This, my friend, is the book of a damn good trilogy. The Thousand Orc, by R.A Salvatore, may not sound like much of a title. But its whats on the inside that counts right? And the story on this baby is awesome! Of course to truly understand the whole story and get a feel for the character, you're going top have to start from the top which is going to be the... Crystal Shard Trilogy i think. Then work your way up until you reach this trilogy. I'll be doing reviews on them later.
Back to this one. I'll go briefly into the plot. It starts with how a group of travelling dwarves were climbing up a hill and suddenly bombarded by rocks and spears. Only two of em survived and so they hid together and saw orcs and frost giants in league with each other. Taking this as very bad news, they crawled out of their hiding place, one with a very bad limp, and walked all the way to meet Bruenor the dwarf, king of the Battlehammer Clan and his bad of friends. Wulgar and Cattie-Brie, adopted children of Bruenor. Drizzt Do'Urden, a rebel dark elf and Regis, a plump halfling. Together they make up the heroic band of Icewind Dale. Now, a lttle story on their background.
Wulgar is a barbarian, captured young by Bruenor when he was fighting against Bruenor. lol, he made the mistake of bashing Bruenor on the head with a staff. As a side note, DO NOT bash any dwarfs on the head. Doesn't work. So anyway, Wulfgar got a closer look at the beer mug elbem on Bruenor's shield and found himself in a cave since Bruenor didn't have the heart to kill him. Oh also i forgot to mention that the barbarians were attacking this village and the dwarves helped the villagers so...
Anyway Catti-Brie's story is different. She was adopted when she was a wee' little baby. You see, Bruenor and his dwarven gang was a tad too late to save this village from an orc raid. Of course, the orcs were all slain and all that but the damage was done. Catti-Brie was the only surviving thing there so Bruenor took her in and raised her as his own. Now she speaks with a dwarven slang.
Drizzt Do'Urden, dark elf by nature, Paladin Knight by heart. Which is ironice since his whole race is an evil race, their only purpose killing and chaos. His race is known for their evil ways and their unmatched swordsmanship and powerful mages. In this case, Drizzt Do'Urde is the best swordsman from The Underdark, a place from under the earth where the majority of his race live without light. Oh dark elves can't stand light and have that heat seeing thing ability. Anyway, Drizzt here, or known simply as Drizit, can't stand the evil ways of his race and ran away. He came unto the face of the earth to escape his race. He wandered around marvelling at trees and skunks and fishes. Then one day he met the great Montolio De Brauchee, a blind ranger and worshipper of the goddess Miellikki. He helped Drizzt find his way and thought him every thing he needs to know to live in this world of ours. Of course, his tale is longer than the rest so i'll stop here. If you want to know Drizzt's history, get the Dark Elf Trilogy. It explains everything about him.
Regis is a plump halfling, more used to politics than war. That is why he is so charming. Plus the fact that he has a magical pendant that hypnotizes almost anyone. I wish i had that pendant... Anyway, he is the closest friend and adviser to Bruenor.
Back to the story plot. Ahem. Bruenor already got wind of what was happening although not as large as Frost Giants in league with Orcs so he was doing what every friendly dwarven king does in this sort of situation. Walk around with an army of battle ready dwarves at his back, warning villages and having fun with the Squisher. Or was it the Pulper? Its a mean machine though that's all i can say about it. It squishes stuffs. Anyway, remember the two dwarven friends?Well, they went to this village and stayed there to recuperate. One of them left the other and went the WRONG way in search of Bruenor. Bruenor was already on the way from another direction. Lucky thing something happened and they both met up somewhere... i can't really remember. Anyway, the town was under sieged by then and so the dwarves charge to the rescue. Of course, they were surrounded by then by a thousand orc (title) and Frost Giants lobbing rocks at them. And stuffs happened and Drizzt went out to spy on the enemy. More stuffs happened and when drizzt came back from the spying mission with his skin on, he witnessed what he thought to be the downfall of Bruenor although it wasn't Bruenor who died. Just one of his loyal followers who was wearing his helmet when Bruenor was injured and dying.
And so ends book one of this marvellous trilogy. I give this a full ten out of ten.
2 comments:
Stereotypical. Evil orcs. Good dwarves. What the heck are the orcs doing with the Frost Giants, anyway? There's gotta be something behind that, and that's where the plot should be. As far as you've put here, it only sounds like a story about dwarves and co. mashing and killing orcs. Maybe you'll be able to convince me more of why this book deserves a ten in person. In the meantime, I have my doubts. Oh, and please don't try to convince me by trying to get me to read it. My reading list is as thick enough as it is now. (refer to my blog)
On a side note, yeah, Regis' pendant thing sounds nice. It's the only way you stand a chance at getting married, Shah. I wish you the best of luck.
Cheers.
Ten out of ten for this, and HDM only got, what, a measly 7?! What the hell. You've got some serious issues, dude. I think that from what you said, this book is so... so... cliched. I think that HDM was far superior to almost all other fantasy books.
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