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Forgotten Realms: The Year of Rogue Dragons #1-3
The Year of Rogue Dragons
Dragons rage across the skies of the Forgotten Realms® world!
A determined dragonslayer and his rag-tag band of adventurers stumble upon a secret that the dragons have been doing their best to hide. Only after they form the most unlikely alliance, do the would-be dragonslayers and a group of rogue dragons work together to unlock an insidious curse from the farthest reaches of time in an effort to save the dragons from the curse, and the world from the dragons.
This new omnibus edition collects the novels The Rage, The Rite, and The Ruin to present the entire Year of Rogue Dragons saga under one cover.
A determined dragonslayer and his rag-tag band of adventurers stumble upon a secret that the dragons have been doing their best to hide. Only after they form the most unlikely alliance, do the would-be dragonslayers and a group of rogue dragons work together to unlock an insidious curse from the farthest reaches of time in an effort to save the dragons from the curse, and the world from the dragons.
This new omnibus edition collects the novels The Rage, The Rite, and The Ruin to present the entire Year of Rogue Dragons saga under one cover.
768 pages, Paperback
First published October 5, 2010
8 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Richard Lee Byers
198 books370 followersA resident of the Tampa Bay area, Richard spends much of his leisure time fencing, playing poker, shooting pool and is a frequent guest at Florida science-fiction conventions. His current projects include new novels set in the Forgotten Realms universe and the eBook post-apocalyptic superhero series The Impostor.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 19, 2025
The third book focused much more on traditional action and drama, and it was all done expertly, with an exciting and brilliant ending, with a genuine (and not overplayed for effect) thoughtfulness to cost that I really appreciated.
Yet, to me, Byers shines in his care of personal connections, and so those were the moments I most enjoyed.
I also need to say something. Reading this trilogy was a boost that I needed.
I really needed to be reminded of the inherent passion and vigor of TTRPGLit - just unapologetically brimming with loyalty, friendship, and togetherness, as well as flaws and failure.
One might think that having spells makes victory easier, but there are always limitations, always cost. And especially in healing—parties in these stories are almost never healed only by the spell. It requires love, focus, working past obstacles to find your party, to encourage them to live, and to administer your energy toward their recovery.
All these things: survival, healing, triumph - are all only possible because of the determination of a group who stands together. Who maintains, no matter what the odds, that many things are possible. Who doesn't give up, and not in a toxic positivity way, but in a way to look at the moment of their own death and love what they had, and think what good is still left to do in those last seconds.
A lot is focused on the individual hero in classic fantasy, but in TTRPGLit, it's the team. The party. The love. The hope. The resistance. The resilience. Feeling part of something. Knowing you might get hurt, you might not succeed, but damn that party will have your back.
And so much of that is centered around hurt, mistakes, failure, all the pain that we hide. These things are tough. These things split parties. But they can't stay split and win, and so they must unite. They must believe that even when things cannot be repaired, they can be healed.
This genre is loved by people who want peace for all and also by those who want victory for some, and it strikes me that the some side has not forgotten these lessons. I hope those fighting for equality can remember them too. LOVE. It's more powerful than any spell, any weapon, any foe, and any odds. I think we need to remember that. We try. We fail. But we heal. We find each other. We stick together. And that's how, in the moment of our death, we find peace.
And look, this is very personal. I survived on finding the gamewriting community. That's true. It's why I'm here. And like one of the characters in these books, I'm not giving up on it either.
Long live fantasy. Long live the team.
And thank you, my friend Richard, for the reminder.
Yet, to me, Byers shines in his care of personal connections, and so those were the moments I most enjoyed.
I also need to say something. Reading this trilogy was a boost that I needed.
I really needed to be reminded of the inherent passion and vigor of TTRPGLit - just unapologetically brimming with loyalty, friendship, and togetherness, as well as flaws and failure.
One might think that having spells makes victory easier, but there are always limitations, always cost. And especially in healing—parties in these stories are almost never healed only by the spell. It requires love, focus, working past obstacles to find your party, to encourage them to live, and to administer your energy toward their recovery.
