After more than three decades of writing about the drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden and his adventures throughout Dungeons & Dragons‘ Forgotten Realms campaign setting, R.A. Salvatore is talking about retiring. He’s focused on spending time with his family, and that’s reflected in his latest book. The Finest Edge of Twilight, published on Oct. 7, follows the daughter of Drizzt and Catti-brie as she tries to prove herself a hero in her own right.
Briennelle Zaharina Do’Urden (she goes by Breezy) was born at the end of Salvatore’s 2020 novel Relentless. The nickname suits her impulsive personality — Breezy flits from training as a monk to learning shadow magic to nearly destroying her grandfather’s forge in an attempt to make a powerful weapon — but it was also a practical choice.
“I didn’t know that I was ever going to develop this character more than the baby introduction. I thought that was the last book, because [Wizards of the Coast] had stopped publishing.” Salvatore told Polygon in a Zoom interview. “[Drizzt and Catti-brie are] trying to merge the dwarf and the drow elf with this big, long name, and I’m not going to write that throughout a book. So I just called her Breezy.”
Salvatore actually wrote The Finest Edge of Twilight before he had a new contract with Wizards of the Coast and Random House because he became interested in the idea of exploring what it would be like to grow up in the shadow of very famous parents. Salvatore’s own fame is limited to gaming and fantasy circles, but it’s still something his kids have had to deal with.
“It puts expectations on people, and criticism that they’re going to get no matter what they do,” Salvatore said. “I like to see the world from other people’s perspectives. That’s why I write.”
Breezy is exasperated by the way her parents use their significant resources to try to protect her, but she’s also terrified of disappointing them. As frustrating as she can find their doting, she’s keenly aware of the privilege she enjoys as they give her powerful magical items and training with skilled mages and martial artists across Faerun.
“I think a lot of people take offense about privilege and delude themselves,” Salvatore said. “I know that if I wasn’t a white man, my road would have been harder.”
Most of the characters Breezy meets want to make a good impression on her family. An old elf named Sylvie claims to have been one of the first people who saw the goodness in Drizzt when others were discriminating against him for being a drow, but Drizzt refutes those claims. Salvatore said the idea for the scene came from a fight he got into on a football forum where people were upset about Colin Kaepernick taking a knee to make a statement about racial justice.
“When Muhammad Ali died, these same guys that wanted Colin Kaepernick thrown out of the country were saying ‘I loved him. It’s so sad.’ I called them out. I said, ‘Excuse me, you hate Colin Kaepernick, but you’re calling Muhammad Ali your hero? Did you ever actually listen to the things he said? Do you even understand why he went to prison and lost his title?’” Salvatore said. “’Now you’re pretending that he was your hero. If that’s true, you’ve changed an awful lot, buddy.’”
Much of The Finest Edge of Twilight is set in the frozen wilderness of Icewind Dale, where Breezy’s grandfather, the dwarven king Bruenor Battlehammer, wants to build a teleportation gate. He argues that it will make the area safer and more prosperous, but meets stiff opposition from the locals. Salvatore said that part of the story was inspired by the 2012 neo-Western series Longmire and Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel 1883.
“What Bruenor didn’t understand is that the isolation and danger of Icewind Dale was a big part of the charm of it for the people who were there. They wanted that life. They knew it was a hard life, but they got a sense of accomplishment in surviving,” Salvatore said. “It’s no different than the people who want to go climb mountains or people who move to the remote wilderness of Alaska. They just want to be left alone.”
Salvatore said he’s thrilled that fantasy has become a much more popular genre since he published his first book in 1988. While his own work was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien, Salvatore said he’s enjoying reading novels that move beyond Western medieval fantasy, like S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad trilogy, R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, and the works of N.K. Jemisin.
“The widening of the fantasy genre is a wonderful thing that has led to so many more people finding the enrichment that you can get in a world where you can be a hero,” Salvatore said. “I feel like my own growth in just adapting to that changing world has been such a positive in my life.”
