Boundless: A Drizzt Novel (Generations Book 2)

I have had mixed feelings about the last several Drizzt novels. Drizzt was my introduction to the Realms, and I still love the character. But I feel like Bob just kind of…plays in the Faerun sandbox, so to speak, without really paying attention to the lore of the setting (though he did contribute greatly to the development of Menzo). Since the Drizzt novels are currently all we are getting, I personally think Bob has a responsibility to the setting and lore. With as much as he deals with drow, he has had ample opportunity to bring up Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, but he ignores them, even though he mentions there are other goodly drow. The gods and the afterlife of the Realms are a well established fact, yet he often treats them as if it is just “faith”. That’s fine in the real world, but in the fantasy setting, the deities are very real and active. Maybe it’s just me, as the gods of the Realms are among my favored aspects of the setting, so I feel strongly about them. I’m surprised Corellon Larethian was even mentioned.

I liked the touch of Buddhism in the teachings of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, but a connection to everything doesn’t mean an absence (even absolute nothingness is implied in Buddhism to be a *something*, at least what I have read). But it seems like Bob treats the characters who have faith as lesser, ignorant. That’s fine if you believe that in real life—I am not a religious person, either—but again, the gods are an established fact in the Realms. Please, Bob, if you read this, acknowledge their existence a little more? And show some followers of Eilistraee and/or Vhaeraun. With Bregon D'earthe and characters like Yvonnel, there is great opportunity to do so. And with Zak's hatred of Lolth, showing him the teachings of Eilistraee would be a huge boon to him.

I am glad we got confirmation it was not Lolth who returned Zak (I knew this since Hero, since Lolth herself confirmed she didn’t have him). But I still want to know the “good place” his soul was in. I hope we get that answer in the next book. Though the implication that Lolth wanted Zak back doesn’t make sense, because if she didn’t have him in the first place, how could she want him “back”? Semantics?

But oh, man, the ending! Talk about a cliffhanger! I am sure Drizzt has some trick up his sleeve (having to do with being one with the world. Besides, there is one more book to go. Unless Bob is truly sadistic, I doubt he would give us that kind of end). I fear for Entreri. I hope he gets out of that situation soon! Despite my feelings about Bob’s treatment of the Realms, I do await the next one, because…that ending…

Nothing worse than being chased by a big, bad spider. I would probably die of fright.

On a side note, I also wonder if Joen’s Heirloom is a reference to Joen from Stone of Tymora.

I have loved this series for more than 20 years and for the first time I am truly disappointed in it.

This entry is schizophrenic, jumping from past to present, bouncing from one point of view to the next with very little time spent in one place.

The jumps to the past in particular feel really bad. Perhaps they are building to something in the future but for now it just feels like filler because Salvatore doesn't know what to do with the massive powerful cast of characters he has in the current timeline so he instead focuses on Jarlaxle and Zaknafein.

Unfortunately that filler comprises half the pages.

As with everything Salvatore the fights are fantastically written, and the only reason this isn't a 1 star, but unlike previous entries they all feel nearly pointless. The enemies here are either unbeatable, unchallenging, or some outside force intervenes to make the whole encounter pointless.

I will read the next entry, especially with the way this one ends, but I truly hope Salvatore finds a way to recapture the magic he instilled in the series for so many years. If not it may finally be time to let Drizzt and the Companions rest.

The main plot didn’t move along very much and most of the pairings of characters and their relationships seemed contrived and unnatural without much depth or thought to developing them to have unique reactions to each other. The demons are also an incredibly shallow antagonist and don’t really seem scary or threatening at all throughout the story. This and Timeless are probably the worst books in the series since Dellie Curtie was around and I thought about giving it a 2/5 rating but the sword fights are good and the ending of the book set up the potential for the Next book to hopefully right some of the wrongs of the last two books. After two misses in a row you have to wonder if Salvatore still has IT. Here’s hoping.

So for a series that's going on for three decades, you'd think the story would go a little stale, but that's not the case with this latest book. I adore this book, it went by too fast, it started off with a bang and ended on one too. I can't wait for the next book!

I love RA Salvatore books. I've bought every single book about the forgotten realms and Drizzt. He peaked at the book that reincarnated the companions of the hall, especially writing about Regis and Toppolina and the lich wreck.

Ok on to the bad news.

