The Dragon King
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The thrilling conclusion to the New York Times–bestselling fantasy trilogy from the legendary million-selling author and creator of Drizzt Do’Urden.
Luthien Bedwyr, warrior leader of an elven rebellion and crusader for justice known as the Crimson Shadow, will not rest until he vanquishes the evil Wizard-King Greensparrow forever and wipes out the tyrant’s cyclopean army. No less than the fate of Luthien’s oppressed kingdom of Eriador hangs in the balance.
But Luthien now faces his greatest challenge. His fierce alter ego may wield a magical sword and wear a scarlet cape that renders him invisible, but his formidable adversary has a counterpart of his own: an unstoppable and bloodthirsty colossus of a dragon.
Hailed by Terry Brooks as a “fine adventure filled with memorable characters and compelling action,” this spellbinding series comes to a rousing finish, giving us “a world of depth and humanity, filled with color and sound and feeling and with heroes we can’t help but admire” (Tracy Hickman, New York Times–bestselling author of the Bronze Canticles Trilogy).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Plenty of sound and fury but precious little fire rumbles in the belly of Salvatore's pseudo-Tolkien conclusion to the Crimson Shadow trilogy. Here, Avon's foppish evil wizard-king, Greensparrow, and his dragon alter ego provoke Eriador's wizard-king, Brind'Amour, into breaking the flimsy truce achieved in Luthien's Gamble (Forecasts, Jan. 29). Though badly outnumbered by Avon's "cyclopians," Brind'Amour and his assorted allies assault Avon to free Eriador forever. With the help of Luthien (whose magic alter ego is the Crimson Shadow), Katerin (the Shadow's warrior-maid lover), Siobhan (a revengeful half-elf rape victim), Oliver (a mouthy half-pint "halfting") and a flotilla of nouveau Vikings, the wizard-king slashes through acres of monsters and sloshes through torrents of gore. Despite the rivers of blood, however, Salvatore's vocabulary and imagination prove dry. Supposedly noble characters "smirk," "snicker" and "bat their eyes," and no cliche is left unused: even Saddam Hussein is paraphrased for the coming "grandfather of those battles." Salvatore's tired story depends on gratuitous violence and misused motifs from classic sources (Tolkien's Luthien was a fetching Elf-princess, for example, not a male hero with a fragile ego). These lumbering false steps make Salvatore stumble badly in his attempts to evoke memories of Middle Earth.
