A Bad Book Review – Homeland by R.A. Salvatore
Homeland by R.A. Salvatore – Going home is hard. More so if your core values stand in stark contrast with those of your entire family. Drizz Do’Urden, the proverbial black sheep of his entire house, is the focus of this book. FANBOY ALERT: This is my favorite book of all time.
Stranger in a Strange Land
One of the things that makes Drizzt so relatable is his ‘otherness’. We can all relate. Typically fans of Sci-Fi/Fantasy (I mean those of us who were fans before it was cool) know what it’s like. I recently watched an excellent interview about this by R.A. Salvatore done by Keystroke Medium. (Check it out here). Homeland was especially good for those who read the Icewind Dale Trilogy first and saw the abuse Drizzt endured because of his heritage. Everywhere he went someone made assumptions about him.
The same thing happens to many people who happen to be die-hard Drizzt fans. Maybe you are judged for your hair color, skin color, or your faith. One of the beautiful things about this series is that it frequently deals with the appropriate ways of responding to prejudice.
Young Drizzt Do’Urden has to learn how to cope with knowing that the world he lives in is very different from what is in his heart. This is complicated when Drizzt learns the truth of “Uncle Zak”. He has to decide if he can live with being surrounded by a city of people that hates everything he stands for, or whether he should flee the only place he knows as home.
The Fights
No one writes melee combat like Salvatore. It’s one of the first things that drew me to his unique style of writing. Homeland doesn’t disappoint. People coming to the Dark Elf Trilogy from The Icewind Dale trilogy already understand that Drizzt is a tour de force with his scimitars. In Homeland we meet Zaknafein, Drizzt’s mentor, and teacher. There is no swordsman to equal to Zaknafein in Menzoberranzan.
We get to see Drizzt’s budding genius as a swordsman blossom into the blade dance we love from the original series.
The Feels
Some of the family dynamics of this series are really good. You probably didn’t really worry about your brother literally stabbing you in the back so he could take all your stuff, but you may have had some tough dynamics with your siblings. I know I did. Family is messy and complicated and life can be hard when you don’t have a family that you can rely on. Drizzt gets a taste of that in his relationship with Zak.
We also see Drizzt make the tough decision to leave everything he knows to strike out on his own. Many of us did that at an early age.
The End
No spoilers here. Not really. But in the end, we see Drizzt resolve some of his deep-seated issues and pick up a few more things to contend with. In my opinion, Homeland is one of the best books in the Forgotten Realms pantheon of literature and could stand alone very well.
I hope you have enjoyed this Bad Book Review and that you check out my others!