were less competent than their peers in the main-
stream, and probably equally true that the compe-
tent ones had few opportunities to show what they
were capable of, there were a handful such as Mar-
garet WEISand Ed GREENWOODwhose work stood
out and who used this opportunity to hone their
abilities before expanding their careers into other
markets.
With the possible exception of Margaret Weis,
Robert Anthony Salvatore has been the most suc-
cessful in establishing himself with mainstream
fantasy readers. He continues to write for TSR
and is, in fact, one of their best-selling authors,
but his best work is now reserved for other pub-
lishers. Salvatore debuted with The Crystal Shard
(1988), the first in the Icewind Dale trilogy, fol-
lowed by Streams of Silver (1989) and The
Halfling’s Gem(1990). One of the characters in
that sequence, Drizzt, later became much more
prominent in his fiction. The sequence is a typical
quest adventure involving a magical gem that has
a personality of its own and the usual round of
captures and escapes. It is fairly well written, and
the trilogy has recently been reprinted in a single
volume but is not distinguished enough to suggest
that Salvatore was any more promising than his
contemporaries at TSR. Much more interesting is
a second series from a different publisher, the
Black Warlock sequence, consisting of Echoes of
the Fourth Magic (1990), The Witch’s Daughter
(1991), and, after a long gap, Bastion of Darkness
(2000). A modern submarine is transported into a
distant future when magic has supplanted tech-
nology, where they have a series of typical though
well-told adventures.
His next several books were for TSR. Home-
land(1990), Exile(1990), and Sojourn(1991) make
up the Dark Elf series, whose protagonist grows in-
creasingly alienated from his people and eventually
escapes to a better world. The Cleric series consists
of Canticle(1991), In Sylvan Shadows(1992), Night
Masks(1992), The Fallen Fortress(1993), and The
Chaos Curse(1994). This series was the first to
provide clear evidence that Salvatore was capable
of much better work. The protagonist is a monk
who has dedicated his life to the preservation of a
library and who battles an ancient evil throughout
the series. By now Salvatore was firmly established
as one of the leading writers in the Forgotten
Realms series, and with The Legacy(1992) he
began to develop the culture of the Drow, a variety
of elf, and the personality of Drizzt, his most popu-
lar recurring character, who reappears in various
novels from that point forward. Their underground
world is expanded upon in Starless Night(1993).
Salvatore ventured outside the TSR world
again with the Spearwielder’s trilogy, which in-
cludes The Woods out Back(1993), The Dragon’s
Dagger(1994), and Dragonslayer’s Return(1995).
The three novels, which each stand separately, in-
volve the adventures of a man from our reality
who finds a mystical gateway to an alternate world
where magic works. Although entertaining adven-
tures, they are actually less substantial than some
of his game tie-ins, but it was clear that Salvatore
intended to branch out and write in worlds of his
own creation rather than continue to dabble in the
imaginations of others. He continued to write oc-
casional tie-in novels, but his next substantial
work was the Crimson Shadow trilogy, The Sword
of Bedwyr (1995), Luthien’s Gamble(1996), and
The Dragon King(1996). Luthien is an unlikely
hero who becomes increasingly disturbed by the
cruelties of his new king and eventually becomes
the leader of a rebellion against the throne. The
king turns out to be a demon. The trilogy is typical
mainstream fantasy adventure, but Salvatore’s
ability to tell a rousing adventure story and create
memorable characters was finally beginning to at-
tract attention outside the gaming universe.
The Demon Awakens(1996) and its two se-
quels, The Demon Spirit (1998) and The Demon
Apostle (1999), propelled Salvatore to the front
rank of fantasy writers. An evil demon raises an
army of goblins in an attempt to seize control of
the land of Corona and is repulsed in three sepa-
rate but related campaigns. A second trilogy con-
tinues the story, consisting of Ascendance(2001),
Transcendence (2002), and Immortalis (2003), in
which a woman must find the will and the skill to
defeat a curse that has turned her son into an
agent of evil. Although Salvatore continues to
write for the gaming world, now under the imprint
Wizards of the Coast, his contributions there are
less frequent, though they invariably, as in Sea of
Swords(2001) and The Thousand Orcs(2002), rise304 Salvatore, R. A.