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The Ghost King: Transitions, Book III |  | Go Tell a Friend | |
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| Author: R.A. Salvatore
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy Used: $11.32
as of 7/30/2010 00:16 CDT details
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New (45) Used (28) Collectible (4) from $11.32
Seller: gr8lakesbooks1
Rating:  75 reviews
Sales Rank: 31196
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0786952334
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780786952335
ASIN: 0786952334
Publication Date: October 6, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Don't miss the gripping conclusion to Salvatore's New York Times best-selling Transitions trilogy!
When the Spellplague ravages Faerûn, Drizzt and his companions are caught in the chaos. Seeking out the help of the priest Cadderly–the hero of the recently reissued series The Cleric Quintet–Drizzt finds himself facing his most powerful and elusive foe, the twisted Crenshinibon, the demonic crystal shard he believed had been destroyed years ago.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 75
Didn't expect that............ July 12, 2010
Vicki Wurster (Hatfield, PA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Drizzt has come out of so many unbelievably complicated situations in the past, that it's hard to imagine that three key characters die in this book. Drizzt went and got Wulfgar back from Errtu and yet he could not go and get Cattie-Brie back?? And supposedly Meilleiki is also Drizzt's diety of choice - how does he not see this coming?? Or his Goddess help him?
Whereas I can see this opening up lots of new stories - Drizzt and Jarlaxle would make a formidable pair - Mr. Salvatore is going to have to do some whiz-bang storytelling to replace what this book took away from us. And it would seem Jarlaxle is softening - I bet Kimmuriel will have something to say about that!! And good riddance to Artemis Artreri - if he's mentioned in passing, that's all he needs - his point is made (again & again) and now it's done.
Poor Cadderly - a sad end, but I bet we haven't heard the last of him. He was ascending to Godhood and I bet Denier isn't done with him yet. Denier re-writing the Weave should have been expanded - it was never satisfactorily tied up as to what that was all about. I see a whole Cadderly book evolving out of his demise. I hope so - I really liked Cadderly.
 What happened?!?!*spoilers* June 1, 2010
Cosmic Creepers
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
First off I would like to say that I LOVE R.A Salvatore's work. I have liked every character (the villains and the heroes) because there is so much depth to them and they aren't cookie cutter characters. I was royally pissed off at this book. I understand that some of the heroes have to die eventually, that did not piss me off. what pissed me off was that they did not die because they were not perfect or their luck ran out. They died from a spell and just walked into the sunset! At least let them have died in a fight when they, for once, were not the better. that would be respectable and prefereable since they have all become Mary Sues and Jimmy Stues. Honestly I would have preferred if Wulfgar had stayed dead after the fight which caused the ceiling to cave in (a previous series) because he is off galavanting doing god knows what without any resemblance to the Wulfgar we loved. All the depth and care the heroes had died when they became Gods of fighting. Not to mention poor Cadderly, hasn't he done enough yet and gained some rest? Someone must have threatened Salvatore because I do not believe he would do this to Cattie-Bre or Regis or to his series. Next time just shoot them with an arrow or something!
 Not his best work May 11, 2010
Jeff Pruett (Denver, CO)
I gave it three stars because Salvatore's "worst" is still pretty decent by most people's standards.
That being said, I found the story to be unnecessarily convoluted and the reactions of a lot of the characters "out of character". I have stopped caring about Dizzt's preachy intros to every chapter. Now I just skip them. I recommend you do as well...he isnt saying anything you havnt already heard in another form in a previous diary entry.
Yeah, he's deep and he's moral. We get it. I'd like to see it in the main story though, via his actions and thoughts, and not spelled out for us in his diary every chapter.
I never really liked the whole Crystal Shard arc anyway. Merging it with a Dragon and a Mind Flayer didn't help make it more interesting for me. I did like the Mind Flayer character though.
If you are a fan of the series, you are pretty much obligated to buy this and read it. And really, it isn't awful. Its just not his best work.
A lackluster ending to an explosive series in the Forgotten Realms April 21, 2010
David Roy (Vancouver, BC)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Ghost King, by R.A. Salvatore, wraps up the "Transitions" series of Forgotten Realms novels that Salvatore has been writing. And what a transition it is! The entire series has spanned thirteen years (five years between books 1 & 2 and eight years between book 2 and this one), and major changes have taken place in the Forgotten Realms universe. Since I think many Realms books take place in different times and places, it's not necessarily true that these events will have great ramifications for the future of the book line, but they very possibly could. In the meantime, my comment on The Ghost King is that it's sadly a lackluster ending to the series. Considering the major character transitions Salvatore gives us, that's too bad.
