Having never before read a book categorized within this genre I came upon R.A. Salvatore's The Cleric Quintet as I became engrossed in a Computer RPG named Baldurs Gate. Baldurs Gate introduced me into the world of the Forgotten Realms and when I happened upon The Cleric Quintet at my local book store I felt a want to know more about the stories and characters that have been developed around The Forgotten Realms. What I found within the Cleric Quintet were five books that offered very deep character development, fascinating plot and story lines centering around friendship, loyalty, love and conflicts from many an angle whose resolutions for the most part were far from predictable. Though not for every one ( I don't think my 70 yr old father-in-law would enjoy it), I would have to recommend The Cleric Quintet to anyone that would like to escape the day to day nuisances of real world events and pressures and absorb themselves into a world of heroes, magic and fantasy. As I read The Cleric Quintet I found myself so absorbed in Mr. Salvatore's narrative that the world around me became one of priests, dwares, elves, fortresses and forests while I read. I could not give this book 5 stars however because at times I felt that some of battle sequences were unnecessarily elongated in some places and too redundant in others as if the author was writing to fill pages. But on the whole I felt that The Cleric Quintet was certainly worth my time. I have indeed become an R.A. Salvatore fan and have ordered The Icewind Dale and Dark Elf triolgies as I write this. My favorite of the books was Night Masks as I found the concept around which the plot was built to be brillantly conceived and and brilliantly resolved. My favorite of the charaters was amazingly enough not the main character Cadderly, but his loyal "weapons" the Bouldershoulder brothers, two dwarves that anyone would want to take home with them. I was so "enchanted" with their exploits that during my many commuter bus rides while reading I found it very difficult to not laugh out loud, and just sat in my seat with a HUGE smile on my face. Besides its humorous elements though, The Cleric Quintet does take you on many an emotional roller coaster and in the end I found myself wanting more. In the end The Cleric Quintet is far from "Tuanta Quiro Miancay". An excellent read.