I’ve long felt that the Cleric Quintet is an underrated series, from a writer who gets a lot of undue flak simply because he’s popular. (Protip: disliking something popular does not make you cooler than the people who like it).
I have several of the books in this series from the first print run, and I’ve always loved the art for the series’ final installment, The Chaos Curse. If you play D&D, you’ve probably seen Jeff Easley’s art at some point. The guy joined TSR in the early ’80s, and continued to produce official D&D art up to at least D&D 3.5.
His official website has some very nice, easy-to-browse galleries.
I don’t get the “hate something because it’s popular” mindset.. I mean sure, like a lot of people I don’t care for the Bieber or Twilight, but those are genuine disinterest/dislike reactions. I’ve read some of Twilight (ugh) and I’ve heard a few of the Biebs’ songs (ugh!) so yeah..
As far as the Cleric Quintet goes, I really liked the novels. When I was younger I adored Driz’zt (is that right?) not because of “oh man dark broody torture drow ranger!” but more “oh man did you read what Bruenor/Catti-Brie/Regis did?!”. I really do think that Driz’zt was a character who, while cool in his own right, was only a vessel to deliver his amazing support cast. I think I read somewhere that Wulfgar was originally supposed to be the focus of R.A. Salvator’s stuff, but folks liked the elf so much he went with Do’Urden instead. That might be totally incorrect however.
As interesting as the fight in progress in this image is, I really do enjoy the background more. The cavern details in shades of blue and purple lend it that shadowy look without resorting to dark/black space, as well as hinting at many many other things to find out and explore (after the lich/cleric fight culminates I suppose.)
Salvatore’s non Forgotten Realms works are nearly all far better. That’s not to say that the WotC books were bad. The other stuff is just better. He’s always had a good cast of chracters though. And he’s said that while Crystal Shard was supposed to be about Wulfgar, he realized on page 3, when writing a scene of Drizzt getting ambushed by a yeti, that the books were about him. Time to redo the outline!
Back to the topic at hand, LS, I really did enjoy the Cleric Quintet. Some really good things hapened in that series.