To continue the journey thru the incredible world of The Forgotten Realms, I read the second installment of the series The War of the Spider Queen, Insurrection .
Picking up where the first book left off, the Drow city of Menzoberranzan stands on the brink of disaster , with the ability of the priestess to summon magic from Lolth gone, the very foundation of the matriarch is crumbling. Now what was a shadow war has erupted into open conflict.
In a desperate effort, Matron Mother Baenre, the supreme ruler of Menzoberranzan, gives the dangerous task of investigating if the silence of the goddess is only manifesting in their city to her daughter, Quenthel. This journey with takes her thru the treacherous tunnels of the Underdark to the trade city of Ched Nasad, the city of the Shimmering Webs.
Joining her to this seemingly impossible task are a couple of familiar faces from the previous book, the arrogant sorcerer Pharaun Mizzrym and the weapon master Ryle Argith.
To round this ragtag party down Jeggred Baenre, a draegloth (half-Demon/half-Drow) that serves as bodyguard to Quenthel, and the scout mercenary Valas Hune, expert tracker and knows every nook and cranny of the Underdark, embark as the small party to try to unravel the mystery of Lolth silence.
The perilous journey is tenfold due to the lack of assistance from the spider queen’s magic, this disadvantage is exploited from the very creatures of the Underdark and the other Drow factions roaming around the dark tunnels.
The most interesting part is the reaction of the society of the Drow, in the wake of such a catastrophic disaster of the integral part of their way of life is removed, all the backstabbing, power grabbing, conspiracies and manipulation become enhance is the face of a shattering paradigm.
The characters become conflicted in whether to continue with the mission, abandon the party, or seize the opportunity to take power into their own hands.
Their arrival to the Shimmering Webs city only make things worse, a full scale crumbling, literally and figuratively speaking, of the magic that hold all the society together, has collapsed and threatens the Drow world to be casted into oblivion
As with the last book, my favorite part is to dwell more into the mysterious Underdark, particularly seeing a city as Ched Nasad, founded by Menzoberranzan exiles with petrified cobwebs of two giant spiders sent by Lolth, and enhanced with faerie fire that gives it a purple and amber hue.
This volume only makes you want more insight into the mysterious Underdark, fortunately there’s still four more books to go.
On the cover by artist Brom are Quenthel Baenre, high priestess of Lolth, and Jeggred Baenre, draegloth body guard of the priestess
It’s been some time since my last post of this Journey to 1,000,000 pages.
I want to re-catch the flow of the almost daily stream of ideas, and most importantly the trek to my coveted goal. It’s most imperative to me to, along with my reading, share the day to day nuances that fuel my path.
In this birthing year, my progress has not been quite want I wanted to be. One month in and my total is around 5,400 pages, when it should be past the 6,000 mark.
I know this doesn’t seem like that big of a difference, but with the days ticking by, only 1795 left until the big 5-0, every day is worth its weight in gold.
To jump start my year, I brought a familiar face that always helps me get back on track. I talking about Kentaro Miura’s seminal work Berserk, the Black Swordsman is back again with his journey against the apostles of madness and the void.
To ease into a good rhythm, my goal is to read the new acquisitions, from number 27 to 34, by the end of the weekend.
The amazing thing is that my partner in crime always pushes me to get those numbers, there’s no better way to spent a Saturday afternoon watching her play Crimson Desert, while I devour those pages, with tea, coffee and cookies, in between everything
Hopefully by Sunday my numbers will be aligned with the projections or even better, on track to read 100,000 pages in the year, a side quest that has eluded me, but it will be conquered.
Welcome to first installment of the new era of my Infinite Book Shelf , and I return to it with a universe very dear to my heart, The Forgotten Realms.
This vast and complex world was created by Ed Greenwood, he use it as a backdrop for his adventures since he was only 8 years old, but the first story was published on the magazine The Dragon in 1982 titled the Assassin’s Run.
My first encounter with this mesmerizing world was thru the now classic tales of the Drow Elf Drizzt Do’Urden, brilliantly crafted by the great R.A. Salvatore, from the 39 books of the Legend of Drizzt, I have gone thru 35, and I intent to catch up with what is my favorite series of all time in this trek thru The Forgotten Realms.
To start off the amazing journey, I picked a six book series, The War of the Spider Queen, that R.A Salvatore lead as a creative overseer but leaving the writing to six different authors to play in the Underdark .
We start the series with Dissolution, we journey back to the incredible city of Menzoberranzan, the black heart of the Drow Society, to find that catastrophe has struck, Lolth, the spider queen, has stop answering the calls of her priestesses, and with that, all the magic has been cut off.
The matriarchs of the major houses try to keep Lolth’s silence secret and pin the fault of the scorn of their beloved Queen on some dissident Drow males that escape the city and the hunt begins to bring them back and put things right.
Much of the story is followed thru the eyes of three characters Pharaun Mizzrym, a master wizard, Ryld Argith, a master from the legendary Melee Maghere school of combat, and Quentel Baenre, the main mistress of the Arach-Tinilith, the school of sorcery for the acolytes of Lolth, tasked with unveiling the mystery of the Spider Queen silence
As you will expect with a story involving the backdrop of the Drow Society, the intricacies of their political and treacherous nature are on the main stage of the story, but with the treat of a total collapse of their way of life becomes more evident, this plethora of highly different characters converge to find answers, leaving behind their conniving secret plans and uniting to save their very existence.
