Fantasy Novels

This book was a dust collector for quite a while before I got around to reading it. The reason is obvious – it has one of the ugliest book covers I’ve ever seen with that 80s pop-star Drow princess. Thankfully the novel was a hard-cover so it was easy to rip off the cover without damaging the book, and I’m glad I did.

A later edition of the Starlight and Shadows trilogy has cover art by the exceptional Todd Lockwood (on the right). I admit I’m extremely superficial right here, but I think the cover art is important – not only for me to buy the book but for picking up and relating to afterwards.

I actually had no idea who Elaine Cunningham was at the time, and I bought the book only because of the Forgotten Realms logo. Although I’m a long-time fantasy bookworm, I didn’t discover the Forgotten Realms fantasy novels until I played the PC role-playing game Baldur’s Gate (great game by the way). The game world seemed extremely intricate and absorbing, and it made me dive straight into the Drizzt series by R.A Salvatore, which are all among the top fantasy novels of all time in my opinion.

The Starlight and Shadows trilogy starts with Daughter of the Drow, where we get acquainted with Liriel Baenre, daughter of Menzoberranzan’s (the underground dark elf capital) arch mage Gromph Baenre. If you’re not familiar with the Forgotten Realms setting, the Drow/dark elves are not a very pleasant race by and large – although there are apparently a few exceptions like Drizzt and now Liriel. Although Liriel isn’t as undecidedly good-hearted as Drizzt, at least not from the beginning.

Liriel accidentally stumbles upon the powerful Windwalker amulet, which is the central piece of this entire trilogy, as it has the power to take the otherwise earthbound Drow magic to the surface world. Liriel meets Fyodor, the berserker warrior from the far-off land of Rashemen, and ultimately they find themselves in conflict with both the Underdark underworld and the surface.

It is an epic tale that encompasses a fair portion of the Forgotten Realms, including many of its inhabitants. Even some creatures who are normally strangers to the Realms are caught up in the clash. Compared to Salvatore, who most Forgotten Realms readers are familiar with, Cunningham draws upon some slightly more fantastic beings – even by fantasy measures – but still manages to keep the storyline relatively straight, although personally I’m a bit put off by the  whole “elementals” stuff.

Nevertheless, it’s evident that the first two books Daughter of the Drow and Tangled Webs were written earlier than the third, Wind Walker, but the third still manages to tie up the loose ends nicely. Without spoiling too much of the fun, I should mention that the first novel takes place mostly in the Underdark, the second mostly at sea and the third one on dry land. While they are all written in the same tone of voice and with the same type of (excellent) storytelling, the third novel is sort of the odd one out. It takes place mostly in Fyodor’s homeland Rashemen – the land of witches and free-roaming spirits.

On the whole though, I would definitely recommend this trilogy to fans of Drizzt, just don’t expect them to be all that similar. For better or worse, Liriel is not Drizzt, and the storytelling is not at all similar to Salvatore’s, even though they deal with many of the same topics.