The Dragon King

There is no peace for King Brind'Amour's newly liberated Eriador, as Avon's evil King Greensparrow breaks the truce with border massacres and demon sorcery. War is inevitable, but would be suicidal. Even when allied with DunDarrow dwarfs, Fairborn elves, and the Riders of Eradoch, the peasant armies led by Luthien Bedwyr and his friends are hopelessly outmatched by Avon's Cyclopian legions. Meanwhile, Brind'Amour's magic must face the fiends of Avon's sorcerous dukes...
Then suddenly, Luthien is captured by Huegoth raiders and gains some astonishing information about the fate of his lost brother. Lady Deanna Wellworth discovers that she is the rightful heir to Avon's throne. And the lord of wild, distant Baranduine begins a desperate campaign to free his land from Greensparrow.
Now battle will be joined on mountain, plain, and swamp, on land, sea, and in the air - in a war of courage and dire wizardries. Yet in the end, all the valor of Eriador, and all the daring of Luthien's magical alter ego, the Crimson Shadow, may not be enough to vanquish Greensparrow's ultimate weapon. For Greensparrow isn't merely allied with the hell-monster he plans to unleash: Greensparrow is the vast and terrible being that once withstood the combined might of the ancient Brotherhood of Wizards. And in centuries of plotting world conquest, the beast has murdered the sleeping mages. Except one. Heir to a dying magic, Brind'Amour must stand alone...

Plenty of sound and fury but precious little fire rumbles in the belly of Salvatore's pseudo-Tolkien conclusion to the Crimson Shadow trilogy. Here, Avon's foppish evil wizard-king, Greensparrow, and his dragon alter ego provoke Eriador's wizard-king, Brind'Amour, into breaking the flimsy truce achieved in Luthien's Gamble (Forecasts, Jan. 29). Though badly outnumbered by Avon's "cyclopians," Brind'Amour and his assorted allies assault Avon to free Eriador forever. With the help of Luthien (whose magic alter ego is the Crimson Shadow), Katerin (the Shadow's warrior-maid lover), Siobhan (a revengeful half-elf rape victim), Oliver (a mouthy half-pint "halfting") and a flotilla of nouveau Vikings, the wizard-king slashes through acres of monsters and sloshes through torrents of gore. Despite the rivers of blood, however, Salvatore's vocabulary and imagination prove dry. Supposedly noble characters "smirk," "snicker" and "bat their eyes," and no cliche is left unused: even Saddam Hussein is paraphrased for the coming "grandfather of those battles." Salvatore's tired story depends on gratuitous violence and misused motifs from classic sources (Tolkien's Luthien was a fetching Elf-princess, for example, not a male hero with a fragile ego). These lumbering false steps make Salvatore stumble badly in his attempts to evoke memories of Middle Earth.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this conclusion of the "Crimson Shadow" trilogy, the wizard King Greensparrow determines to regain control over Eriador. Luthien Bedwyr, as his alter ego the Crimson Shadow, must again fight to keep Eriador free. Recommended for fantasy collections with the first two books.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In the conclusion to Salvatore's series, The Crimson Shadow, King Brind'Amour now rules Eriador, and Avon's King Greensparrow is trying to alter that with both swords and sorcery. Luthien Bedwyr, both in his own right and in his alternate persona, the Crimson Shadow, has a critical role to play in organizing and leading Eriador's resistance. The contest is long and fierce, the action nonstop, Greensparrow's ultimate weapon actually quite impressive and even terrifying, and the whole book well up to the standards set by its predecessors. Although he is not the kind to extend the frontiers of literary consciousness, Salvatore reliably delivers intelligent, fast-moving, entertaining fantasy that makes sound use of classic elements, including in this case, of course, the Robin Hood tales. Roland Green