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The True Tree Chronicles #1
Cleansed
The world is in the grasp of the God of Chaos, whose only mantra is:Do as Thou Wilt.
When Chaos orchestrates the mass slaughter he calls The Cleansing, men and Gods alike turn to stand up against him. With the God of Chaos, the God of Death, and the God of Order clashing, their followers must face off in an epic, bloody struggle.
Dirge, an apprentice to the Brotherhood of Assassins and follower of Death, is approached by The Prophet of the forgotten God of Order. Suddenly, he finds himself at odds with all that he knows and all that will be.
Three Gods. One man – torn between what is right and what is wrong and what he's destined to do.
When Chaos orchestrates the mass slaughter he calls The Cleansing, men and Gods alike turn to stand up against him. With the God of Chaos, the God of Death, and the God of Order clashing, their followers must face off in an epic, bloody struggle.
Dirge, an apprentice to the Brotherhood of Assassins and follower of Death, is approached by The Prophet of the forgotten God of Order. Suddenly, he finds himself at odds with all that he knows and all that will be.
Three Gods. One man – torn between what is right and what is wrong and what he's destined to do.
- GenresDark FantasyFantasy
ebook
Published September 17, 2016
4 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
G.S. Scott
11 books20 followersG. S. Scott is the author of CLEANSED, CHAOS REIGNS, VOL 1: THE HAND of GOD, CHAOS REIGNS, VOL 2: THE TOWER of TIME, THE TYRANNY of GODS AND MEN, and SORROW’S HEART from the series THE CHRONICLES OF THE TRUE TREE.
Mr. Scott spent his youth, sitting in a basement playing tabletop role-playing games. It got his creative juices flowing. Characters of all types banged around in his head, demanding to be let loose into the world. And he obliged them.
G. S. Scott is active in local writing groups and is an avid gamer, with the Fallout series topping the list. He enjoys local theater with his playwright wife, Sarah. He knew she was the one when she quoted Monty Python on their third date.
G. S. Scott can be found at http://www.g-s-scott.com
Mr. Scott spent his youth, sitting in a basement playing tabletop role-playing games. It got his creative juices flowing. Characters of all types banged around in his head, demanding to be let loose into the world. And he obliged them.
G. S. Scott is active in local writing groups and is an avid gamer, with the Fallout series topping the list. He enjoys local theater with his playwright wife, Sarah. He knew she was the one when she quoted Monty Python on their third date.
G. S. Scott can be found at http://www.g-s-scott.com
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 8, 2019
Cleansed chronicles the life of Dirge, from childhood to adolescence. Orphaned at a young age, he’s taken in by Talic, the leader of the Order of the Brotherhood, assassins for the God of Death, Aza’zel. Dirge grows into a dangerous young man skilled in combat. When The Prophet of the forgotten God of Order, Ukase, approaches him, Dirge finally finds his way. He breaks with the Brotherhood to serve his new master.
His military adventures are bloody and epic. Cleansed goes into dark, scary places. It pictures lots of violent and gory fight scenes, debauchery, and casual cruelty. As the plot grows more and more complex, Dirge has to decide if he wants to lead the armies of Ukase.
I found Cleansed intriguing. It doesn't shy away from violence, but most of it served to show the grim reality of the world being torn apart by warring deities. With a strong ending and plenty of narrative hooks, it'll appeal to fans of dark fantasy.
That being said, the beginning of the book, with numerous time skips was hard to follow and tiring. As important as those events were in shaping Dirge's personality, they didn't engage me and I had to force myself through the first 25% of the book. Some scenes felt unclear (like Jacob appearing suddenly in the room with Dirge).
Overall, though, Cleansed is an interesting book, one worth trying.
His military adventures are bloody and epic. Cleansed goes into dark, scary places. It pictures lots of violent and gory fight scenes, debauchery, and casual cruelty. As the plot grows more and more complex, Dirge has to decide if he wants to lead the armies of Ukase.
I found Cleansed intriguing. It doesn't shy away from violence, but most of it served to show the grim reality of the world being torn apart by warring deities. With a strong ending and plenty of narrative hooks, it'll appeal to fans of dark fantasy.
That being said, the beginning of the book, with numerous time skips was hard to follow and tiring. As important as those events were in shaping Dirge's personality, they didn't engage me and I had to force myself through the first 25% of the book. Some scenes felt unclear (like Jacob appearing suddenly in the room with Dirge).
Overall, though, Cleansed is an interesting book, one worth trying.
