The Eye of Scales

Tracy Hickman's touch for memorable world-building and morally layered characters is evident here, and the antagonist Evard Dirae — who genuinely believes he is rescuing his friend from magical manipulation — is more interesting than most secondary-fantasy villains. The problem is that the book's appeal is tightly bounded: you need book one, and ideally some affection for the Shroud of the Avatar game world, to fully invest. For that audience it is a solid entry; for everyone else the game-logic plotting will feel arbitrary.