The Sword and Laser discussion

I recently finished up most of what I had in my to read pile and I'm looking for something that is going to last me for a while. I've heard good things about forgotten realms in particular the stuff R A Salvatore wrote.

The problem is when i look up forgotten realms I get a massive book list and I really have no idea where to start. Any info you guys can give me would be really helpful. Thanks a lot.

Homeland is a good place to start, though really so long as you start at the beginning of one series or another you should be fine. The thing to remember is the realms are a setting not a series to themselves.

I'm a huge fan of Drizzt, I also recommend new readers to start The Crystal Shard rather than Homeland because it gives a different perspective of Drizzt as a character.

I've just read Darkwalker on Moonshae by Douglas Niles which is the very first novel written in the Forgotten Realms series. It's where I decided to make a start on the books.

Start with Homeland by Salvatore, I did. most of the Drizzt Saga books are available in omnibus form, grouped together by series.

I would also recommend Spellfire, other books by Ed Greenwood are hit or miss. Elaine Cunningham wrote some of the best Forgotten realms books, those books are in the Starlight and Shadows and The Harpers series. Note there are many different books in The Harpers series, by many different authors.

That should keep you busy for a while.

I highly recommend reading the Drizzt books in published order (Crystal Shard).

I would recommend starting with The Crystal Shard. I had my Dad start with Homeland and since he didn't know Drizzt or care about him it actually turned him off to the rest of the series.

I believe Salvatore's wiki page has a proper reading order. Stick with publication order and you really can't go wrong.

There's a nice chronology here: http://rasalvatoreforums.yuku.com/top...

For simplicity's sake the first few:

Homeland
Exile
Sojourn

The above three are generally found as a boxed set, which is a tad cheaper than buying individually. If you look around you can also usually find the older editions super cheap (like $3-4 including shipping) online.

They're not the first published but it's the reading order I was given the books in, and it makes sense to me as they're chronologically before Crystal Shard.

The Spearweilders Tale,it's actually a 3-book series.
It is R.A.Salvatore,but the characters are quite different.