Reflecting back to the first Drizzt Do'Urden trilogy and Salvatore's first book (The Crystal Shard), the remnants of that shard are getting put back together. The dragon that used his fiery breath to destroy the shard ends up getting killed and becoming one of the most feared monsters in all the Realms: a Dracolich. The liches who became part of the shard, along with the mind-flayer Yharaskrik wish to take over the world, but the dragon is hell-bent on revenge, using masses of undead creatures that it can control. Meanwhile, Drizzt's wife Cattie-Brie, learning the ways of magic, is struck down when the Weave of the Realms' magic begins malfunctioning all over the world. The dark elf Jarlaxle, who the dragon also wants revenge on, knows that there is only one place to go for possible safety, but he needs Drizzt to get him in there. The massive library of the druid Cadderly, a third subject of the dragon's revenge fantasies. Will they be able to figure out what is going on and defeat the dragon before they are all killed?
Salvatore's dedication at the beginning of the book, I see that the writing of this book was very important to him as he had to go to some of the dark places in his life again. Thus it does pain me to say that this is probably the least of the three books in the Transitions series. I know there are a lot of themes of sacrifice, tenacity against incredible odds, and moving forward with your life in the face of horrible and emotional pain and suffering in The Ghost King. Unfortunately, while these themes are prevalent, they're wrapped up like the meat in a sandwich where the bread is nothing but fighting between the heroes in the novel and the massive army of undead creatures that are moving to destroy either the town of Carradoon or Cadderly's library. I like action in a novel as much as anybody, but there has to be more to it. There is more to The Ghost King than just fighting, but the interludes are so short that it doesn't always seem like it.
I did enjoy these interludes, though. Cattie-Brie reliving some of her most vivid memories of Drizzt and he watching her do so, knowing that he can't interfere and not knowing whether she's in any true pain or not. Cadderly's children coming of age, leading the refugees from Carradoon through the mountains as the undead hordes continue to follow them. Jarlaxle's dwarf companion Athrogate and his rhymes (and even better, when they join up with Drizzt and Bruenor and the dwarf Pwent and Pwent begins copying him). There are some very good bits scattered throughout the narrative. Unfortunately, it's masked by the constant fighting.
With that being said, Salvatore once again shows that he's the master of this kind of thing (I think it's a neck-and-neck contest between Salvatore and Michael A. Stackpole), as the fighting scenes are beautifully choreographed so they're not only interesting, but easy to follow as well. If that hadn't been the case, I don't think I would have made it through the book, to be honest. Between the undead and the Crawlers from the spirit realm, there are a lot of creatures for our heroes to kill, and they do a pretty good job of it.
Another aspect I liked is that, despite all the fighting, Salvatore still manages to make his characters interesting, whether it's through dialogue within the action or in the quiet parts in between. Drizzt has always been a good character, but Bruenor, Jarlaxle, Cadderly, and pretty much everybody else is well-done too. The only ones I didn't care for as much were the villains. The fight for supremacy within the mind of the dracolich, with the mind-flayer, the dragon, and the shard's consciousness just wasn't that interesting. These sections did their part by explaining what the villains wanted, but that's about it.
The entire "Transitions" series seems to have been written for Salvatore's long-time fans, to both move the series forward as well as to revel in the past a little bit. Situations and characters are revisited, major changes in the characters we know and love take place. There is so much history in these books, and this series refers to most of it. In fact, Cadderly is from Salvatore's other series, "The Cleric Quintent", though it's his appearance in some Drizzt novels regarding the crystal shard that makes him important in this book. Salvatore does a good job of making sure you don't need to know the history and most of the references are explained well enough that you won't be confused, but I did feel like I was missing something half the time. On the other hand, it has made me want to go read the other books, so maybe that's a plus for him.
All in all, The Ghost King is not a bad book. It's just not as interesting as it could be. If you don't like action in your books, stay well away from this one. There are some good themes and characterization hidden in here, but you'll have to get through a lot of fighting to dig them up. It will be interesting to see whether this is Salvatore's last hurrah in the Forgotten Realms or if he's going to come back and do anything with them. He has dead characters, characters whose lives have been shattered, but he has left everybody in a place where they can live out their lives (or afterlives) in our imaginations and memories, never to have another story told about them. It would be kind of fitting if this is his last book, actually.
Originally published on Curled Up With a Good Book © David Roy, 2009
meh April 9, 2010
F. J. Miller
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Yuck. The early series are so much better. This was a confusing mess. I mean seriously, the crystal, the mind flayer, AND the dead dragon all come back in spirit to merge into one entity bent on destruction? Geez.... Instead of an interesting mental tug of war between the sentient sword and those who wield it we get a bad episode of threes company.
And how many different planes of existence are there now? Three, four, maybe more if we start factoring in some sort of time warps and parallel universes?
How about we get back to basics and develop wonderfully intricate caracters on comprehensible quests. Villains who can die. Clearly distinguishable good guys and bad guys. Like the old days......
Showing reviews 1-5 of 75
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