Unclean

Mr Byers........first time I read your work, you were writing for White Wolf, maker of Vampire the Masquerade, your vampires were different then, more bloodthirsty, more “humane”.......years have passed, I've been able to read some vampire fiction, still yours was the best!!!

Seeing your name on Faerun, it got me so excited that, I waited 1 year to read this masterpiece, and what a story, before some authors would gloss over this particular empire/kingdom......and here you are again, undead, vampires and all those that go bump in the night.......finally the true denizens of the dark has arrived all thanks to you Sir!!!

Oh story.......ummmmmm guess you need to read it.............

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.

The first book of a trilogy on Thay and its Red Wizards, and of Szass Tam and his grab for more power. It's a decent read, but slow at times. I'm ambivalent about the book. The highlights would be the political manoeuvrings and character interactions; really well done.

It's a great overarching plot that the book kicks off, filled with assassinations, manipulations, espionage, backstabbing, blackmailing and even a war with the undead. I can't wait to see how this turns off. What I didn't like, is also because of this overarching plot and how it meshes with sub-plots.

I think the story tried to kick too many things off simultaneously. For the first half, I'm given a platter with a whole bunch of characters and not quite sure who the protagonists are. That would come in another quarter of the book, towards the end. It's not bad, it's just feels a little unfocused I suppose.

But I did enjoy reading it. The characters were excellent, even the minor ones, which was why I had trouble figuring them out. Book one most definitely isn't meant to stand on its own. It's just setting things up for the next book, and from the set up, it should be a really interesting one.