Hey, just wondering if I can read the sellswords trilogy and the cleric quintet after the last Drizzt book and it would still make sense and stuff, or if there is a specific place I should read them in the Drizzt series. Thanks:)
I think you could read them out of "order." They are somewhat standalone, especially the cleric quintet.
So Jarlaxle and Artemis are two of the main characters in the Sellswords and they also appear in the earlier and later Drizzt books. That said, I don't think their story in the Sellswords really impacts their return to the main storyline all that much.
As for the Cleric Quintet, some of the characters appear in some of the later Drizzt novels, but just knowing that the Cleric Quintet comes first should be fine.
Here's the order of things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Drizzt . Without checking the timeline, the Cleric Quintet takes place about the same time as Legacy of the Drow/Paths of Darkness, but the characters don't show up until Hunter's Blade Trilogy and Transitions.
I read the Cleric Quintet just to break up the Drizzt series before I reached The Sellswords series. The "proper" order which keeps things chronological is to read Servant of the Shard after The Spine of the World and before Sea of Swords. Then after Sea of Swords you read books two and three of the Sellswords and can then continue on with The Thousand Orcs and the rest of the Drizzt series. This is how I read it and it made a lot of sense. If you didn't read it this way I don't think it would make a huge difference, but it was nice knowing I read it the "proper" way.