All these things: survival, healing, triumph - are all only possible because of the determination of a group who stands together. Who maintains, no matter what the odds, that many things are possible. Who doesn't give up, and not in a toxic positivity way, but in a way to look at the moment of their own death and love what they had, and think what good is still left to do in those last seconds.
A lot is focused on the individual hero in classic fantasy, but in TTRPGLit, it's the team. The party. The love. The hope. The resistance. The resilience. Feeling part of something. Knowing you might get hurt, you might not succeed, but damn that party will have your back.
And so much of that is centered around hurt, mistakes, failure, all the pain that we hide. These things are tough. These things split parties. But they can't stay split and win, and so they must unite. They must believe that even when things cannot be repaired, they can be healed.
This genre is loved by people who want peace for all and also by those who want victory for some, and it strikes me that the some side has not forgotten these lessons. I hope those fighting for equality can remember them too. LOVE. It's more powerful than any spell, any weapon, any foe, and any odds. I think we need to remember that. We try. We fail. But we heal. We find each other. We stick together. And that's how, in the moment of our death, we find peace.
And look, this is very personal. I survived on finding the gamewriting community. That's true. It's why I'm here. And like one of the characters in these books, I'm not giving up on it either.
Long live fantasy. Long live the team.
And thank you, my friend Richard, for the reminder.
November 11, 2021
Let me get this straight; the entire 3-book series deserves 4 stars. I've read the individual books of the YoRD series but this review is for the 1000+ page volume. My reason for the 1-star judgment is simple; the font of text way too small. Unreadably small.
If you were to add the total number of pages of each of the three individual books, you should get a bit over 1000 pages. But the entire story of the volume is more than that since it contains two short stories, so that's another plus 80 or so pages. In the aim keeping principal costs down, since the publisher was a fucking cheap ass, the pages have been reduced down to about 770. So evidently, the only way to do that is to crush the size of the font of the text so small you'd think this was a book for ants' eyes. You see, this is why no one gives a fuck about geeks; because businesses will think geeks will lap up this kind of shit because they don't have standards. As part of a collection, this book might be "cool", but to actually read it as a physical experience? There's only one term for that; utter shitehouse.
And this goes for EVERY trilogy FR series that's been collected into a volume. Unreadable. ALL OF THEM.
If you were to add the total number of pages of each of the three individual books, you should get a bit over 1000 pages. But the entire story of the volume is more than that since it contains two short stories, so that's another plus 80 or so pages. In the aim keeping principal costs down, since the publisher was a fucking cheap ass, the pages have been reduced down to about 770. So evidently, the only way to do that is to crush the size of the font of the text so small you'd think this was a book for ants' eyes. You see, this is why no one gives a fuck about geeks; because businesses will think geeks will lap up this kind of shit because they don't have standards. As part of a collection, this book might be "cool", but to actually read it as a physical experience? There's only one term for that; utter shitehouse.
And this goes for EVERY trilogy FR series that's been collected into a volume. Unreadable. ALL OF THEM.
November 19, 2010
The Year of Rogue Dragons Omnibus by Richard Lee Byers- This omnibus contains The Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy along with two short stories. The Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy consists of The Rage, The Rite, and The Ruin. The two short stories are “The Prisoner of Hulberg”, which is found in the Realms of Dragons anthology, and “Rivals”, which is found in Dragon Magazine #343. The stories take place in the Forgotten Realms universe, which is a setting in Dungeons and Dragons. Richard Lee Byers has written a number of Forgotten Realms based books; a novel and a short story in the Sembia: Gateway to the Realms series (the short story is found in the first book of the series, The Halls of Stormweather, and wrote the third book, The Shattered Mask), wrote the first novel in R. A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen series called Dissolution, a novel in The Rogues series called The Black Bouquet, a book in The Priests series called Queen of the Depths, The Haunted Lands trilogy (Unclean, Undead, and Unholy) and he is working on finishing The Brotherhood of the Griffon trilogy (The Captive Flame, Whisper of Venom, and The Spectral Blaze). He has written other novels for various series as well as writing a number of short stories in various anthologies. The Year of Rogue Dragons Omnibus was released in October 2010 and was published by Wizards of the Coast LLC.
