Realms of Valor

James Lowder

Realms of Valor was the first short story collection to showcase the continuing adventures of various well-known personages in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons world of the Forgotten Realms (a second, Realms of Infamy, appeared later). Each of the stories is written by someone who was instrumental in the creation of the original characters, e.g. Scott Ciencin, who wrote parts of the Avatar Trilogy under the name Richard Awlinson, gives us a tale about Adon, the priest from the adventuring party in those books, and Robert Salvatore brings back Drizzt Do’Urden, who’s spent time on the New York Times bestseller list on quite a few occasions over the past decade.

The book’s probably not a starting point for reading about the Realms, but for those who have a few series’ worth under their belts, it’s great to see one’s old friends again. The stories, in general, live up to the novels that introduced the various characters within. They do so well enough, in fact, that some characters with which the reader might not yet be familiar may inspire the more industrious reader to go looking for the books that the characters came from. Very good stuff.