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A review by pidgevorg
Archmage by R.A. Salvatore
4.0
I gave this 4 stars for potential. This is not so much its own book as an elaborate setup for the Homecoming series as a whole.
Lolth's plans are carefully and extensively developed... and then left up in the air. Jarlaxle is uncharacteristically quiet throughout the novel, obviously planning something in the background. We get a glimpse of his plan at the end, but wait! cliffhanger. More to come in upcoming novels. We are briefly reminded of the Entreri and Dahlia storylines, just to make sure we don't lose interest, but nothing actually happens on that front. Gromph acts as an annoying, meddling, too-powerful deus-ex-machina type throughout, only to suddenly become an interesting character with challenges of his own at the very end. Which is awesome, but we'll have to wait until future books for the payout. And finally, Regis and Wulfgar go off on their own adventure. We never hear from them again in this book. I'm hoping they'll have a book of their own. After all, "homecoming" could refer to Regis coming back to his home city and to his fiancé, right?
Most interesting of all (at least to me) is the tension between the characters' moral views. It's hinted that Entreri and Jarlaxle are working together again--but are they reconciled? Has Entreri accepted Jarlaxle's particular brand of "friendly" meddling? Are they going to become friends again? Tiago's plan to fight Drizzt is thwarted once again by his fellow drow. Will he finally give up his stupid obsession, or will he get that epic fight he wants so much? Doum'wielle continues to struggle with her evil sword. Stuff happens to her, but there's no true resolution on that front either. And what about Catti-brie and Drizzt? As Drizzt so helpfully reminded us in one of his essays, Catti-brie thinks it's the will of her goddess to preemptively kill "evil" races, even their babies. This wasn't something that had to be mentioned again because of plot. This was something that Drizzt felt compelled to bring up all on his own. It's obviously still very much on his mind. And now he and Catti are discussing having children of their own, and he's supposedly completely on board? Aren't the drow mostly an "evil race"? What happens if Mieliki decides the kids didn't inherit Drizzt's "nice" genes? Will Catti receive a divine mandate to strangle them in the cradle? Shouldn't Drizzt at least straiten that out before he has kids with her (personally I think anyone who thinks their god is telling them to kill babies should not be allowed to have any, but that's just me). RAS keeps telling us how in-tune and together and wonderful their relationship is, but he keeps showing something slightly different. So what will it be? Of course, we'll have to wait until some future book to find out.
And of course Catti herself continues to be all over the place. She continues to receive poorly explained power-ups. She is apparently uniquely attuned both to the elemental powers of water AND fire, as well as some druidish forest magic, even though I would have thought that at least some of these would be mutually contradictory. She is a cleric, and a wizard, and a fighter besides. She's a straight-talker with a dwarfish accent when with dwarves, a silver-tongued diplomat with kings and their councilors, and a swotty intellectual when with wizards. Will she ever grow a personality of her own? Actually never mind, it's never happened in the past 5 or so books, I should pretty much give up waiting for that...
The only plotline resolved in this novel is the dwarf vs drow war over Gauntlgrym, but that's not all that interesting compared to all the other things going on. And even this resolution is left with some uncertainty at the end.
Lolth's plans are carefully and extensively developed... and then left up in the air. Jarlaxle is uncharacteristically quiet throughout the novel, obviously planning something in the background. We get a glimpse of his plan at the end, but wait! cliffhanger. More to come in upcoming novels. We are briefly reminded of the Entreri and Dahlia storylines, just to make sure we don't lose interest, but nothing actually happens on that front. Gromph acts as an annoying, meddling, too-powerful deus-ex-machina type throughout, only to suddenly become an interesting character with challenges of his own at the very end. Which is awesome, but we'll have to wait until future books for the payout. And finally, Regis and Wulfgar go off on their own adventure. We never hear from them again in this book. I'm hoping they'll have a book of their own. After all, "homecoming" could refer to Regis coming back to his home city and to his fiancé, right?
Most interesting of all (at least to me) is the tension between the characters' moral views. It's hinted that Entreri and Jarlaxle are working together again--but are they reconciled? Has Entreri accepted Jarlaxle's particular brand of "friendly" meddling? Are they going to become friends again? Tiago's plan to fight Drizzt is thwarted once again by his fellow drow. Will he finally give up his stupid obsession, or will he get that epic fight he wants so much? Doum'wielle continues to struggle with her evil sword. Stuff happens to her, but there's no true resolution on that front either. And what about Catti-brie and Drizzt? As Drizzt so helpfully reminded us in one of his essays, Catti-brie thinks it's the will of her goddess to preemptively kill "evil" races, even their babies. This wasn't something that had to be mentioned again because of plot. This was something that Drizzt felt compelled to bring up all on his own. It's obviously still very much on his mind. And now he and Catti are discussing having children of their own, and he's supposedly completely on board? Aren't the drow mostly an "evil race"? What happens if Mieliki decides the kids didn't inherit Drizzt's "nice" genes? Will Catti receive a divine mandate to strangle them in the cradle? Shouldn't Drizzt at least straiten that out before he has kids with her (personally I think anyone who thinks their god is telling them to kill babies should not be allowed to have any, but that's just me). RAS keeps telling us how in-tune and together and wonderful their relationship is, but he keeps showing something slightly different. So what will it be? Of course, we'll have to wait until some future book to find out.
And of course Catti herself continues to be all over the place. She continues to receive poorly explained power-ups. She is apparently uniquely attuned both to the elemental powers of water AND fire, as well as some druidish forest magic, even though I would have thought that at least some of these would be mutually contradictory. She is a cleric, and a wizard, and a fighter besides. She's a straight-talker with a dwarfish accent when with dwarves, a silver-tongued diplomat with kings and their councilors, and a swotty intellectual when with wizards. Will she ever grow a personality of her own? Actually never mind, it's never happened in the past 5 or so books, I should pretty much give up waiting for that...
The only plotline resolved in this novel is the dwarf vs drow war over Gauntlgrym, but that's not all that interesting compared to all the other things going on. And even this resolution is left with some uncertainty at the end.