Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Ghost King: Transitions, Book III

The Ghost King: Transitions, Book III
BaileysBooks avatar reviewed on + 491 more book reviews


This is Book 3 of the Transitions Trilogy.

I have to give R.A. Salvatore credit for his latest addition to the Drizzt saga. After his last offering with The Pirate King, I was ready to pronounce this series dead. But Salvatore managed to turn the entire saga on its head by making some pretty permanent and heartbreaking changes.

This book was emotionally engaging in a way that the latest Drizzt books have been sincerely lacking. Due to the changes that all of the Forgotten Realms series have to abide by, Salvatore had to make some drastic adjustments. The entire pantheon is falling apart, magic is deteriorating, and no character, no matter how essential, is safe from the threat of death and destruction.

This book was a solid reminder of what the earlier Drizzt books used to be like, of the reasons why I became such a fan of the series in the first place. After The Pirate King I was ready to be done with Drizzt. I was going to finish The Ghost King and then set the series aside. After 19 books, there wasn't much left to do that had not been done a thousand times before. But now I see that The Pirate King was simply the beginning of a long goodbye, the start of a severance between this series and the next, the cutting of ties and the prelude for what was to come in The Ghost King.

With this book, Salvatore managed to salvage this series from the ashes of my indifference. I finished this book with a lump in my throat and a renewed curiosity to see where the road of adventure would lead the remaining characters next. Kudos to Salvatore for his willingness to find that dark place (like he did for Mortalis) and allow his characters to wallow there for a good long while. I am genuinely curious again to see what will happen next.