Nobody says "Menzoberranzan" like Ice-T
August 15, 2014 5:32 AM   Subscribe

Love Drow? Love Copkiller? These two great tastes come together as Law & Order star Ice-T reads a tale of the Forgotten Realms' most misunderstood of dark elves, Drizzt Do’Urden. And it's free! And Ice is bringing all his celebrity friends: The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories expands upon the epic legend of the dark elf with 12 tales performed by the all-star cast of Felicia Day, Dan Harmon, Greg Grunberg, Tom Felton, Danny Pudi, Sean Astin, Melissa Rauch, Ice-T, Wil Wheaton, Al Yankovic, Michael Chiklis, and David Duchovny! And there are behind the scenes glimpses.
posted by Mezentian (46 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
I lament that I have no soundcard (but I must scream), and that Vin Diesel is holding back for the Gord The Rogue All-Star Collection, and it appears you need an Amazon account to download this. But they are also fee.

The first one is always free.
posted by Mezentian at 5:35 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]




I remeber how hard it was to find TSR novels at the library when I was much younger and wishing they had better marketing. Now I wish they had better writers.
posted by khaibit at 5:50 AM on August 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


The NSA can read all of my email they want. Now I just need to know who's reading my dreams.
posted by Cyrano at 5:51 AM on August 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


jbickers:
"Every word you're saying is made up. Motherfuckers talk like Yoda."
No, that's just how R. A. Salvatore writes.
posted by charred husk at 5:52 AM on August 15, 2014


The author of all of these stories - R.A. Salvatore - did an AMA on Reddit a couple of days ago.
posted by KMB at 5:55 AM on August 15, 2014


Now is this Ice-T or Paul F Tompkins?
posted by blue t-shirt at 5:55 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]




(I wrote a fan letter to RA Salvatore back in the 90's. He wrote back. I have it framed on my wall. His letter back was printed on a dot matrix printer.)
posted by Cyrano at 5:58 AM on August 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


There was never a more Mary Sue Mary Sue than Drizzt Do'Urden.
posted by absalom at 6:11 AM on August 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


I once saw a blooper reel from Law and Order SVU where there was a clip of Ice-T repeatedly stumbling over some complicated word, and then finally muttering in frustration, "yeah, thanks, guys, give this complicated medical shit to the rapper to say."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:24 AM on August 15, 2014 [8 favorites]


A perfect episode of Harmontown ensued.

The relevant bit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:38 AM on August 15, 2014


Heh. This post's title quotes from my review.

Ice-T's story is definitely better read than the one David Duchovny did, which I noted to my friends drips with a dead-voiced tone of career-reassessing resentment.

Plus the writing. Oh lord.
posted by mobunited at 6:39 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Ice-T's story is definitely better read than the one David Duchovny did

Oh. Each person reads a story. This is significantly less enticing than the mad radio play I had going in my head. Oh, MetaFilter, why do you taunt me so?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:46 AM on August 15, 2014 [8 favorites]


The author of all of these stories - R.A. Salvatore - did an AMA on Reddit a couple of days ago.

I love how reverential they are to him...
posted by empath at 7:02 AM on August 15, 2014


Viral marketing for the long awaited Law and Order: Forgotten Realms?
posted by Iridic at 7:06 AM on August 15, 2014 [8 favorites]


Don't go giving Dick Wolf any more ideas there, Iridic..
posted by k5.user at 7:11 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


It is difficult to describe how excited this made me when I found out a couple of days ago.

The Drizzt books are some of the books that I read when I'm in need of comfort. I own them all, but they are carefully hidden on my bookshelf of shame* in my bedroom, whereas all the other books are all in pride of place on the living room shelves.

*other contents: Oglaf, Mercedes Lackey, David Eddings. Curiously, Georgette Heyer and Terry Pratchett go on the living room shelves.
posted by winna at 7:14 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oh my god, I remember those books. I loved The Crystal Shard when I was, like, eleven or so. Drizzt's life - so tragic! So moving! I think I outgrew them before Drizzt became, apparently, a cottage industry, but how well I remember that first book. The dream of my pre-teen years was to grow up to write for TSR.
posted by Frowner at 7:22 AM on August 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


"yeah, thanks, guys, give this complicated medical shit to the rapper to say."

I'd be very pleased to see Ice-T's acting career take a turn for him being slotted into roles with ever increasing amounts of professional jargon. Not just like a neurosurgeon or an astrophysicist and what not, but having to deal with the argot of like, pâtisserie or knitting.

"So what I did here was use the brushed yarn in an English purl stitch -- and I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. Y'all know I wrote 'Copkiller,' right?"
posted by Panjandrum at 7:31 AM on August 15, 2014 [12 favorites]


Wow, now my love for Ice-T is a little less ironic and "I-can-do-his-speaking-voice" based than it was earlier. OTOH, prepare, office mates, for an onslaught of Ice-T non-sequiturs during status meetings, motherfuckers!
posted by Mister_A at 7:33 AM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


What a time to be alive.
posted by boo_radley at 7:38 AM on August 15, 2014 [11 favorites]


OTOH, prepare, office mates, for an onslaught of Ice-T non-sequiturs during status meetings, motherfuckers!

It's not personal. It's just bidness.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:50 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


The Drizzt books are some of the books that I read when I'm in need of comfort.

I read The Crystal Shard when it came out, and still own it. The other two books not so much. The Moonshae books? Have them. Weis & Hickman I will cut you for a bad word.

Drizzt came at the beginning, and his first three series were okay (Underdark was interesting), but it was up against the masses of other Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books.

