The Dame is a new book from bestselling author R.A. Salvatore, and is a part of the Saga of the First King series that began with The Highwayman. This book is the follow-up to The Ancient, and picks up shortly after that story ended. This book was published in August 2009.

This fantasy series is one of the few from Salvatore that is not set in some kind of Dungeons & Dragons world, since he mainly writes in the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D. I like that he branched out to create this new world of his own, where there is some magic and a few other intelligent races besides humans, but there aren't as many monsters and what-not as you might find in D&D. If you are a fan of Salvatore's work, you should definitely look into this series.

The character known as The Highwayman began his life with a less flattering nickname called The Stork. He was born with a physical affliction that made his every movement an awkward thing, and he was constantly tormented by others in the medieval world where this is set. When The Stork found a book on martial arts teachings, he started training himself to overcome his physical deficiencies, and with the help of something called a soul stone, he was able to transform into The Highwayman, who is like a ninja version of Robin Hood.

Political intrigue and backstabbing make up the core plot of this novel, as it involves power plays made by various leaders after the assassination of a king. The Highwayman is accused of the murder and he quickly finds himself in the middle of a complicated attempt to destroy the peace that he has sought to bring to the area. This sends him on a mission to clear his name and find out a little about his deceased parents, and he loses a lot in the process. The title of the book, The Dame, is the name given to the queen who has taken over rule and trying to make things right despite numerous factions trying to shut her down.

The story here plays out like the onset of a war, and you finally get to see the true nature of some political and religious leaders when they employ the bloodthirsty powrie dwarves to do their bidding. Powries are a type of dwarf that kill for pleasure and dip their hats in the victim's blood, and they freely slaughter women and prisoners as well as men. It is this type of corruption that The Highwayman wishes to stop, but instead he finds himself caught up in the middle of it.

There is a ton of action in this book, from one-on-one fights to full naval battles. I thought that Salvatore did a really good job giving blow-by-blow descriptions of the martial arts type fight sequences. I was really impressed by the scope of this novel, because I was a little disappointed by the previous book, The Ancient. Now that I look back on it, I realize that the previous book was a middle part of a trilogy and its purpose was to set up all the things that are concluded in this novel. As a series, Saga of the First King is a very good one.

At 400 pages with a lot of chapters, The Dame is a pretty quick read, but I still highly recommend it. I hope that R.A. Salvatore continues to write for this series, as in many ways his character of The Highwayman is like a human version of his most famous character creation, the dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden.

Recommended: Yes