The Parched Sea

Forgotten Realms: The Harpers, Book 1

By: Troy Denning

Narrated by: Marty Moran

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

Determined to drive a trade route through Anauroch, the Zhentarim have sent an army to enslave the fierce nomads of the great desert. As tribe after tribe fall to the intruders, only a single woman, Rhua, sees the true danger - but what sheik will heed the advice of an outcast witch?

Ruha finds help from an unexpected source. The Harpers, guardians of liberty throughout the Realms, have sent an agent to counter the Zhentarim. If she can help this stranger win the trust of the sheikhs, perhaps he can overcome the tribes’ ancestral rivalries and drive the invaders from the desert.

©1991 TSR, Inc., c. 2011 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

struggled to finish.. nothing redeeming about it.

poor plot development, very poor dialogue, reasonable pacing, little investment in magic system. cannot recommend when there is so much else that is better

Narrator was awful

Story was great but the narrator was awful. If I hadn't returned the previous 3 books due to a bad narrator, I would have returned it also. I think Victor Bevine has spoilt me.

Good story, boring narration.

How in the hell did this guy get a job as a narrator? I could have read this book aloud if that's all I wanted. I'm sure he's a good ole boy but this was a boring as audio book thanks to his happy ass, lazy reading of this story.
I will black list him from any further purchases on the future. Not one single accent, not one time did he change pitch, timbre or tempo of his voice during battle. I'm confident he's very good at bedtime stories because his testing style could put a meth head to sleep. I challenge you to do better good sir. I just don't think he realizes what an action packed story sounds like.

Not what I expected and enjoyable

I had gotten tired of listening to the endless legend of Drizzt books and so wanted a change of pace. The Parched Sea is certainly that! At first I was really sceptical that the setting and characters wouldn't come together, but I'm really glad that i stuck with it. Both the story and characters are fun and interesting. The setting feels real and well thought out and the theme of the story runs true from start to finish. The weak link in the audiobook would be the narration of Marty Moran, Which isn't at all bad, several of his pronunciations I found to be a bit odd, but forgivable. He's not much of an actor, but the narration is well paced and clear. If you like this Arab/ 1001 nights style setting you might also want to check out the Al Qadim setting novels. I have no idea if they are available on audio book or not.

Where's my epic fantasy?

Would you try another book from Troy Denning and/or Marty Moran?

I was really hoping for some epic fantasy and some back-story on the Harpers. What I got was a war story about how a girl saves her people from an invading force. The reader was terrible and had unnatural pauses, poor voice differentiation between characters and a flat, unemotional sound. I don't know how anyone could have rated this piece 5 stars.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The story would have been better with more back-story on the Harpers and some epic fantasy adventure. By epic fantasy adventure I mean having a hero/heroine travel to strange new places, encounter new races or monsters, crawl through a few dungeons or ruins and save the world.

How could the performance have been better?

Hire a new reader.

Fine, but not great

This was a basic story with nothing that sets it apart from other sand based adventures. The characters are bland, plot simplistic, and dialogue boring and labored. The narrator took some getting used to, as his cadence and tone are a bit annoying until you’ve become numb to him.

I’d suggest passing on this one.

mehhhh... skip it.

Forgettable. Narrator was just okay. Id say skip this one unless you're a die hard Forgotten realms fan. Just a weak story over all.

It was ok.

It took a few chapters to get into it. I was half thinking of giving up. Probably won't do the sequel unless it changes a lot. It felt very dry. It wasn't bad, but I only really enjoyed about 10% of it.

Excellent adventure!

What a ride this was! I've never liked stories about the desert until I listened to this and now I have a thirst for it.
Zhentarim are evil and the Harper's met this evil head on. along with a witch.

Both the writing and narration is top notch!

so bad it's good?

The narrator was not monotone, which is the worst, but he often had weird intonation and breaks in the middle of sentences. It very much seemed as if he was reading the text for the first time signalling that this was an fast and cheap production. It was about what the book deserved though. The writing is very dated, kinda racist, and pretty misogynistic. The plot wasn't bad, but predictable. The characters were basic tropes and very one dimensional. As long as you don't take it seriously you can push this into "so bad, it's kinda good" category.

The first of seventeen in the series

I purchased the audio book to listen to at work and being a Dungeons & Dragons player and DM I wanted to fall into the realms, to listen and learn, of the Harper organisation and the nation of Calishman. Which is did to a point. The book was written in 1991 under TSR publications, a fantasy novel shouldn't age. The story is average, and there are the protagonists vs the enemies wishing to bring destruction of dominion over powerful, wise but disorganised tribes of the Anauroch desert. There is love, loss and small skirmishes to large battles. There is of course more to this story also, mainly the use of magic, but only just about.

This is the first novel in the Harpers Series, so for one it is a good book to read, but there is not a great amount of depth to the Harper involved. That being said, there are seventeen books in total for the series, including Ed Greenwood, so this could be a huge answer to my problem.

If I would have picked my narrator for the novel, The Parched Sea, about the deserts of Faerun, with tribes, and cut throats. I would have picked someone different. Unfortunately the narrator, you can listen to the sample to get an idea, good in his own right does not suit the themes of the story and this does at points of climatic situations, descriptions and voices get irritating having to hear a young American narrator, instead of the aged middle eastern woman we really wish to be listening to telling us the story.

In short, the book reminds me a lot of Wilbur Smiths 'Warlock' novel. Although a fantasy, TSR twist.