Honestly, the constant debate over the 'best' start is part of the fun. It means the setting is rich enough to support a dozen valid entry points. There's no single canon pathway. Your journey is your own. My first was 'Spellfire' by Ed Greenwood, which is a chaotic, lore-dense, magic-heavy romp that many people think is a terrible introduction! But I loved the sheer, unfiltered enthusiasm and wild ideas. It was like being thrown into a deep, churning ocean of fantasy. I wouldn't recommend it to most, but it worked for me. So take all this advice, then maybe just... pick one that sounds cool. The Realms will meet you halfway.
You know what? Sometimes you just need a map. The old 'Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas' CD-ROM or even just poring over a detailed poster map from a boxed set taught me more geography and spatial relationships than any novel.
Seeing how far it is from Waterdeep to Calimport, where the Anauroch desert sits, how the rivers flow—it contextualizes everything. A character's two-month journey in a book becomes a line you can trace with your finger. That spatial understanding is a foundational layer of lore that novels often have to tell you, but a map shows you instantly.
I've got to put in a word for the 'The Last Mythal' trilogy by Richard Baker. It's a deep, deep dive into the history of the sun elves, the mythals, and the fall of Myth Drannor from the elven perspective. It's not just recounting events; it's about the survivors dealing with the legacy of those events millennia later.
You get the weight of elven memory, the sorrow of decline, and the desperate attempts to reclaim lost glory. The history here is a living trauma, and it shapes every action the characters take. It's some of the most beautifully tragic worldbuilding in the Realms.
People get too hung up on canonical order. A lot of these novels were written as standalone adventures or trilogies that only loosely reference bigger events. You can pick up 'Spellfire' by Ed Greenwood or 'The Parched Sea' by Troy Denning and have a complete, satisfying story without knowing a thing about the wider Realms. Trying to piece everything into one timeline is a fan-created headache. Just enjoy the books as disposable, fun fantasy paperbacks, which is what most of them were intended to be.
For a more recent take, the 'Erevis Cale' trilogy by Paul S. Kemp, especially 'Twilight Falling' and the later books, have shadow magic duels that are incredibly tense and philosophically heavy. The battles between Cale and his foes are as much about competing ideologies and the corruption of power as they are about spell slinging. The magic is dark, personal, and devastating.
The epic feeling comes from the personal stakes and the gradual escalation into conflicts that threaten the balance between life and shadow itself. It's a quieter, more psychological epic at times, but when the shadow magic erupts, it's profoundly impactful.