R.A. Salvatore - The Spine of the World

verybody has an imagination.

Theres the construction worker who can close his eyes and imagine a Hawaiian vacation. Theres the corporate executive with visions of that next big promotion. Theres the stay-at-home mother and her perfectly built cabana boy who will sweep her off her feet. For a small group of us, weve been fortunate enough to be able to use our imaginations to make a living.

For myself, I use pen and ink to draw my visions onto paper. Add a splash of color, and the image is painted for all to view. For R.A. Salvatore, he paints differently His imagination is brought to life with the magic brush of words. He is not only skilled enough to create fantastic worlds littered with dozens upon dozens of magnificent characters, creatures, landscapes, and wonders, but he has been born with the additional talent of being able to take what appears within the fabric of his minds eye, and bring it to life with descriptive, colorful, rich, and meaningful verbiage.

Because of this, I can describe R.A. with one simple word: storyteller.

That, for me, is the biggest compliment I can give to another artistic creator. When someone like R.A. can so effortlessly make us believe in the world we are reading, we are again reminded why we enjoy and love books so much. Unlike some of my singular visual images that only give a small portion of a story, R.A., like other great authors, will create, build, guide, and attach us to the various characters he shares in each of his books.

We then become the beneficiaries of that sharing.

R.A. doesnt just imagine epic adventures and legendary characters. He doesnt simply dream of new worlds and new world orders. He brings them to life, not only for himself, but for us, his readers, as well. From Drizzt DoUrden to the death of everybodys favorite wookie and beyond (and trust me on this one, you may have read a lot from Mr. Salvatore, but you havent seen anything yet) he has become one of the most prolific fantasy/sci-fi authors of his generation, as well as one of the best storytellers to grace the printed page with his wonderful worlds.

For that I am grateful, and jealous, as I can only imagine what it would be like to have that kind of particular talent. Then I pause and smile, because he has done it again, and made me use my imagination. Once again he has caught me in his wonderful trap.

Todd McFarlane
June 2007