April 23, 2021
Intriguing world-building, but disappointing and unclear plot
As I finished Cleansed, I had to sit back and wonder what the hell I just read. By the end of the book, I still hadn’t figured out whether there was a plot or if it was just a loosely strung-together series of events and abandoned plot threads. Each time the plot began to build in a direction, it felt like the author changed their mind, ditched it, and decided to go with something new. And it’s not that the story has plot twists frequently tossed in, it just keeps changing its course as if the book is more of a loosely related collection of short stories.
The book is a coming-of-age story for Dirge, an orphaned son of a prostitute, who apparently is predestined for some sort of greatness (though I’m not sure what exactly it will be as it changes often). As a coming-of-age story, the book spans over two decades, but this also causes additional issues with the plot. Chapters often jumped forward in time by months or even years, which made following the changing narrative even more difficult. Most of the characters and narrative hooks are also fairly cliché, so they didn’t add anything particularly interesting to help the reader keep track of the story.
Though I didn’t care for the overall organization of the book and its rambling plot, I did think individual chapters were well written. When looked at in isolation, parts of the book were interesting and enjoyable to read. I can tell the author has a talent for writing dialog, character interactions, and building suspense. The action in the series was also well done and though there were some pretty graphic descriptions of blood, gore, and unsavory actions, most were included to bring to life the dark and grim setting and show some of the more intriguing cultural aspects of living in a world ruled by chaos. I just wish the plot meshed together better and everything made sense when looking at the book as a whole.
I will also mention a warning - this book examines some primal issues concerning the nature of morality, the fickle definitions of good and evil, and it brings up some pretty existential questions surrounding religion and the worship of deities. Deeply religious people may want to avoid reading this book as they could find some of the comparisons to real-world religions disturbing or distasteful. I’m not turned off by violence either, but as Cleansed has some pretty graphic depictions of blood, gore, and some heinous, despicable acts, those triggered by such should probably avoid it.
I think one saving grace, at least for the audio version of the book, was the performance of the narrator. The narrator has some talent, able to portray a very wide range of characters with unique voices, accents, and characterizations. As I’ve said before that sometimes a good narrator can save a bad book - and though I wouldn’t say that Cleansed is a bad book, the narration certainly kept me entertained enough to finish it despite my issues with the plot. I’d certainly recommend looking up other books with the same narrating and giving them a try.
Special thanks to Sean Duregger, who provided me with this book at my request.
As I finished Cleansed, I had to sit back and wonder what the hell I just read. By the end of the book, I still hadn’t figured out whether there was a plot or if it was just a loosely strung-together series of events and abandoned plot threads. Each time the plot began to build in a direction, it felt like the author changed their mind, ditched it, and decided to go with something new. And it’s not that the story has plot twists frequently tossed in, it just keeps changing its course as if the book is more of a loosely related collection of short stories.
The book is a coming-of-age story for Dirge, an orphaned son of a prostitute, who apparently is predestined for some sort of greatness (though I’m not sure what exactly it will be as it changes often). As a coming-of-age story, the book spans over two decades, but this also causes additional issues with the plot. Chapters often jumped forward in time by months or even years, which made following the changing narrative even more difficult. Most of the characters and narrative hooks are also fairly cliché, so they didn’t add anything particularly interesting to help the reader keep track of the story.
Though I didn’t care for the overall organization of the book and its rambling plot, I did think individual chapters were well written. When looked at in isolation, parts of the book were interesting and enjoyable to read. I can tell the author has a talent for writing dialog, character interactions, and building suspense. The action in the series was also well done and though there were some pretty graphic descriptions of blood, gore, and unsavory actions, most were included to bring to life the dark and grim setting and show some of the more intriguing cultural aspects of living in a world ruled by chaos. I just wish the plot meshed together better and everything made sense when looking at the book as a whole.
I will also mention a warning - this book examines some primal issues concerning the nature of morality, the fickle definitions of good and evil, and it brings up some pretty existential questions surrounding religion and the worship of deities. Deeply religious people may want to avoid reading this book as they could find some of the comparisons to real-world religions disturbing or distasteful. I’m not turned off by violence either, but as Cleansed has some pretty graphic depictions of blood, gore, and some heinous, despicable acts, those triggered by such should probably avoid it.
I think one saving grace, at least for the audio version of the book, was the performance of the narrator. The narrator has some talent, able to portray a very wide range of characters with unique voices, accents, and characterizations. As I’ve said before that sometimes a good narrator can save a bad book - and though I wouldn’t say that Cleansed is a bad book, the narration certainly kept me entertained enough to finish it despite my issues with the plot. I’d certainly recommend looking up other books with the same narrating and giving them a try.