This book sucks. The book has no plot. Has no character development. Flips between hundreds of years is confusing as heck, and the worst sin possible? DRIZZT THROWS AWAY ALL OF HIS ARMOR AND WEAPONS TO FIGHT A DEVIL NAKED?!!!! WTH IS RA SALVATORE THINKING? SURE, EMASCULATE DRIZZT, MAKE HIM DEFENSELESS THEN KILL HIM OFF, SURE OK WHATEVER. RA SALVATORE IS INTIMIDATED BY A Minority MAN BEING POWERFUL AND BEING ABLE TO KILL MONSTERS AND HAVE CHILDREN SO DRIZZT HAS NEVER EVER ACTUALLY KILLED ANYONE WITH DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS ITS ALWAYS "IMPLIED" THE MONSTER DIED. NOW HE RUNS AWAY FROM A DRIDER DEVIL DEMON CONSTRUCT NAKED??????SURE RA SALVATORE KEEP EMASCULATING DRIZZT.

Really just kill Drizzt off or stop writing about him. We're tired of your drizzle and stupid plots.

You really were at your peak when you wrote actual adventure modules like Artemis and Jaraxle killing dragons and going into the blood lands etc. I wish that RA Salvatore was back. Not this bored with Drizzt emasculated crap your writing now, bored with him, drained of ideas and stupid stupid plots. You've lost your most ardent supporters.

I'm done. Don't buy this book for any reason. Trust me. Drizzt running around naked. Give me a break.

I have been reading this author from his beginning. I was a teen then, now I'm 45. His stories are just as compelling and dear to me now as ever before.

Thank you Mr. Salvatore... Sincerely I thank you.

Like a lot of people I've read all of Salvatore's Drizzt novels and enjoyed most. However this is one of the few I've felt compelled to review.

The overall introduction of Zaknafein to the series has been interesting. Salvatore has given the companions such tremendous powers that he has little choice but pulling other characters from their past that are able to run with them. And the Jarlaxle/Zaknafein bromance is both entertaining and enlightening helping move their characters forward to whatever inevitable conclusion Salvatore has come up with. I have personally enjoyed his back story, arguably the focus of Timeless, but continued here more than I enjoyed the main plot.

So that's where this gets a star or two knocked off. The main story once again has a demon army rising up to crush the Dwarves and their allies. In addition to the demons, who have infinite resources/lesser demons to call on there are now two major demon constructs that are completely unstoppable coming after some characters. On top of that another major drow house has taken it upon them to march against the Dwarves, humans, and halflings even after multiple houses and countless nobels (and slaves) have gotten crushed repeatedly over the past couple hundred years.

Ok. Sure. Let's go with that.

Where is the balance against these demon hordes? The dwarven gods have basically given the Battlehammers a throne that gives them wisdom. That's swell. But Tyr and other goodly gods seem to not really be interested in the entire Abyss emptying out repeatedly on Faerun. A nobel family from Waterdeep is involved but apparently them raising a fleet of pirates along with demons and sending them against a city isn't enough to pique anyone's interest. There is a dwarven clan that has gone into an arrangement with these nobels and with demons to kill off other dwarves. I'm not even sure Duerger would knowingly ally with demons but here are a regular clan of Dwarves throwing their own beliefs out the window on a whim.

Last complaint. And it's a small one but I think it's important. When a character is removed in a book from the series it's OK to let them stay removed. I won't say which character but Salvatore tends to bring back characters he really liked creating even after dramatically killing them off. Let them stay dead please. Take the opportunity to expand the characters you draw from.

When I was halfway through this book I would have rated it 2 stars. It finishes off with a cliffhanger but left off giving me some hope that my issues with the main plot would be dealt with in the final book of the series. Really this is a 3 1/2 star rating but if the plot doesn't help clear up the mess of this book I'll probably come back and drop it back to 2 stars. One of the great things about Forgotten Realms is that there is a natural balance at work represented by the different gods and different races. Salvatore seems to have forgotten that in this latest series.

While Timeless inspired confidence I haven’t had in Salvatore for a long while and made me hopeful for the future, overall, Boundless hammered my heart back down into my stomach. Whereas Timeless felt like Salvatore actually had some degree of emotional attachment to what he was writing rather than making a bid to have his characters stick out in Forgotten Realms lore, Boundless backpedaled from this quite a bit. He has some solid turns of phrases in Boundless, but unlike the ones in Timeless, I wouldn’t have remembered them if I hadn’t specifically noted them down during my reading. In Timeless, we explored more than the constantly-revisited areas of Menzoberranzan, Gauntylgrym, Luskan and others, delving into Ched Nasad. In Boundless, we’re back to Menzoberranzan, and furthermore, with most of the action happening in the same area of Menzoberranzan, specifically, in and around The Oozing Myconid tavern. The small but interesting bits of detail that we were treated to in Timeless about characters that we’re so familiar with already, such as Jarlaxle, Malice, and the rest of the Do'Urden family, did not continue in Boundless. Gone too is the Realmsian feel that Timeless achieved, for Boundless feels very much like a standard Salvatore insular and tweaked Forgotten Realms. Boundless hammers the lore-rich and location-rich Waterdeep into something with fewer dimensions than Salvatore’s current timeline Luskan. While the scenes from the past are still more interesting than the ones set in the present in Boundless, they don’t hold a candle to their counterparts in Timeless. There was heart in Jarlaxle and Zaknafein’s past in Timeless, and it felt as though it was something that Salvatore had thought about for a long time. By contrast, in Boundless, those scenes feel rote and rehashed, cobbled together from half-formed ideas. Those scenes only manage to not be sleep-inducing because they don’t focus on the Companions of the Hall. While Timeless seemed to take a break from the disagreeable conclusions made in the novel preceding it, Boundless is right back on that track again.

