The Yellow Silk (Forgotten Realms: The Rogues, Book 4)

Rating:
Summary: The long forgotten rogues - Bards!
Review: I thought this book was great simply because it focused on an often overlooked character class in the written world of fantasy and D&D (especially the Forgotten Realms). Bards are a huge part of any fantasy world with taverns and inns with common rooms, but I cannot remember the last time I read any mention of one in a FR book. Bards play an important role in any fantasy community, as illustrated in the first few chapters at the tavern of choice.

The storyline and plot was good also, although at points it was very vague on the motives behind one of the foreign characters to the city of Spandeliyon. But it was vague because the foreign character was keeping something from everybody else, but of course, it all becomes clear. While mentioning this person, Li, it seems strange to me because there seems to be a race in this book that I am unfamiliar with and could not understand if they were from Faerun or somewhere else, or just some obscure part of the Realm. This "race" just seemed to be humans with an Asian or oriental decent - which of course is fine but it is just hard to grasp what exactly this persons decent was from a stand-alone book. Maybe I'm just not as well-read as I should be. I just kept conjuring this image of stereotypical samarai warriors who somehow keep getting confused as elfs?! I guess the city is not very well-cultured. Li is also insanly impulsive and just goes nuts sometimes. It seems almost out of character, but I suppose it's not. These couple things, while simingly minor, haunted the back of my head while reading "The Yellow Silk," and thus is the reason for four stars instead of five.

Another highlight of this book is the halfling mob boss that everyone either criminally works for or is afraid to cross. He has an eye patch and is a pig/warthog hearder. It makes for a very interesting mental picture of all these minions serving this 2.5 foot halfling conducting business in the pigstys. Classic.

Good book. Great characters, good story, confusing cultural background. This book has its moments where it clearly and classically utilizes the talents of a bard. I found it almost as interesting and as entertaining as some of the battles of barbarians and the thefts of the other rogues in various FR books.