Unclean

Thay is one of my favorite parts of the Realms, and when i saw they are giving it a whole trilogy, which really delves into the future of Thay, i was really excited. Then i saw they gave it to Byers, and my eagerness turned into disappointment. I personally consider Byers one of the weakest Realms authors, who pumps up his word count with one pointless battle after another. Year of Rogue Dragons is a testament to that statement. To be fair, Byers is capable of writing a good book and The Shattered Mask: Sembia: Gateway to the Realms, Book III (Forgotten Realms) proves it. So, with those mixed emotions i started reading this novel. And im really happy i gave it a shot. This novel is everything i expect a big-scale epic fantasy novel to be. Many subplots, many interesting characters, big epic (yet not boring and pointless) battles, and even some tragedy. Seems that the Wizards gave their authors some more breathing space, so now more often then not we see shades of gray, which is a welcome change from the boring good vs evil concepts we all reread a million times over. To put it simple, there are no heroes in this book, and that is what makes it big. Also there are no annoying characters, and that is a miracle lately. I really have no complaints about the novel. I see a lot of people criticizing two romances in the novel, but to be honest i dont see anything wrong with them. They dont take too many pages, and they arent cheesy at all. I really dont understand what is the big deal with them. A must-read for every Realms fan, and a highly reccomended book for a casual fantasy reader. Cant wait for the next installment.

Richard Lee Byers is an excellent author. In my opinion, he is the one of the best authors to write a forgotten realms book, second only to Salvatore, but obviously out to challenge him. His writing style is high in action, and full of vivid description. Not once in this book did I want to put it down, and I found that I couldn't read it when I went to bed or I wouldn't get any sleep. The book is set in the country of Thay on Faerun. Thay is ruled by a council of mages called Zulkirs, each Zulkir being the leader of his form of magic. Slavery is a common practice everywhere in Thay and the zulkirs themselves view everyone else as mere pawns at best. The book begins with the murder of one of the zulkirs and a failed attempt to invade a neighboring country by an army of Thay. These two events set up a general feeling of turmoil that sets the tone of the situation in the country. The two heroes of the book are Bareris, and Aoth. Bareris is a skilled Bard just arriving home after six years of adventuring abroad, and Aoth is a wizard member of the Griffin Legion, doing his duty and nothing more, except what happens in the privacy of the tavern. We find out about Bareris's love selling herself into slavery only two tendays before and Aoth develops a love during the course of the book. The situation between Bareris and Tammith, his childhood love drives Bareris to discover one part of the mystery behind this book. Aoth on the other hand discovers a force of undead on a rampage and becomes part of the army to fight against them. Eventually we are introduced to Malark, a monk. Malark is not motivated in the same way as Aoth and Bareris, but I won't reveal anything about him except to say that he becomes a more important character as the book progresses. Finally, Bareris is introduced to Mirror, a ghost that is thousands of years old, and our four heroes are united in the civil war that is brewing in Thay. Byers is an amazing writer using a great combination of known creatures and original creatures in this book. He also uses organizations familiar to those of us that know about the realms. For example, the monks of the long death. In this book, we see an excellent use of a well known character of the realms when Byers uses Szass Tam. Szass Tam is as ultra powerful, polite, and evil as ever in this book. If you aren't familiar with these people, creatures, or organizations, a little `wiki' research will fill you in on such things. This book is excellent, and everything about it makes me want to read the rest of the series. I seriously recommend this book to anyone that likes fantasy horror, or is a realms fan. Unclean is just the beginning and I want to read the whole series.

I had a bad attitude about this novel after reading the reviews but I bought it to get supersaver shipping on some other books. I really like the characters (no "good guys") and story. If you are bored with the typical fantasy plots, try this. Looking forward to future novels in the series.

Richard Lee Byers, Unclean (Wizards of the Coast, 2007) I have to admit that with a very few exceptions, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books since the first six Dragonlance books have been a guilty pleasure at best; unless one of the best of TSR's (now WOTC's) stable of writers-- Bob Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, Weis and Hickman-- was at the helm, I knew I could expect all the trappings of genre writing without any real strong points to distinguish the book in question. Even some "name" writers, on their way up (Laurell K. Hamilton) or on their way down (Gene DeWeese, who wrote the wonderful Something Answered way back when) turned in substandard AD & D books. It got to the point where I stopped following AD & D series altogether. All of them. Then, through some agency I no longer recall, I started hearing the name Richard Lee Byers, and how he was going to be the guy who put AD & D novels back on the map. I heard it enough that when I found out he had a new Forgotten Realms trilogy starting, I decided to pick up the first one and see if there was any substance behind the smoke. Boy oh boy, is there. I grant you, this is still very much genre writing, but it's good genre writing. Byers manages to integrate game mechanics into his story without it being annoying, something a lot of writers over the years who wrote for TSR/WOTC never managed to do (and, perhaps more annoyingly, many others simply tossed the rules out the window and went their own way). But that is far from the only thing about Unclean that impresses. The story centers on Thay, the mysterious home of the Red Wizards, and the lives of a number of disparate personages therein. For those unfamiliar with the Forgotten Realms, a quick overview: Thay is ruled by the eight most powerful Red Wizards, known as Zulkirs. The book opens with one of them, Druxus Rhym, getting killed after an attacker slips into his heavily-fortified house. This, understandably, worries the other zulkirs. Szass Tam, the ageless zulkir of Necromancy and first among equals, orders an investigation into the death. Meanwhile, he's also discovered an unsanctioned raid into neighboring Mulhorand, saved the Thayan troops (who got ambushed), and concocted a story with their leaders to put a good spin on what would have otherwise gotten them executed. As if that's not bad enough, throngs of undead bent on overtaking the country are marching out of the Sunrise mountains to the west. What's an omnipotent zulkir to do? And I've only touched on the tip of the iceberg. There are also subplots about a bard coming home to marry his childhood sweetheart only to find she's sold herself into slavery, intrigue in the Flame Temple of Kossuth, a spy who may be older than Szass Tam himself, a demonic fetus (yes, you read that right), and much, much more. Byers has a lot of balls in the air here, and while it would be overstating the case by a long, long way to say that this is as good as Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Bye

What happens when a young bard returns home to find the lover he left gone? What would you do if you saw your entire regiment slaughtered by the undead? If an undead lich made a grab for control of your country, even if that country is the notoriously self-serving Thay? It is these questions that Richard Lee Byers' new Forgotten Realms book, Unclean: The Haunted Lands Book 1, attempts to answer. Byers continues to show his writing prowess in the shared world arena, by tackling a difficult topic in the Forgotten Realms world, the undead. Traditionally seen as evil through and through, represented usually as vampires or zombies, skeletons, ghosts and ghouls, Byers has developed the character of these, added to their ranks new creatures and moved beyond the hack/slash utility of the traditional monsters. The story follows two characters. Braeris is a bard of Thay, just returned from making his fortune, only to find his true love has sold herself as a slave to pay her father's debts. Aoth is a griffon rider with magical ability serving in the army of one of the tharchions of Thay. He is the sole survivor of the first attack of the army of undead that appears out of the Sunrise Mountains. The story moves between these two characters as they pursue separate quests that will eventually lead them to each other. Braeris seeks his lost love, whose haunting words can be found on the blurb on the back cover, and Aoth seeks to serve his tharchion (a selfish and stupid person) while also attempting to destroy the army of undead. Meanwhile, Szass Tam, lich and zulkir of Thay, seeks to use the events to his own advantage. The story is an excellent sword and sorcery romp. Byers is one of the better authors in the Forgotten Realms and his experience in writing horror fiction for other publishers serves him well here. Who better to delve into the intricacies of the minds of the undead than a horror writer? The plot is fast-paced and rarely sits still. There is an excellent build-up of events that lead to a climax that, while expected, doesn't fail to excite. This is the first book in a trilogy so the ending, while good, doesn't complete the story, and the reader will anticipate the future books eagerly. Byers does have one major flaw in his writing. He lacks the ability to make the love story subplots truly empathetic. What I mean is the love plots in the book that concern both Braeris and Aoth seem tacked on. Although the love interests do play important roles in the story, especially for Braeris, the reader will find himself unable to truly feel that the character finds it important. While it might move the plot along for a time, the love stories simply lack any real emotion, and at least one of the characters about face in emotion seems a little unreal, although perhaps explicable in context (which I won't give here for fear of ruining the plot.) Ultimately, if you are a Forgotten Realms fan, you will enjoy this book. If you are a fan of the recent trend in