Fast-forward to the present day. Once I’ve finished my current unannounced gaming project, I intend to overhaul and then complete the series of modules I began way back in 2002. The recently released Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition should hopefully provide the platform to make that dream a reality. In the meantime – driven partly by research but mostly just nostalgia – I’m going to attempt a foolhardy, some might say impossible undertaking. I’m going to attempt to review every Forgotten Realms fiction book ever released, in the order they were first published. That is, as mentioned, around 400 novels and short story collections spanning over 30 years.
Crazy? Perhaps! It’s been a hard couple of years for me personally. Stepping back into the Realms feels almost like catharsis after all the real-life and fictional grimdark. I expect this project to take years and occasionally drive me to the point of insanity. But, if nothing else, it will get me reading and updating this blog on a regular basis. It’s my hope that the Great Realms Read-through will prove both informative and entertaining, shedding light on forgotten classics while providing critical commentary from the perspective of a novelist and game designer who has worked with the setting.
Stay tuned for the beginning of this odyssey. The first very stage of our grand tour will take us off the west coast of the Forgotten Realms for Douglas Niles’ 1987 novel, Darkwalker on Moonshae.