There are a lot of things that are being done worse and worse, but for me personally, the greatest travesty is what Salvatore is doing to Artemis Entreri. Salvatore seems to have this notion that Entreri needs to be “redeemed”, and his definition of redemption is to become similar to Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall. It’s as though he only knows how to write one character archetype, and seeing how he forces all of his characters down the same path, I honestly don’t know if Salvatore simply can’t write other archetypes, or doesn’t feel like he should out of some sense that there is only one “correct” way for people to be. The idea that Entreri needs to be “redeemed” at all is questionable. What, exactly, does Entreri need to be redeemed for? For killing many people? Certainly, this is a sin, but Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall have killed many more, and yet they are celebrated heroes whose every action is unquestionably right. One could argue that Drizzt and the Companions only killed the “bad guys”, but by whose definition are “bad guys”? Salvatore’s definition of good versus evil is as inconsistent as his work is with itself, and comes from a position of privilege. We’re told that Entreri never killed anyone unnecessarily, so really, is he deserving of the same fate as the old lecher, who at best was a child trafficker, and at worst, a child molester? Salvatore apparently believes so, with how the adjudicator “demon” possessing Sharon subjects the two to the same fate. I’m not arguing that Entreri did nothing wrong. He was absolutely a villain. Whatever his reasons might be, he did murder people. He did kill innocents for his personal gain, for instance stealing the life force from passed out drunks in alleyways to heal himself. He does have sins to atone for. However, what troubles me is Salvatore’s stated reason for the need to redeem Entreri in an interview during the release of Timeless, in which he cites the experience of readers who were survivors asking him to force Entreri down his current path.

I am honestly not sure what to think regarding Salvatore’s claim that people who had gone through similar traumas as Entreri wants to see Entreri “redeemed”. Young victims of physical abuse, sexual assault, parental neglect and betrayal have not done anything wrong, and while Salvatore is right about people that go through such horrors carrying guilt over what happened to them, I’m skeptical about whether Salvatore correctly understood his fans. My own background falls into that category, and I’ve interacted with others like me as we desperately tried to make sense of why the universe apparently deemed we deserved what happened to us. With the internet bringing greater connectivity between people, I found countless others like me, and have managed to arrive at a point in which I at least logically believe that what happened to me wasn’t deserved. What I know from my own experiences and what I’ve learned from others differ so much and so consistently from Salvatore’s recount that I can’t help but wonder if some words got crossed with him. With people like me, “redemption” isn’t what we fundamentally want. We want our scars to heal and we want to do it at our own pace, in our own way, to feel valid even though we have trouble fitting societal norms. Trauma victims are often misunderstood and dismissed because they are different, and really, all they want is for that to not happen. Salvatore’s “redemption” of Entreri is to make him more like the very social-normative Drizzt, which is the opposite of what a trauma victim would want. In reality, a trauma victim who is being pressured to conform to another’s perceived notions of normalcy, like what Drizzt does to Entreri, would react very badly to it. Furthermore, traumas, especially childhood ones, don’t simply go away through the performance of some deeds, or even a great amount of deeds like helping others, which those privileged enough to have never experienced abuse at the hands of another seem to believe is the key to salvation. Traumas go away only with the passage of time, and the presence of people in one’s life who understand the individual and accept them for who they are, who try to help them be the best version of themselves rather than the best societal model of a person. It’s only normal for victims of trauma at the hands of others to resent and distrust people as a whole, and their traumas tend to be exacerbated by being told that they won’t recover unless they help others, which often translates into, “I need to help those who will hurt me” in a trauma brain. Salvatore represents Entreri as having gotten past his childhood traumas because he received some degree of fulfillment from helping the people of Port Llast. Furthermore, Salvatore makes it appear that Drizzt’s influence in Entreri’s life is what led him down the path of “redemption”, but realistically, what Drizzt has done is push Entreri to be like him. The reality of what should be happening is actually very damaging to Entreri. If Entreri isn’t self-aware enough of what he truly wants, which is the case for a lot of trauma victims, he might be going along with Drizzt, even earnestly, because he’s led to believe it’ll help him feel better. The thing is, each person’s recovery from trauma is unique, and has to come from within; following someone else’s path more often than not leads to more damage, especially when it’s the path that someone who doesn’t bother to understand them lays out for them, as is the case for Drizzt with Entreri. If Entreri is self-aware enough, he should be resisting Drizzt, but he doesn’t, which suggests it’s the previous example, and that in turn has a lot of dark and problematic undertones, with one standing out in particular: Drizzt’s behavior is abusive towards Entreri.

