R.A. Salvatore has been at the fantasy game a long time. Thirty-one years ago, The Crystal Shard introduced readers to Drizzt Do’Urden, the twin scimitar–wielding, dark-elf ranger with a heart of gold (and a panther he can summon from the astral plane). Since then, Drizzt has become a fantasy icon, who, along with his supporting cast from the Forgotten Realms campaign, remain all over the new Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition handbooks, not to mention a handful of video games.

Salvatore, 59, is almost as ubiquitous in the genre world. He’s written nearly 40 books set in the Forgotten Realms alone, not to mention his DemonWars saga, plus work on video games including Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and the Neverwinter MMORPG. He even developed a DemonWars tabletop game with his two sons.

Yet Drizzt, above all, remains his most enduring creation — one whose moral compass never falters, even in the face of enormous challenges and the prejudice harbored by the “drow,” the name for the dark elf race in the land of Faerûn. In 2018, the social friction makes Drizzt’s story more poignant, and Salvatore’s return to the character in Timeless, which hits shelves on Sept. 4, more vital than ever for the fantasy readership.

Last week, Polygon spoke with Salvatore on the phone from his home in Massachusetts for an hour and a half about Drizzt, the Hugo Awards, Gamergate, cutting his teeth in fantasy, his favorite secret sports references in his books, the inescapable political moment, and the joys of continuing to carve out his worlds.

Polygon: I read your books as a teenager, and it’s been about a decade, so I was thoroughly excited to drop back in with Timeless.

R.A. Salvatore: Yeah. I’m getting a lot of that. It had a lot to do with the way the publishing schedule worked out because we had cut back with Wizards of the Coast. We were doing a ton and then we all of a sudden stopped. There was a big challenge for me when I did Timeless, to make sure that I would recapture the old readers and give the new readers something brand new — something that they could jump onto, so to speak.

But I’m getting that a lot from people who are like, “I can’t believe I got so far behind on these books. I’ve gotta catch up.” Well, good.

 

You can continue reading the full article here: https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/4/17819182/ra-salvatore-timeless-new-drizzt-novel-interview