OVERALL AVERAGED OMNIBUS GRADE: 3/5
Final Thoughts on the Omnibus:
The Year of Rogue Dragons wasn't a very good trilogy, but it still was very enjoyable for the most part. The characters were decent. The best being Kara and Taegan, and the worse being Dorn. Dorn was this trilogies main problem. I just couldn't like him. He's constant self-loathing attitude became annoying quickly. What's worse is that he is the main character, and you have to deal with him the whole time. The story was pretty straightforward, but never really felt like it delved to deeply into the situation. When you have something as big and dangerous as the story seemed to be, it never felt like it was as big and devastating as it should have been. From reading the trilogy, it felt like it was more of a smaller scale problem than anything else. Also, it did get kind of annoying when each book pretty much went from battle to battle and fight to fight with a bit of downtime and character development. Also, something that really bothered me was all the dragons without any real descriptions and there just seemed to be way too many. The Year of Rogue Dragons really wanted to be more than it actually was. I really can't recommend, but I will say that the cover art of the omnibus is really cool and I actually am happy I picked it up.
OVERALL AVERAGED OMNIBUS GRADE: 3/5
Final Thoughts on the Omnibus:
The Year of Rogue Dragons wasn't a very good trilogy, but it still was very enjoyable for the most part. The characters were decent. The best being Kara and Taegan, and the worse being Dorn. Dorn was this trilogies main problem. I just couldn't like him. He's constant self-loathing attitude became annoying quickly. What's worse is that he is the main character, and you have to deal with him the whole time. The story was pretty straightforward, but never really felt like it delved to deeply into the situation. When you have something as big and dangerous as the story seemed to be, it never felt like it was as big and devastating as it should have been. From reading the trilogy, it felt like it was more of a smaller scale problem than anything else. Also, it did get kind of annoying when each book pretty much went from battle to battle and fight to fight with a bit of downtime and character development. Also, something that really bothered me was all the dragons without any real descriptions and there just seemed to be way too many. The Year of Rogue Dragons really wanted to be more than it actually was. I really can't recommend, but I will say that the cover art of the omnibus is really cool and I actually am happy I picked it up.
April 9, 2015
Why Richard Lee Byers does not rank up there with Ed Greenwood and RA Salvatore is beyond me. He needs that one character to catch on. In this book, he has several. This book has all of the action, magic, and of course realm shattering threats that Richard Lee Byers is known for, however this time, there is an underlying theme of accepting yourself, and making the most of who you are. It is about becoming comfortable in your skin and accepting that this is who you are and you need to make the most of it.
All that and DRAGONS!!!. The Dragons of Faerun are going mad. And Evil Lich has corrupted a mythal of ancient elven magic which is slowly driving dragons mad. Even the goodly metallic dragons are not immune to the insanity that will corrupt them and turn them loose upon the world. Enter Dorn, Will, Pavel, and Rayrn: Dragon hunters hired to save dragons? Teaming up with a beautiful bard, and a winged Elf (Avariel), they spend the next year searching for a cure.
Magic, for me, sometimes ends up as a Deus ex machina, Which is an easy fix when the writer writes himself into a corner. This was not case in this book. Magic certainly is key, but it also explores the unpredictability of magic and its unstable nature.
Dragon Lore, Humour, a quest to rival anything Tolkien could come up with, the fate of Faerun standing in the balance, unlikely flawed heroes and villains galore make this a truely epic read.
All that and DRAGONS!!!. The Dragons of Faerun are going mad. And Evil Lich has corrupted a mythal of ancient elven magic which is slowly driving dragons mad. Even the goodly metallic dragons are not immune to the insanity that will corrupt them and turn them loose upon the world. Enter Dorn, Will, Pavel, and Rayrn: Dragon hunters hired to save dragons? Teaming up with a beautiful bard, and a winged Elf (Avariel), they spend the next year searching for a cure.
