Waterdeep is the third book in the Avatar series, and the final installment of what was originally the Avatar Trilogy. As such, it provides an ending to the tale of the adventurers who began their journey in Shadowdale and Tantras. This book is fast-paced and exciting, and its scale is even grander than the two novels that preceded it. The author skillfully draws the readers to the characters by giving deeper glimpses to their personalities and making the situation that they are in more poignant, and in so doing he makes those characters easy to love…or to hate. The setting of the story spans a large portion of the rich fantasy world that the characters inhabit, and the varying cultures of the places that they travel through are entertaining and add depth and a feeling of realism to the otherwise fantastical narrative. Readers who have journeyed this far in the novels will not be disappointed with the conclusion of this arc of the heroes’ story.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: 1 mild obscenity.

Violence/Gore: Characters threaten each other verbally and with weapons several times; a report of the raiding and destruction of a village; a report of animals injured in an accident; minor property damage; a few reports of a murders; a character breaks bones in an accident; a few fights without major injury; characters find dead bodies a few times, and some of these are mutilated in graphically described ways; characters are killed by magic a few times; a few reports of death in battle; a report of an attempted murder; a fight in which monsters are injured or killed, some of them by dismemberment; characters kill injured characters to put them out of their misery a few times; a few fights using magic and medieval weapons in which characters are badly injured or killed, some of which are graphically described; a character slits another’s throat; battles are described with minimal graphic details a few times; characters face natural hazards such as drowning and cold exposure; a character breaks an animal’s leg; a character stabs a non-threatening person to death; a wall is made of human bodies that are still moving; character’s torture and kill another character for sport (it is cruel but not graphic); a character has disfiguring scars, which are described a few times; characters debate the morality of killing an unconscious foe.

Sex/Nudity: Brief mention of prostitution; characters flirt verbally a few times; characters hug and kiss a few times; a woman acts seductively to try to convince a man to sleep with her; a man and woman kiss, and it is implied that sex follows.

Mature Subject Matter:

Thievery; assassination; murder; kidnapping; torture.

Alcohol/Drug Use:

A character smokes a pipe; adults drink alcohol.