Relentless: A Drizzt Novel (Drizzt Trilogy #3)

 

Relentless is the third book in the Drizzt trilogy by R. A. Salvatore. Released 28th July 2020 by Harper Collins on their Voyager imprint, it's 464 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is immersive campaign fantasy in a classic style.  It provides political action, campaigning, skulduggery, questing, magic and everything for the 'doorstop fantasy' nerd. I have followed the progress of the series and world building since the beginning, and will say right away that I believe that this book would suffer greatly by attempting to read it as a standalone. There's way too much backstory and context necessary to be read by itself (although the author does spend probably 30% of the content recapping things that went before). The series has spanned over 3 real-life decades and I have no idea how many books altogether (35? More?). Although the author includes an extensive dramatis personae at the beginning (along with the requisite maps)  it's not a trivial task to keep everyone straight and remember which house is trying to kill whom. (Spoiler, they're all trying to kill each other). 

I enjoyed the series very much and thought this last volume did a good job of wrapping up some of the disparate plot threads. Most of the action involves Zaknafein and for a Drizzt book there was a marked lack of Drizzt.   It wasn't too perfect or upbeat.  Admittedly it didn't feel complete to me. Astoundingly enough, I've been with these characters for roughly 30 years. (!!!) The entire Forgotten Realms universe has such verisimilitude because it's built up over so much time and the canon has so many layers that it's gained a sort of reality, gravitas even.

The language is about average for a doorstop fantasy. There's a fair amount of violence and some sexual content, along with discussions of infanticide, regicide, murder, etc. I don't imagine it would offend the majority of readers.

Three and a half stars, and four strong stars for the series thus far. It'll be interesting to see what's in store in the future.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.