Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Appalling September 24, 2008
Joshua Lill
I believed that to be classed as fiction, a book had to have a storyline. Is this grounds for a refund? Since clearly the "author" left out that minor part of the book along with character development etc.
 Adequate September 6, 2008
Christopher M. Hyland (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Summoner is a fun, fast read -- even at 637 pages -- with it's fair share of flaws. It's bursting with stereotypes, and reminiscent of quite a few other fantasies.
Harking back to some of the stereotypes of the fantasy genre, the good guys are all seriously attractive -- and the bad guy so unnervingly attractive (in an icy cold way) that he must be evil. There's an evil despot prince, Jared, him of the evil beauty -- brother to the hero Tris -- who had a powerful magical advisor who soon sees to it that the king is bumped off ... and is, what else, trying to summon a vastly malignant evil, The Obsidian King, back into the world, because yes, that's a good idea.
The Summoner, while not treading new ground per se, does integrate a few cool ideas. One of which is the vayash moru, essentially: vampires. I've always been a fan of those guys, but with so much stereotypical urban fantasy around, I've often thought how good it would be to have them show up in a fantasy novel. There's nothing fantastically new done with them as characters but 'twas good nonetheless. Another thing is the necromancer aspect of The Summoner, and here it does do something I haven't read that often before. Why do necromancers have to be evil just because they communicate with the dead? Well, they don't. Our hero, Tris, is one of these guys -- in fact, he is the only one at present, following the death of his grandmother, an extremely powerful Summoner herself.
Reading so many books, one after another, it's only the really memorable characters that will stay fresh in my mind -- barring another re-read -- and those, of course, tend to be the most developed, and interesting. In The Summoner, Tris was one of those, as was Kiara -- princess of another nation -- and despite the put-the-book-down-in-shock surprising fact that they inevitably fall for one another, they were to the large part good characters to read. Not that fleshed out, but better than the rest. Vahanian, even if he was the atypical Lan ... erm, soldiery type, was fun to read, too, and as the novel progressed, he definitely got more interesting.
While there is a fair bit that can be poked fun at in The Summoner, it was a very fun read, and those nigh on 700 pages flew by. It's not redefining the genre, and with the promise it showed with some of it's better ideas, it is slightly disappointing, but I did immediately -- even if it was a quick, guilty fix -- get stuck into book two, which has to say something. It's the kind of thing I'd give to someone who doesn't read fantasy that often and isn't quite so weary of the stereotypes as we might be. There was a lot of enthusiasm in The Summoner; Ms. Martin is clearly in love with her genre, which is more than can be said of some writers. Plus, I love the artwork, and on a purely aesthetic point, that counts for something!
 Unoriginal, yet engaging. July 28, 2008
Mr. G. Battle (Essex, UK)
The Summoner has been written before, many times before. Tales of royalty influenced by evil mages are two a penny. That doesn't mean they can't be fun to read though. Although this novel is low on originality it scores in the right places to build an engaging and feel good fantasy novel. A varied group of champions band together to fight a common cause, each with their own interest, be it financial, emotional or just swept up in the events. The story is reminiscent of Terry Brooks fantasy and the characters could be picked straight from Weis and Hickman fantasy novels - blend these together and you have Chronicles of The Necromancer, a fun page-turner.
Thank God it was a 'buy one get one free' book July 15, 2008
Fudge&Cider (Somerset, UK)
I bought this book because I liked the blurb on the back. Unfortunately that was the only good part about it.
The idea of the 'good' Necromancer could have been really interesting, but the story lurches from one cliche to the next via some bizarre deus ex machina characters (Gabriel for example). If you don't mind that you can tell immediately who'll shack up with whom from the moment the characters meet and that you never really need to worry whether any of the characters will make it to the end of the book, then by all means, go for it. If you want challenging fantasy with fresh ideas then you'd better save your money for something else.
A good first for Martin, war, magic, assassination and intrigue, the second promises to be even better. July 15, 2008
B.K.Price (Liverpool,England)
Despite the bad reviews about this book has got I must admit that I really enjoyed it, now if your are expecting a masterpiece of fantasy fiction then you'll be sorely disappointed, this isn't an Erikson or a G RR Martin, what is is a decent but very enjoyable first book from a novice author, the book has likable characters, plenty of magic and some good battles, overall well worth reading
The books starts with the brutal murder of Prince Martris "Tris" Drayke's whole family by his evil and power hungry brother Jared, who with the aid of the dark sorcerer Foor Arontala rests control of the throne, with luck and skill Tris and a couple of his friends manage to escape his brothers clutches. Tris heads to the country of the Principality to buy himself and army to help him destroy his brother and the evil that Foor Arontala is trying to awaken, but first he has to reach the Principality, while traveling he will fight bandits, kill assassins and escape the forces of the beast men.
I hope the review was of some help to you.
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