My thoughts on Starlight Enclave
R.A. Salvatore’s new book, Starlight Enclave, the first of the Way of the Drow trilogy, just hit the shelves! And after a day and a half, now I have to wait another year for the next installment! Below you may find my spoiler-filled opinion of the book. I will try to point out the highlights of the book, what I thought was good and what was not so much.
As the Generations trilogy ended with Relentless last year, fans of Drizzt and the (extended) Companions of the Hall continues in-line with the recent Dragon Magazine article regarding multiple Drow societies, some of them being non-Lolthian. You may find my opinion on the Drow changes here.
As always, the story starts with a prologue, recounting what happened to Doum’wielle after Gromph teleported her north of the Spine of the World. After struggling for tendays it seems, she is finally rescued by Orcs and brought to red-eyed elves who live in the unhospitable north.
It is then revealed that four years have passed, and it is now 1490 DR, The Year of the Star Walker’s Return, and one part of our heroes set off to a new adventure, seemingly to find out what happened to Doum’wielle, the half-elven, half-drow girl that played a big part in the previous Silver Marches war. Jarlaxle thinks she may be the key to stop the impending Menzobarrenzan civil war, and brings together Cattie-Brie, Artemis Entreri, and Zaknafein with himself to find her.
In the meantime, Bruenor is debating whether to help the Baenre side of the Drow civil war by making armor and weapons for them, while Drizzt and his daughter travel to the Monastery of the Yellow Rose with the aid of Kimmuriel.
This book is mostly focused on Jarlaxle’s story, albeit told with Cattie-brie in focus, as it takes up somewhat 75% of the book, while other stories are sidelined. I will focus my review of the book on this story, as the other ones will hopefully come into play in the second and third book. There is a fair amount of world-building to the far north, as the party is met with the Aevendrow, or Starlight Drow, which have settled in an enclave called Callidae, within living glacier for millennia, not unlike how Gauntlgrym is atop a living fire primordial. We find out that Jarlaxle somewhat used the plan to get Doum’wielle back as an excuse, and he mostly wanted to know if the stories he heard from an old elf about non-Lolthian Drow in the far north are true or not. Now, I’ve gotten to know that the books use Jarlaxle-ex-machina a lot, but was not that surprised, nor did I mind it. After a short back-and-forth of “can we trust them?” the party is awed how this Drow settlement managed to survive for so long, living mostly in harmony with dwarves (I’m guessing a variant of arctic dwarves), Orcs and some short humans. The only enemies they face are Frost Giants, which have somehow aligned themselves with Slaadi.
It is revealed that during a previous battle with a blue Slaad, Zaknafein was infected and started to transform into a red Slaad, but the power of watching a Aztec-like football game he is restored. All jokes aside, this part of the worldbuilding I did not like that much. The Aevendrow remind me too much of the Nightborne race introduced in World of Warcraft: Legion, complete with a grape-mashing quest to get vine. Also, as the settlement is in far north, the party (and we as the readers) are introduced by the first time (as far as I can recall) to the Toril equivalent of midnight sun and polar days, which affect magic use. Namely, magic, both divine and arcane, as well as magic items, is of little use when the shift from day to night occurs, which made it a little difficult for our party, but in the end no so much. It is still unknown how it affect psionics.
The thing I did like about the Aevendrow is that they are, as well as the Underdark Drow, flawed. In fact, they are too xenophobic. It is strongly hinted that they will offer the party a choice either to stay with them in Callidae, or have their memory wiped before they leave. We don’t see this play out because the party gets trapped inside the Frost Giants’ castle, but I assume all will end well in the next book.
This is another thing I did not like about the book: the stakes for the main characters are very low. We do see Zaknafein almost get transformed into a Slaad (which the Aevendrow will kill on sight), with even the chapter title being “Sunset for Zaknafein”, but of course he manages to resist and lives. We also get explicit mentions of several cleric domains in the book (light, tempest, nature), which I thought strange, as I always though them as in-game mechanics. I do not know if the clerics know in-world which domain they are. Nevertheless, these are small musings.
The action scenes were OK, as we’ve come to expect from Salvatore, but for me, they were not that exciting as in the last couple of books, but then again, there are almost none consequences for the main characters, even without their magics.
Overall, the book is a good introduction to the trilogy, even though it ends on a cliffhanger. The lore is expanded without retconning the world too much. There is not so much of Drizzt in the book, which I did like, more Jarlaxle and Entreri is always a plus for me, but I think it is inevitable that Drizzt will save the day by the end of the third book. I’ll rate this book as 7/10.
