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!