Special thanks to Sean Duregger, who provided me with this book at my request.
January 5, 2018
The characters and story of Cleansed completely drew me in. I had to know what would happen next - I couldn't put it down! GS Scott has created a vibrant, fascinating, and terrifying world. It's not one I would ever want to live in, but I can't wait to visit again. Scott really knows how to craft a story. A few times throughout this novel, I thought I knew where the story was going, but then it veered off in an unexpected direction. The ending blew me away! Kudos to Mr. Scott! Bring on the next book!
January 14, 2017
This story is the coming of age of a man name Dirge. We follow him from his youth within the constraints of Tuilar, leading up to his adulthood which is filled with dangers and uncertainty.
Dirge has a difficult childhood where you find yourself rooting for him to get above all of the squalor and despair he had to face. As he starts trying to find what path best suits who he is as a person, he is met with specific ideologies that fall under the three gods we are introduced to in Scott's world.
Chaos.
Death.
Order.
Dirge struggles with placing his beliefs and morals under one specific category and his journey shows the reader that the complications and situations in everyday life aren't always so black and white.
Filled with fantasy set in a dystopian time, The Cleansed has a good balance of action which is equally fueled by the development and interactions between the characters. Being the first in a series, I am interested to see where Dirge ends up and whether he will find a path best suited for him should his story continue to be told.
Dirge has a difficult childhood where you find yourself rooting for him to get above all of the squalor and despair he had to face. As he starts trying to find what path best suits who he is as a person, he is met with specific ideologies that fall under the three gods we are introduced to in Scott's world.
Chaos.
Death.
Order.
Dirge struggles with placing his beliefs and morals under one specific category and his journey shows the reader that the complications and situations in everyday life aren't always so black and white.
Filled with fantasy set in a dystopian time, The Cleansed has a good balance of action which is equally fueled by the development and interactions between the characters. Being the first in a series, I am interested to see where Dirge ends up and whether he will find a path best suited for him should his story continue to be told.
May 9, 2022
Riveting!!!
So much destruction, so many deaths & so much despair, is it wrong that I totally enjoyed it? 😂🤷🏻♀️
Seriously, this story is a fantastic dark fantasy and a brilliant start to this trilogy. The characters are clever and the story is written so that even I could easily follow along.
Author, G.S. Scott will take you on a journey of waring Gods, Clans & families. It’s hard to know right from wrong and who to trust.
This story is brilliantly performed by Sean Duregger who absolutely gets these characters. He brings us all the emotions from humor to pure evil and even sings a few ballads. Well done!!
This is book 1 in a trilogy series and the adventure continues.
I highly recommend this book.
Sisters Spotlight 💜
So much destruction, so many deaths & so much despair, is it wrong that I totally enjoyed it? 😂🤷🏻♀️
Seriously, this story is a fantastic dark fantasy and a brilliant start to this trilogy. The characters are clever and the story is written so that even I could easily follow along.
Author, G.S. Scott will take you on a journey of waring Gods, Clans & families. It’s hard to know right from wrong and who to trust.
This story is brilliantly performed by Sean Duregger who absolutely gets these characters. He brings us all the emotions from humor to pure evil and even sings a few ballads. Well done!!
This is book 1 in a trilogy series and the adventure continues.
I highly recommend this book.
Sisters Spotlight 💜
June 10, 2022
This was a dark, dystopian book with similarities between good vs evil as seen in the Bible. The people are drawn to the ways of Chaos only to find out he is the wrong deity. When the good god appears many people shun him and his purpose. I found there was so much happening I needed to keep flipping back the audio to grasp it all. Sean Dureggar was good in voicing the various male & female characters.
July 24, 2018
I was at the author's recent wedding. Great guy, this story is vastly more enjoyable than the first one. I wished there was more cross over with the first prequel book. I found the language a bit confusing as it seems to be a mix of old English and modern (profanity mostly) English. I hope the next book contains anything about trees
November 9, 2020
Well written, though the book could have used more tension in the overall plot. The characters seem to go from one day to the next and their motivations aren’t always clear.
January 4, 2019
This story follows the life of Dirge, from childhood up through his young adult years (please note, this book is NOT YA. This is adult fantasy.) After the death of his mother, he is orphaned, taken in by Talic, the leader of the Order of the Brotherhood, assassins for the God of Death, Aza'zel. Coming into his teen years, he becomes an apprentice to the Brotherhood, even though following Aza'zel never felt fully right. It is not until he meets a prophet for the God of Order, Ukase, that he finds his true purpose in life. Edis, God of Chaos has controlled the land for 500 years, turning into a bastion of debauchery and ruin and the followers of Righteousness are ready to give him the boot. Dirge leads the army into battle, but battle has its costs. One man, torn between three gods, challenging everything he has ever believed in to find his true purpose.
