The Halfling’s Gem by R.A. Salvatore

The Halfling’s Gem is the finale to the ICEWIND DALE trilogy, and as such is tasked with tying up the dangling plot threads from parts one and two, by this point no easy feat. The dwarven homeland of Mithral Hall (can’t you just hear Tolkien spluttering indignantly from the hereafter?) has been found but it remains in the hands of the grey dwarves, different from regular dwarves in that they are grey. And evil. Apparently the two coincide. Bruenor has gone toppling to his demise locked in combat with the dragon that’s standing in for the Balrog in this particular spin-off, and unlike Gandalf before him, there’s no conceivable way he’s actually alive after that fall and might decide to pop back up again.

Yep. No way. Definitely dead. Tooootally deceased.

Anyway, though they would love to hold a proper funeral for the dwarven king (seeing as he’... Read More

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (on audio)

I could almost copy and paste my review for Fires of Heaven right here and it would be mostly suitable because Lord of Chaos is more of the same. This is another metropolitan-city-phonebook-sized novel with a potentially interesting story that is bogged down by its excruciatingly slow pace, regular insertions of backstory, constant descriptions of the garb of every major and minor character (garb which keeps getting smoothed, straightened, or otherwise adjusted), and too many mentions of expanses of bosoms, spankings, sitting on knees, sniffing, snorting, and braid yanking. (I swear, if I have to read "good stout Two-Rivers woolens" one more time...)

In Lord of Chaos some of the most interesting WOT characters are absent (e.g., Egeanin and Lan), som... Read More