The Crystal Shard: Icewind Dale Trilogy #1 (Legend of Drizzt #4)

by R. A. Salvatore

Overview

Drizzt Do’Urden finds new friends and foes in the windswept towns of Icewind Dale, also the setting of the Dungeons & Dragons adventure book Rime of the Frostmaiden.

With his days in the Underdark far behind him, drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden sets down roots in the windswept Ten-Towns of Icewind Dale. A cold and unforgiving place, Ten-Towns sits on the brink of a catastrophic war, threatened by the barbarian tribes of the north. 

It’s in the midst of battle that a young barbarian named Wulfgar is captured and made the ward of Bruenor, a grizzled dwarf leader and a companion to Drizzt. With Drizzt’s help, Wulfgar will grow from a feral child to a man with the heart of a dwarf, the instincts of a savage, and the soul of a hero. But it will take even more than that to defeat the corrupt wizard who wields the demonic power of Crenshininbon—the fabled Crystal Shard.

The Crystal Shard is first book in the Icewind Dale Trilogy and the fourth book in the Legend of Drizzt series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786942466
Publisher:	Wizards of the Coast
Publication date:	01/09/2007
Series:	Legend of Drizzt Series
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	4.16(w) x 6.81(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

R.A. Salvatore was born in Massachusetts in 1959. He is the New York Times–bestselling author of more than forty novels, including the popular Forgotten Realms series, The Legend of Drizzt. His love affair with fantasy, and with literature in general, began during his sophomore year of college when he was given a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a Christmas gift. He promptly changed his major from computer science to journalism. He began writing seriously in 1982, penning the manuscript that would become Echoes of the Fourth Magic.

His first published novel was The Crystal Shard from TSR in 1988, and his novel The Silent Bladewon the Origins Award. He is still best known as the creator of dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden, one of fantasy’s most beloved characters.

Hometown:

Leominster, MA

Date of Birth:

January 20, 1959

Place of Birth:

Leominster, MA

Website:

http://www.rasalvatore.com/

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
R. A. Salvatore fans, rejoice! Wizards of the Coast is reissuing Salvatore's classic tales of the dark elf himself, Drizzt Do'Urden, in deluxe hardcover editions with stunning new cover art by artist extraordinaire Todd Lockwood.

In The Crystal Shard, Salvatore's first novel (originally published in 1988), the remote townships of Icewind Dale are places of "stark beauty and stark reality" where only the strongest and smartest survive. In this atmosphere of ever-present danger, Drizzt Do'Urden has found an unlikely home. But when the misfit populace of Ten-Towns is threatened by an egomaniacal wizard in possession of the crystal shard ("the most vile artifact ever made"), Drizzt and his friends -- Bruenor Battlehammer, an ornery dwarf; Regis, a cunning halfling; and the giant barabarianWulfgar -- must act before it's too late.

Salvatore's signature character -- the butt-kicking, scimitar-wielding dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden -- is one of the most complex and universally beloved creations in the fantasy genre. Comparable to Michael Moorcock's albino sorcerer Elric of Melnibone and Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars, Drizzt personifies the very essence of adventure fantasy. Salvatore is an absolutely masterful storyteller, and The Crystal Shard remains one of his best ever. Paul Goat Allen

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