Waterdeep (Forgotten Realms Novel: Avatar)

Rating:
Summary: Third Times the Charm
Review: Well, Unable to leave a trilogy once started, I took on the task of reading the third installment of the Avatar Trilogy. I wasn't impressed with the first book, and the second did nothing more than aggravate me, with very little to redeem it by. So I was very surprised to find that the third (and last) book started making sense. I think it had something to do with this installments author, Troy Denning (Once again, I remind you that Richard Awlinson was a pseudonym for various authors). I don't know for how long he contributed to the series, but his style was more noticeable in this book(assuming that he did most of the writing himself, After all, I wasn't there). From the beginning, you see he is more descriptive about almost every aspect. He is mindful of the details of such important characters as Myrkul (God of the dead), and you finally start to see this character as a thing to be feared. His attention to character development was so notable, that I feel if he would have been in charge of the first two books, the trilogy would have been much better. Again, I believe that this trilogy was the first attempt by some of its authors to write novels as opposed to Role-Playing manuals and the like. Mr. Denning might have been the only writer in the group with Novel experience, or at least, a gift for descriptive narrative. I also concede that one of the difficulties faced by the writers was the large amount of characters in the story. There were so many NPC-like characters who got more development than they deserved. Such characters as Slater, the female Scorpion band soldier, was written like she was going to be a major player, then suddenly, she is dropped from the story( I don't remember if she got killed). Others, like the three assassins in TANTRAS, were no more intimidating than the three stooges. Again, lack of characterization, probably due to too many characters introduced in the trilogy. In the end, Mr. Denning did a great job of bringing this trilogy home. the end was a surprise and left itself open for further adventures, hopefully with better characterization (hehehe!, guess i've beaten that horse long enough). My rating: 3.5

Also, read the Brothers Majere Trilogy, Good Characterization there.