Onto the review, mild spoilers
I've been at a loss for a few days here, thinking about how I wanted to review this book. At its surface, it told a good story. The characters were pretty well done. (Oh Jacob, you rascal you) You felt their pains and triumphs. It was dark and gritty and after countless lighter YA reads, for me, a welcome break. Lots of gory fight scenes, romance, debauchery... really a little bit of everything. But, I feel like for every good thing this book had in its favor, there was a negative or two, to drag it back down.
The glaring ones for me, are problems I have run into with Blue Deco publishing before, and called them out on in another review, is the crap editing and formatting. I do not want to play the typo card. I am not impervious to them myself. Shit happens. We're only human, ya get my point. But this book was full of them! Enough to the point that it would jar me out of the story to have to re-read a section to make sense of it. Or come across a character's name spelled differently. (Talic vs Talik) and then I am flipping through the pages trying to figure out if it was spelled differently before. That. Shouldn't. Happen!
And the formatting... DO NOT format books this way, Blue Deco! There is actual science there as to why literary fiction books are formatted the way they are, with line indents and no spaces between paragraphs. It is all in how the eye scans across the page. This is a novel, not a blog post, don't edit it like one. It made for a slow, taxing read.
And I think the part that really cheeses me off about this is the fact that it reflects on Mr. Scott's name. He put his faith in a publisher and they gave him a lousy product. But my research has shown that Blue Deco has been involved in some shady practices lately, so I'm not entirely surprised. Still sucks.
Another thing that irked me, was the decision to start the story with Dirge as a kiddo and age him up through the first 1/3rd of the book with numerous time skips. It made it really hard for me to follow. Yes the year was given at the start of each chapter, but I really don't think I should have to math after each time skip to keep track of a character's age. This is one of those situations where I think those important character development nuggets could have been told through flashbacks and narration. Not to mention some of the ones later on that just did not make sense like this scene in chapter 16 ...
I give this 3 stars because overall, if you can look past the faults, it told a good story. I do hope it continues on someday, as I would love to hear the rest of Dirge's tale. All of the problems I had with this book are things easily fixed with a good developmental editor and a thorough proofread.
Onto the review, mild spoilers
I've been at a loss for a few days here, thinking about how I wanted to review this book. At its surface, it told a good story. The characters were pretty well done. (Oh Jacob, you rascal you) You felt their pains and triumphs. It was dark and gritty and after countless lighter YA reads, for me, a welcome break. Lots of gory fight scenes, romance, debauchery... really a little bit of everything. But, I feel like for every good thing this book had in its favor, there was a negative or two, to drag it back down.
The glaring ones for me, are problems I have run into with Blue Deco publishing before, and called them out on in another review, is the crap editing and formatting. I do not want to play the typo card. I am not impervious to them myself. Shit happens. We're only human, ya get my point. But this book was full of them! Enough to the point that it would jar me out of the story to have to re-read a section to make sense of it. Or come across a character's name spelled differently. (Talic vs Talik) and then I am flipping through the pages trying to figure out if it was spelled differently before. That. Shouldn't. Happen!
And the formatting... DO NOT format books this way, Blue Deco! There is actual science there as to why literary fiction books are formatted the way they are, with line indents and no spaces between paragraphs. It is all in how the eye scans across the page. This is a novel, not a blog post, don't edit it like one. It made for a slow, taxing read.
And I think the part that really cheeses me off about this is the fact that it reflects on Mr. Scott's name. He put his faith in a publisher and they gave him a lousy product. But my research has shown that Blue Deco has been involved in some shady practices lately, so I'm not entirely surprised. Still sucks.
Another thing that irked me, was the decision to start the story with Dirge as a kiddo and age him up through the first 1/3rd of the book with numerous time skips. It made it really hard for me to follow. Yes the year was given at the start of each chapter, but I really don't think I should have to math after each time skip to keep track of a character's age. This is one of those situations where I think those important character development nuggets could have been told through flashbacks and narration. Not to mention some of the ones later on that just did not make sense like this scene in chapter 16 ...
I give this 3 stars because overall, if you can look past the faults, it told a good story. I do hope it continues on someday, as I would love to hear the rest of Dirge's tale. All of the problems I had with this book are things easily fixed with a good developmental editor and a thorough proofread.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews