Soldiers of Ice, by David Cook – book review by Fred Patten.
by Patch O'Furr
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Soldiers of Ice, by David Cook. Map. (Forgotten Realms – The Harpers, Nº 7)
Lake Geneva, WI, TSR, Inc., December 1993, paperback $4.95 ([2 +] 312 pages), Kindle $7.99.
There are anthropomorphic novels hidden among the authorized books of popular fantasy-role-playing games. Case in point: TSR’s 1987 Forgotten Realms spinoff of Dungeons & Dragons.
According to Wikipedia: “Forgotten Realms is the name of an imaginary fantasy world that exists somewhere beyond the real world. The setting is described as a world of strange lands, dangerous creatures, and mighty deities, where magic and seemingly supernatural phenomena are quite real. The premise is that, long ago, the Earth and the world of the Forgotten Realms were more closely connected. As time passed, the inhabitants of planet Earth have mostly forgotten about the existence of that other world—hence the term Forgotten Realms.”
The Forgotten Realms merchandising includes well over two hundred novels and short fiction anthologies from 1987 to September 2012, in hardback and paperback editions, from TSR, Inc. (Tactical Studies Rules) and its successor, Wizards of the Coast (including one by furry author Paul Kidd, The Council of Blades). Soldiers of Ice by David Cook, the seventh in the subseries about The Harpers, features the fierce doglike gnolls of the valley of Samek.