RA Salvatore. He’s kind of like the Dan Abnett of Forgotten Realms, except without any of the self-awareness, with only the most remote interest in writing women well, and not even so much as a single solitary acknowledgment that gay people exist. He also keeps writing about the same set of characters over and over and over. This offense is compounded by the sad truth that this man honest to god can’t write. Basically, nothing like Dan Abnett except possibly sales figures. Well, that and whereas Salvatore–when not spitting out identikit D&D novels–writes by-the-dot generic fantasy that makes Eragon look vaguely original. In contrast, when not writing Warhammer 40k fiction, Abnett writes zany alt-history fantasy. Basically one of them can write and the other… you’ll see.

Full disclosure: I didn’t read this crap. I can no longer read anything by this author for more than a page at a time, though admittedly ten years ago I was able to finish his books–after three or four of which I arrived at the conclusion that they were shit, which is quite the epiphany for a teenager who still thought select Dragonlance novels were amazing literary achievements.

But sometimes to show someone just the kind of nadir D&D write-for-hire fiction can hit, I’d pull out a non-too-legally acquired epub of a Salvatore book and perform copypasta (if I’m feeling particularly vicious I’ll subject them to Ed Greenwood instead). I’ll note that I did not troll for particularly godawful snippets. No. I skimmed the text and picked bits out of random. In this case, my random scrolling netted me this:

The second pie Jarlaxle threw came in harder, and was not meant to be caught—except by the man’s surprised expression.

“What?” the woman yelled as the pie splattered across her lover’s face, and he gave a yell, as well, but one of pain.

“Jarlaxle, what are you about?” Piter demanded.

“I am killed!” the surprised man cried. He slapped at his face, sending cream flying and eventually revealing a small dart that had been concealed within the pie, protruding from his cheek. He reached for it, hands trembling, but he couldn’t quite seem to grasp it.

–Road of the Patriarch, R. A. Salvatore

I AM KILLED

I MEAN WHO THE FUCK SAYS THIS

HE IS KILLED BY A DART. HIDDEN IN A PIE.
(more…)