This is a dense story that takes us in the familiarity of the Icewind Dale trilogy. This book contains the final chapter of the Dark Elf trilogy, the 'get out of home and grow up' trilogy regarding Salvatore's best character to date.

It's inconsistent (now all of the sudden the dark globes can move, for example), it still has that 2d20 feel to it, although D&D transpires less in this part than all the other two of the trilogy.

The character of Montolio DeBrouchee has some legendary features (including seeing without eyes and talking with a bird very fluently), but in the end it's the source of the smartest and most emotional sequences of the trilogy.

Meeting Catti-Brie and Bruenor Battlehammer feels like home, and getting into Icewind Dale feels need, enlightening for anyone that read the Icewind Dale trilogy first (as Salvatore wrote them). If one fails to do so, they will find the Icewind Dale books a lot weaker in style and inconsistent as well. The order matters.