Magic, for me, sometimes ends up as a Deus ex machina, Which is an easy fix when the writer writes himself into a corner. This was not case in this book. Magic certainly is key, but it also explores the unpredictability of magic and its unstable nature.
Dragon Lore, Humour, a quest to rival anything Tolkien could come up with, the fate of Faerun standing in the balance, unlikely flawed heroes and villains galore make this a truely epic read.
June 2, 2015
Dragons are going mad in Faerun. The Rage, a mysterious malady affecting even the most noble of these creatures, has returned. Out of the chaos emerges a group of unlikely heroes. A bitter, mangled dragon hunter, a lovely shape-shifting Song dragon, a roguish winged elf and their companions must band together to find a cure. Blocking their every step is a shadowy cult. Will these heroes discover the cult's goals in time to stop them? Or will the Year of Rogue Dragons never end?
Richard Lee Byers' trilogy is a fascinating immersion into the Forgotten Realms. Readers are taken on a journey to corners of this world filled with raucous cities, dangerous ruins, powerful mages, and, of course, dragons. Byers explores dragon culture and magic in enough detail to satisfy the most rabid of fans. His stakes are high and the plot never left me bored.
Unfortunately, amidst all the wonderful setting and plot, characters suffer. There were just too many. The ones I truly wanted to connect to were often brushed aside in favor of less interesting protagonists. Add to this a villain who is overshadowed by his own minions and you have a trilogy that falls short of excellence.
Still, The Year of Rogue Dragons was an entertaining read and I recommend it to dragon fans everywhere.
Richard Lee Byers' trilogy is a fascinating immersion into the Forgotten Realms. Readers are taken on a journey to corners of this world filled with raucous cities, dangerous ruins, powerful mages, and, of course, dragons. Byers explores dragon culture and magic in enough detail to satisfy the most rabid of fans. His stakes are high and the plot never left me bored.
Unfortunately, amidst all the wonderful setting and plot, characters suffer. There were just too many. The ones I truly wanted to connect to were often brushed aside in favor of less interesting protagonists. Add to this a villain who is overshadowed by his own minions and you have a trilogy that falls short of excellence.
Still, The Year of Rogue Dragons was an entertaining read and I recommend it to dragon fans everywhere.
February 4, 2014
This trilogy was well written and quite a good read. The characters and plot are very intriguing and exciting. Because of the heavy use of dragons and magic, I would recommend it to those who are REALLY into that stuff. Now, there are two big drawbacks to this book that the author could have done differently, but even with those problems I still enjoyed it and if someone had warned me of them ahead of time, it would have been even better. One problem is a lack of creativity in certain situations (small battles), but the author does excel in writing gripping large battles. The other big problem is the main character's excruciatingly slow development.
For a more detailed review of all three books, go to http://drembic.weebly.com/book-advent... (posted 2-1-14)
Disclaimer: These reviews are not posted for any compensation. My only goal is to help others find books worth reading and avoid books that have issues.
For a more detailed review of all three books, go to http://drembic.weebly.com/book-advent... (posted 2-1-14)
Disclaimer: These reviews are not posted for any compensation. My only goal is to help others find books worth reading and avoid books that have issues.
February 7, 2024
I read this back in high school, or maybe shortly after that. It's a fun, simple read that is full of Dragons, and a quest. It has become the standard by which I measure all Dragon-based books, and has yet to be topped. The reason being is the distinct races of Dragons, and how they behave differently from one another.
The main character Dorn can be a bit of a downer at times, but he doesn't ruin the overall experience. Read this series if you are looking for a book chock full of Dragons.
The main character Dorn can be a bit of a downer at times, but he doesn't ruin the overall experience. Read this series if you are looking for a book chock full of Dragons.
April 15, 2011
An absolutely amazing trilogy. Never at a loss for action, with a battle in almost every chapter. This book is definitely not at a loss for dragons, it has them in just about every variety possible. I also like how it used material from the D&D games, particularly Draconomicon, without being to heavy handed.
December 22, 2011
Good fun and indeed lots of dragons but somehow the characters blur and the dragons seem more petty than majestic.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews