Honestly, kinda dull. Because of the order in which the story is told, you know that Maimun survives past the point in which you are reading and you know when and where Perrault even if you aren't told how and so you don't end up building any connection with him and so his death reaps no emotion from you. And Maimun is just not interesting as a narrator.

Technically a young adult book, this first installment in a trilogy was okay. It jumps around in time a bit more often than struck me as necessary, but it ends so abruptly that I'll have to wait and see where the rest of the series goes.

Continuing my journey into the Forgotten Realms with Stowaway, which is the first book related to the Legend of Drizzt series, that isn't written by R.A. Salvatore, at least, not solely. It actually seems to be written primarily by his son Geno, with assistance and oversight by Robert, at least that's my best guess, because while it does feel clearly related to Robert's books, the writing prose also feels notably different in many ways, however, I don't consider that inherently negative, if anything it's a nice way to palate cleanse for a while, before jumping into the next set of books.

The plot of the book is certainly interesting, the story features a young orphaned boy named Maimun as the protagonist, and he's on the run from a demonic being named Asbeel, who seems to believe he has some right over Maimun's life. Right off the bat, the scale of things in this book feels larger than the Dark Elf Trilogy or Icewind Dale Trilogy, not in the sense that there's more at stake, though there certainly could be, but in terms of the levels of power at play.

Asbeel seems to be incredibly powerful, as do Maimun's adoptive allies who fight against him, the battle scenes in the book are certainly grander in scale than those against Errtu, Shimmergloom, or Icingdeath, which has me very interested in the demon and what his purpose is. It also has me very curious to read more about Maimun, because I want to understand what is so important about him, that such a powerful demonic being is interested in him, and while such powerful allies fight to defend him.

I truly enjoyed my time with this book and found it to be almost as much of a page-turner as Robert's individually created works, however, I can't rank it as highly as many of them for two primary reasons.

The first of which, is the writing itself, while not bad by any means, it certainly doesn't feel as polished as Robert's own works, and that's to be expected. I believe Geno was fairly young, a teenager, when he sat down to write these stories with his day, and thus, didn't have the same level of experience as him.

The second is that this book is clearly more of a set-up novel than it is an epic adventure. The entire middle section of the book just details Maimun's past, so that we have a better understanding of where he came from and what he's been through, which is very important for world-building and character development, but is not inherently as fun to read.

All in all though, I still greatly enjoyed my time with it and will be rushing into the next book of the trilogy very soon. I'll give Stowaway a 3.5 out of 5 stars, and something tells me that its sequels will be rated even higher!

Honestly, this made me go out and buy almost all of the recent Legend of Drizzt novels along with other Forgotten Realms series just so I could dive right back into a world I absolutely adored when I was in High School. Not to mention Perrault was a straight up badass. Loved that man.

This is not a badly written story. It made for some light easy reading for me. It is however somewhat generic. I know that R. A. Salvatore made his name with the Forgotten Realms stories that he has written, and I remember enjoying some of his Drizzt stories when I was younger. I picked up this from a second hand shop through a burst of nostalgia. The Forgotten Realms IP is a vast one and it was nice to re-immerse myself in the universe. It suffers from being the archtype for so much modern fantasy unfortunately, leaving it somewhat derivative. This is a nice easy read. There is nothing challenging here. There is also nothing particularly original here.

Fairly standard fantasy affair. Curious chronological shifts and a lack of depth as to our central antagonists, but it's entertaining and moves quickly enough. I enjoyed the atmosphere, and the hints at the framing story.