Good read

I really enjoyed the book by its end, but admit I had trouble getting into the writing style and the audio narration of the book.

This was also my first D&D related novel and felt like I was missing a ton of background information by jumping in here.


However, the portral of the various forms of magic was fantastic, as was how they dealt with spell slots. By the end of the book the story had came together impressively well and made the scattered plots meld together. ( )

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: Unclean Series: The Haunted Lands Author: Richard Lee Byers Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SFF Pages: 352 Format: Kindle digital edition Synopsis: Following a griffin rider/mage, a mercenary and the machinations of several Red Wizards of Thay, including Szass Tam. Some power is raising hordes of undead, some not seen for centuries and invading the Kingdom of Thay. The griffin rider is the survivor of 2 attacks and becomes a de facto general in the new army raised to fight the hordes. The mercenary is trailing a band of rogue Red wizards who have taken his betrothed, along with hundreds of others, for experimentation. And the Wizards council is playing games as Szass Tam, the lich wizard, attempts the long game of taking over Thay. My Thoughts: This was pretty standard fare. There seemed to be a couple more POV's than I was used to in a Forgotten Realms book but since they all advanced the story, it made for the scope of the story to be told in a wider sense. It worked even while annoying me for not staying strictly with 2-3 characters like I am used to in a FR book. My issue [and I always seem to have at least one with any of these churned out stories] was the plot line dealing with the mercenary and his kidnapped love interest, who ends up being turned into a super vampire. His pov and adventures added nearly 1/4 of what we see and while it was necessary, the whole "love interest" part just didn't ring true. It would have worked better if the love interest was a family member instead of a love interest. And at the 90% mark, I realized I had already read the end of the story arc in the book The Crimson Gold, a stand alone book in the Rogue series. Which was kind of a downer, as the suspense is gone, but at the same time was neat as I now had a destination already in mind and I just needed to see how the author would get to there. " ( )

Unclean by Richard Lee Byers is the first book in The Haunted Lands trilogy. This book marks the second trilogy penned by Mr. Byers in the Forgotten Realms universe. The first trilogy, Year of the Rogue Dragons, finished up in 2006 with The Ruin. This novel focuses on one of the more intriguing areas of the Forgetting Realms landscape, Thay. There have been countless novels with bits and pieces about Thay, yet rarely do books focus exclusively on Thay and the subterfuge that is Thay.

The plot of this book, at times, is hard to follow and a little disjointed. The reason for that seems to be that there are many story lines and sub plots that Mr. Byers needs to get started, since this is part of a trilogy. At times, these extra sub plots take away from the main plot. There were a couple of times where I found myself just starting to get going with the main plot only to be jerked away by a sub plot. The main plot centers on what appears to be the beginnings of a civil war within Thay. Two of the sub plots are romantic in nature, which both seem artificial to me and thrown in just because there needed to be a romantic element to this story. I believe this novel would have been better off focusing on the main storyline and cutting back, what I see, as some unnecessary sub plots.

The characters in this book are the redeeming quality, to a point. Long has Szass Tam been a popular figure in Forgetten Realms lore, fans of his are finally given a book with him as a prominent character. A few other characters will be familiar to perceptive readers as well. Mr. Byers does a pretty good job at mixing the established characters in with some new ones and weaving them throughout the story. Two memorable characters are Aoth and Bareis, both are solid characters and should take this trilogy far. However, during the course of this book - there is really little to no character development with them. In the end of the novel both characters are essentially the same and haven't grown (or regressed) in any way. One would think, that given this is the first book of a trilogy the characters would have some development, but that's not the case with this one. If this was a stand alone novel, I could maybe excuse the lack of character development. However, being that it is part of a trilogy it leaves me disappointed.

My main criticisms of this novel are the forced romantic sub plots that just seemed really out of place with the overall feel of this novel. The complete lack of character development, and the many sub plots which take away from the main story arc.

I did like that this novel focuses exclusively on Thay and finally gives the fans of the Forgotten Realms a little peak into that world. I also liked the main story line seems to have good things in store. There are quite a few possibilities that Mr. Byers could use and that is exciting.

Overall, I think things balance out and this is a good to solid Realms novel. Fans who are interested in Thay will no doubt enjoy this book. I also think that fans of the fantasy genre, particularly the horror genre will enjoy this as well. If, however, you are looking for a book with a great deal of character development, then this book may not be for you. When all is said and done, I think this will advance the Forgotten Realms lore and leave many readers clamoring for more. ( )

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