’s opening drags for almost a hundred pages over the politics and skirmishes between the two Lairds, and both of their quarrels with the church clergy, until one of the Lairds is finally assassinated by the other. I really think the first hundred pages could have been condensed to half its current length and not suffer any degradation in the story overall. The assassins who perform this task are an interesting group since they hail from the mysterious desert clans that most Lairds and the Clergy consider very barbaric. They have a very Middle Eastern look and feel and remind me of the legendary Hashshashin, an Arabic group from the middle ages who were considered very mysterious and deadly in our own history,. Interestingly, their name is considered to be the root of the word “assassin”. This similarity was a nice touch by the author and quite enjoyable to read about.
Upon reading and examining the book further, I felt that while Salvatore’s characters were interesting, the world itself was a bit bland, and I found the warring Lairds a bit tiresome. The Highwayman has Drizzt written all over him, and at times that was distracting. The whole story had a watered down Forgotten Realms feeling, and I felt I was reliving some of his work done for the Drizzt series. The best example is the previous fight in the northern ice wastes in the The Ancient, and then an epic fight to the south The Dame it was all a bit too Crystal Shard and The Halfling’s Gem for me, and I did enjoy those Forgotten Realms books. I just vaguely felt like that I was reading them again and it made reading this book a task at times.
I always skim over the discounted hardbacks at my local bookstore and I noticed The Ancient in the bargain bin. I was a little taken aback by this since I found Salvatore’s work to be at the top of my list. I never have seen any of his Drizzt books discounted, and felt someone had done him a slight by discounting his latest book at that time. But after reading reviews for The Ancient and reading The Dame I understand why it hit the discount bins. I fear The Dame might be headed there too. I have often noticed that shared world authors have a difficult time transitioning from successful run writing about characters in well developed universe to one they create on their own. I am not sure if this is due to a fan’s desire for the latter work or the author suffering from having too much of the shared world in their head. Salvatore has written many books outside Wizard’s Forgotten Realms series, but they just don’t seem to hold fans’ attention like his shared world books. In my heart I wanted this book to blow me away and show fans and reviewers alike that they had made a mistake in saying Salvatore was stuck in Forgotten Realms. Well now I am not so sure that they were wrong. This book was a disappointment for me and I am upset because I really thought it was going to be a comeback from his previous book, The Ancient.
R.A. Salvatore still remains one of my favorite authors, and this book does not change that fact. I will say, that I am still partial to the work he does for “Forgotten Realms”. I just cannot get into the titles set in his world of Corona. Maybe I have “Drizzt” on the brain like many of his other fans, or maybe this new series is just not that engaging. It does not however take away from the fact that this book is still better than most fantasy novels out there. If he keeps writing them, I will continue to give him a chance to make me fall in love with Corona and its people. After all it does take some time to create a engaging and unforgettable fantasy world.
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Thank you for the above review. Last night I closed the book on the last page of ‘The Dame’ and with much disappointment. I had read some of Salvatore’s work and when I found this book in the bargain in ($4.95) I was definately intriqued. I agree on the first 100 pages, but read on anyway thinking this was a necessary task to set the stage. But, then some scenes became so repitative that I became slightly annoyed. I almost gave up on the last quarter of the book, but so glad I didn’t. The fight scenes’ with the Behr warriors was so realistic as to put you right in the middle. The action was just great. I have to say though, I felt that the writer went out of his way to make the reader despise the would be King and his follower’s. The book ended in epilouge without any clear resolutions to the battle. Maybe there is a sequel. Would like to read it if so.
NP..I love doing reviews..when the time permits…I have a few book reviews on the way..so stay tuned.
~PLMII