Seriously?

 So, I picked up Brian Thomsen's Once Around the Realms at a long ago library sale, along with a few other Dungeons & Dragons novels, but never got around to reading it until now. There are reasons, for this, like the fact it got jammed on to my shelves and buried until I was digging around looking for something else, but... 

Anyway. I'll make it clear that the Forgotten Realms setting is likely one of my least favorite D&D worlds for much the same reason other people love it. The planet it's set on is huge, and can support any kind of adventure. Problem being, even world shaking events in the setting really only seem to create local tremors, rather than big shakeups within. (I mean, if DragonLance was set there, the people on the east coast would probably not hear about it until 2 years after the war ended.) Also, many of the really fun D&D settings that were kind of one offs, allowing adventured flavored with martial arts or Arabian things wound up getting sucked in to Toril eventually, and everyone pretty much ignores anything that isn't on the West Coast anyway. 

But, rants aside, this starts with Volothamp Geddarm meeting a traveling actor about to be arrested in Cormyr. Volo (not to be confused with Marco Volo) saves the actor, Passeport from arrest, and uses his reputation as a writer of travel guides for the Realms to get free food and lodging. Which works out well, until a certain West Coast Wizard named Blackstaff challenges Volo to travel the entirety of the Realms without crossing his trail. To prove it, he gives Volo a bag of Necromancer's gems, that will turn red (and highlight a map) when he's achieved a travel goal. 

So let's see. Early on, we meet Captain Queeg, and a Captain Bligh Ahib, who's family was cursed by a banshee, thus he's chasing a big white wail. 

Later on, we wind up travelling to a Magic heavy kingdom, where they get a stolen airship flown by a dwarf named Jonas Grumby. And of course, the airship is named The Minnow. 

 

By far the worst though, not counting the final chapter involves a landing in Maztica (a pre-Columbian setting) where Mr. Rork and his halfling servant Herve await to fulfill their dreams.

The Boomer TV references aside (seriously, there's a Jaws joke in here), it's actually a fun story with a lot of silliness. Even if you do need a map to figure out where the heck they are half the time.