While many were unhappy with the way that Road of the Patriarch concluded, especially back when it seemed to be the last that we’d see of Entreri, it was, in so many ways, a much kinder treatment of him than what’s being done in continuing his saga. Over seven decades of enslavement by the Netherese would’ve deepened his trauma and made them more difficult to dislodge, but Salvatore doesn’t seem to understand this at all. It would be less cheap and contrived, not to mention less invalidating, if Salvatore had Entreri’s issues cured via magic or psionics. By espousing the belief that anyone can be “fixed” through a set approach, or needs to be “fixed” at all, Salvatore damages more than his own character, he helps spread an idea that will further hurt and invalidate real trauma victims. Sadly, things don’t seem like they will get better. The artificial “development” forced onto Entreri in Hero was so depressing to me that it made it hard for me to read anything for almost two years. Timeless was a break from that, and indeed seemed like Salvatore was abandoning that tack, but Boundless dashed those hopes thoroughly. Entreri gets caught as a result of putting others before himself, and while it’s conceivable that he’d save Dahlia before trying to escape, him doing the same for Regis without a second thought is a Drizzt characteristic, not his. Furthermore, he’d saved Regis before saving Dahlia. Without intending it, the events that Salvatore creates are actually an accurate metaphor for what happens to a damaged individual who is made to believe that another’s path is their own: they unsuccessfully see it to completion, and get themselves mired in greater suffering.

What appears to await Entreri in the future, as suggested by Boundless, is pretty disheartening, to say the least. As we see in the case of the old lecher, “Sharon”’s cocoon, in addition to killing its victims, apparently ensnares the victims’ soul and damns it to an eternity of suffering. Furthermore, that cocoon apparently also informs the victims the reason why they are thusly damned. I can’t help but feel that the cocoon is more than an analogy, I suspect that Salvatore is employing it as yet another cheap and lazy character development device. By the end of Boundless, Entreri has realized that his agony will be an eternal one, and is due to his many victims. I suspect in the final book, Entreri will be saved from the cocoon, but he’ll emerge as a redeemed butterfly, changing the last of his non-conforming ways and becoming another boring good guy Drizzt clone. His reasons for doing so might be due to his realization in the cocoon that he’d have suffered for eternity unless he changes, which Salvatore could pretend is more in line with Entreri’s character. However, the entire thing is incredibly artificial. Whatever “demon” possessing Sharon is doesn’t exist in FR lore and was made up solely to use as a cheap plot device. Furthermore, the “demon” just randomly finds Entreri and Dahlia. Its own affiliation with the Margaster plot is that it happens to possess a Margaster child, but otherwise, it wasn’t an obstacle to a specific goal. It was just sort of there. If there was a situation in which the conflict of judging good versus evil was relevant, then the creature could’ve been a meaningful obstacle. For example, if Entreri or any other character on a path to “redemption” exposes how the kind of judgment the creature passes is flawed and arbitrary, and then manages to make a step towards overcoming that internal conflict, that would make Salvatore’s definition of “redemption” more palatable. As it is, it’s just really random and being shoved down our throats. The fact that Entreri doesn’t casually toss about the word “friend” like he does in Timeless is little consolation if Salvatore is indeed using the cocoon how I suspect he is using it. Entreri the redeemed butterfly would be truly a tragic and terrible closure for his character, or any character for that matter, to say nothing of the invalidating message it would send to readers who have lookd to Entreri for strength.

There was a time that I thought maybe these stories had lost some of what drew them to me but I wouldn’t put them down. This, like so many before prove that these characters and their journeys still have much to play out.

We get to know even more about Jaraxle and Zaknafein’s relationship and history. We get to wonder how much that history and the relationships spawned so long ago may yet come in to play in the here and now.

What more can they go through? Can any of them go through?

What is racism and how does it taint how one views the world and how you might interact with those who have so much to offer you? How does growing up with such defined beliefs and narrow viewpoints hold one back?

R.A. Salvatore writes fantasy, yes; however, he seems to have his pulse on what is happening outside on the streets of our reality.

I love RA Salvatore and have been following his work for more than 25 years. But this is horrible. The plot is tenuous, the characters seem to have lost substance and it feels like it was rushed to publication. Also, Drow and Demons attacking the Dwarf stronghold again? Could we stop rehashing this old chestnut please?