I can see how they would be comfort reading, but I do suspect a lot of the later work is not so great.

But the early stuff (and I think Mary/Gary Sue is unfair) is fine for gaming fiction.
posted by Mezentian at 7:55 AM on August 15, 2014


I can see how they would be comfort reading, but I do suspect a lot of the later work is not so great.

It is great to read on kindle at the gym. If you skip three or four pages when trotting on the treadmill, you'll never know!
posted by winna at 8:17 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Fortunately, there are now audiobooks for you, at the gym.
With Ice-T.
Reading the adventures of a rogue dark elf.


Yeah, I am pretty much not over the shock yet.
posted by Mezentian at 8:23 AM on August 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


I thought he was a ranger.
posted by ODiV at 8:49 AM on August 15, 2014


In my day we called them thieves.
*shakes cane*

(But, in-game I suspect I have failed my ST Vs Rules).
posted by Mezentian at 8:54 AM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


(But, in-game I suspect I have failed my ST Vs Rules).

I assumed you meant that he was a "rogue dark elf" (i.e. a dark elf who had gone rogue with respect to wider dark elf society) as opposed to a "dark elf rogue." One could certainly call him a "rogue dark elf ranger" without too much confusion.
posted by jedicus at 8:59 AM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well actually, rogue isn't entirely accurate. Daermon N'a'shezbaernon (House Do'Urden) would more likely categorize him as...

Ha, like I'm going to speak on their behalf.

Seriously though, don't fuck with Briza.
posted by ODiV at 9:08 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Mezentian is forgiven any inaccuracy because he did not misspell it 'rouge'.

A rouged dark elf is probably featured in many badly drawn fan art pieces, though.
posted by winna at 9:55 AM on August 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


but I do suspect a lot of the later work is not so great.

I had a discussion just this morning, trying to recommend a starting point for Terry Pratchett to a friend.

Then I realized, I've just... internalized the characters so much. I've read every word he's written, but I had to look up Prachett's books on wikipedia. Because, I dunno, to me.. they're just there...

I'm a full book series behind on Salvatore's stuff. But you could do a lot, and I mean A LOT worse than the Crystal Shard books if you're just looking for a good fantasy romp.
posted by Cyrano at 10:04 AM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Did Salvatore ever collect any of the $2,000,000 he earned for writing the lore bible for Kingdoms of Amalur?
posted by Iridic at 10:14 AM on August 15, 2014


The Crystal Shard was OK. The whole Icewind Dale trilogy was decent. Then things got kinda weird.

I feel like R.A. Salvatore led a significant number of impressionable young geeks down the wrong road socially with Drizzt as some kind of exemplar. And with his writing and treatment of women.

And I was a big Drizzt fan for a while. Before I got some distance and the whole thing became profoundly embarassing.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:30 AM on August 15, 2014


...Wil Wheaton, Al Yankovic, Michael Chiklis...

Conventional Al Yankovic is finally getting his day in the sun.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:22 AM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


"So what I did here was use the brushed yarn in an English purl stitch -- and I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. Y'all know I wrote 'Copkiller,' right?"

I keep coming back to this fantasy of panjandrum's and giggling.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:35 AM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


ELF KILLER
BETTER YOU THAN ME
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:59 AM on August 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


David Duchovny reading a Drizzt Do'Urden story? Kariebookish anno 1996 just fainted.
posted by kariebookish at 12:38 PM on August 15, 2014


David Duchovny,
Why won't you Lolth me?
posted by Iridic at 1:07 PM on August 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


But the early stuff (and I think Mary/Gary Sue is unfair) is fine for gaming fiction.

To me, the Crystal Shard series in retrospect is the prime example of gaming fiction. Role-playing in the AD&D mold is essentially about creating your very own power fantasy/wish fulfillment/Mary Sue that you get to control throughout the story created by your dungeon master. I could draw a direct line from the AD&D campaigns of my youth to the stories Salvatore was writing. Create your party! Okay, let's see, we've got a dark elf ranger, a human barbarian, a dwarf chieftain/warrior, and a halfling thief; that seems about right in terms of diversity of skill set. Now let's see...I'd like to make this a high-power campaign, so you get to have some magic weapons, and a summoning stone for a magic panther. For the campaign, you have to fight a dragon, a demon, and an evil wizard with an army of orcs and goblins for control of the MacGuffin du jour,

Also, it's like each one of the players rolled a natural 18 for one of their character attributes; DEX for Drizzt, STR for Wulfgar, CON for Bruenor, INT for Regis.

Unfortunately, it hasn't aged well for me. I can't even fathom most of these talents reading these stories. Except for Weird Al.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:57 PM on August 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Conventional Al Yankovic is finally getting his day in the sun.

Keep Yankovic weird!
posted by sporkwort at 5:17 PM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Conventional Yankovic is my new band name.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:45 PM on August 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Weis & Hickman I will cut you for a bad word.

Uhhh, where do you stand on the Death Gate Cycle?
posted by winna at 8:53 PM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I, uh.... gave up Death Gate after the third book.


I will say their last two Dragonlance Trilogies have not been the greatest (Missing Chronicles was like re-visiting an old friend, though, with all the awkwardness that entails), but Chronicles and Legends were amazing products of their time that I can still re-read with quiet satisfaction. I'd like to think the (non-D&D) Darksword books hold up to.
posted by Mezentian at 9:33 PM on August 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Conventional Yankovic is my new band name.

You could do conventionalized versions of his songs! Some of them are pretty good and could really catch on if they weren't so zany.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:55 PM on August 15, 2014




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