The cover of Pool of Radiance. A bronze dragon breathes fire at a warrior. The warrior is a young man wearing chain mail and brandishing a sword, preparing to swing it at the dragon. There's a table with a skull on it in the bottom corner.

Pool of Radiance

“An apprentice mage who’s accidentally transformed herself into a buff amazon, a retired thief mourning his dead lover, and a fervent young priest of Tyr walk into a bar… stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”

The cover of Waterdeep. In the background is the city of Waterdeep at night, with the moon in the sky behind the signboard of the Yawning Portal tavern. In the foreground are Midnight, a black-haired young woman in an improbably revealing outfit and carrying a staff, and Kelemvor, a warrior in a red cape wielding a sword in both hands. Both are facing the viewer.

Waterdeep

“It’s not perfect — the pacing drags at points, Adon’s survival feels more preposterous than miraculous, and there are a few duds among the supporting cast — but it’s still a marked improvement over the previous couple of books.”

The cover of Tantras. An unshaven, spear-wielding man slouches in a crude throne, surrounded by a pair of armored guards and a pair of barely-dressed harem girls. Two figures in chains, their backs to the viewer, are confronting him.

Tantras

“I’m intrigued by how the author tries to take Shadowdale’s established “peaceful utopia” characterization and twist it into something darker and more cynical. It doesn’t actually work, but it could have if it had been handled more deftly.”

The cover of Shadowdale. Four figures pose dramatically around an outcropping in a forest: a muscular warrior with a bow, a blank-faced young man with a sword, a crouching woman wielding a staff, and a hooded man behind them with a sword.

Shadowdale

“The setting was only two years old at this point — it’s not like it was growing stodgy and needed some sort of shake-up to make it feel fresh again. All it accomplishes is to show you the bones of the tabletop ruleset poking through the fiction like a compound fracture.”

The cover of Darkwell. A horned, bestial-looking giant is rising out of a glowing hole in the ground. In the dark foreground, various humans are fighting each other.

Darkwell

“It’s as if Niles needed some sort of generically evil Dark Lord for his plot, so he scanned through the long list of Realms deities, saw a god of murder, and thought “Yeah, that sounds evil. He’ll do!” without actually thinking it through.”

The cover of Streams of Silver. Many skulls are suspended by ropes from the branches of a tree. At the base of the tree is Bruenor, an angry dwarf wearing a horned helmet with one horn broken off. He's carrying a shield with an arrow stuck through it and wielding an axe. On the snowy landscape behind him stand Drizzt, a cloaked dark elf wielding two scimitars; Regis, a plump halfling wielding a dagger, and Wulfgar, a muscular barbarian holding a hammer.

Streams of Silver

“This book follows Bruenor Battlehammer as he drags his friends around the northern Realms on a search for his clan’s ancestral home. It’s like The Hobbit, if there was only one dwarf and he had no idea where his home was.”