My favorite part of the journey was to dive even deeper into the magical and treacherous city of Mezonberranzan, with its stalactite architecture and ever glowing castles, knowing that just beyond this purple glowing of the ethereal spires lie the treat of the Underdark creatures ready to swallow everything into the oblivion of the ever dark.
This series is a great gateway to enter the vast universe of The Forgotten Realms, with more that 300 books published to date, and follow one of the most complex and intriguing characters that modern fantasy has to offer.
On the cover by artist Brom is the master wizard Pharaun Mizzrym
It’s been quite a while since my last post, 135 days to be precise.
A lot has happened in that time , and I do mean a lot. But I’ll start at the beginning.
Year number 18 of my journey finished with two outstanding things, me turning 45 years old, leaving only 5 years to reach the coveted goal of 1,000,000 pages, and the year becoming my best one of reading.
I finished with a whopping 70, 570 total pages, that’s 4,385 more than my best year, which was number 15, consisting from June 2022 to June 2023. This number should be the consistency for the upcoming years, this is if I want to hit my goal on June 2031
To close out the eighteen year of reading and to celebrate my 45th birthday , I was treated by my partner in crime to an incredible road trip to some of my favorite places.
The journey started at the eerily beautiful White Sands National Park, which I have written about in another post. To be completely honest, although I have been several times, it never ceases to amaze.
Coincidentally, this visit marked the first National Park of our new bucket list, the idea is to visit all of the 63 National Park established in the USA, this challenge comes with a guide book to stamp and a water bottle to put sticker on after each visit, but more on that on later posts.
The second destination was the quiet mountain village of Cloudcroft, New Mexico, it’s incredible how one minute you are surrounded by the shifting sands of a white desert and the next, you are walking among some ancient ponderosa pines.
It was a nice change of pace, with really good weather, incredible hiking trails, and some local brews to cap off the celebration. Unfortunately there’s was no Bigfoot sightings, but maybe next time.
The last stop on the road trip, and the second National Park checked off our bucket list, was Carlsbad Caverns National Park, an imposing system of ancient formations 229 meters beneath the desert floor.
According to the studies, it’s believed that the cavern system was formed around 260 million years ago during the Permian era. But the actual state of the system was created due to tectonic movement around 6 million years ago. It’s humbling being surrounded by this majestic formations and know that nature carved one drop at a time.
In all, it was an incredible experience, sometimes you need to disconnect in order to reconnect.
With this fresh start to the year of reading a plan brewed. First, and more importantly to reach the year’s goal, which according to the new calculations would place it at 70,204 pages. Second, return to my second favorite fantasy world, The Forgotten Realms. Here is where the legendary Drizzt Do’Urden roams.
In addition to catch up with the adventures of the Drow Ranger, currently on book 35 of 38, I will also explore the vast range of stories that this magnificent realm has to offer.
To start me off, I’ll go back to the legendary Drow city of Menzoberranzan for the six book series The War of the Spider Queen, where the goddess Lolth goes silent and threatens the very existence of the Drow Society.
I already finished the first book, Dissolution, and the second volume, Insurrection, is about 80% done. Both amazing dynamic stories full of deceit and the nefarious plots, all that you could expect from the infamous dwellers of the Underdark
ScreenshotScreenshot
In the upcoming days, I’ll dive deeper into my journey in these amazing books and post some of my impressions of the start of my adventures in the Forgotten Realms
Thanks to this inspiring start of the year, I’m excited to inform that the total for this first almost month of the nineteenth year of my project is 3,948 pages. And although the projections place the need of pages around 70,000, the true aim is to make this year the first with a total of 100,000 pages. Not the first time I have attempted it, but this time the vibe feels different, and that is something that needs to be pursued and hopefully, conquered.
In the broader scope, and with only 1,801 days left until my 50th birthday, the need to put the pedal to the metal has become more evident. The total for the overall project is 652,928 pages. That means that 347,072 pages stand between me and my ultimate goal, quite the gargantuan task, but as always, the plan is to face it head on.
The plan is simple, focus on one step at a time, and set milestones to keep me focused and motivated. Currently the next big step is to reach 700,000 pages, with a good amount of discipline that goal could be reached by October 10 of 2027.
The next milestone will be 750,000 pages, that goal is currently projected for February 17 of 2029, but what makes this particularly important is that holds a very special prize at the end, a road trip of around 2,000 kilometers, 4 national parks visited, and it’s the prelude to the final act.
The 1,000,000 pages milestone, or the whole enchilada, is currently projected for December 2 of 2035. I’m still off by 4 years 5 months and 27 days of the deadline, but much to my delight, this margin keeps getting smaller each and every day.
As you can read, there’s a lot to unpack and this hiatus days have not been in vain, the wheel keeps spinning toward my ultimate goal. And hopefully, as the posts keep on rolling, you can accompany me to the end of this journey, and in less than 5 years, we will be cheering and toasting for the end of this chapter and the beginning of the next phase of my love for the written word.
For now, I’m off to read
Will be needing a lot of that for the foreseeable future
lostinamillionpages.com 