Monday 22 April 2013

Review: The Summoner by Gail Z. Martin



It was the cover and the title that caused me to buy the book. The summary on the back of the book was very promising as well. Unfortunately, the book isn’t as good as I had hoped. The story is filled with clichés and the characters aren’t so great either. 
 I found a summary of the book on Goodreads.com. It is a little different from the back of my book though:

The comfortable world of Martris Drayke, second son of King Bricen of Margolan, is shattered when his older half-brother, Jared, and Jared's dark mage, Foor Arontala, kill the king and seize the throne. Tris is the only surviving member of the royal family aside from Jared the traitor. Tris flees with three friends: Soterius, captain of the guard; Carroway, the court's master bard; and Harrtuck, a member of the royal guard. Tris harbors a deep secret. In a land where spirits walk openly and influence the affairs of the living, he suspects he may be the mage heir to the power of his grandmother, Bava K'aa, once the greatest sorceress of her age. Such magic would make Tris a Summoner, the rarest of magic gifts, capable of arbitrating between the living and the dead.

 The book pulled me in from the very beginning. The world in which the story takes place is really interesting and the learning curve isn’t too steep. I liked Martin’s writing style: it’s very fluent and she describes just enough of the world and the characters. While the plot is loaded with clichés and I already have an idea how the story is going to end, I am still curious about the other books. What annoyed me endlessly about the story was that there barely was a break from the action. The action sequences followed one another up in a very high tempo. It was as though I was reading a video game.
   The characters were very stereotypical and flat. Only one actually developed a bit during the story and there was only one character I really started to like when the story progressed. What is nice in the story, are the different points of views you get. It is really interesting to see what certain characters think of the situation.
  I have to conclude by saying that this novel feels more like a Young Adult story then a mature fantasy story. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be quite a disappointment when it’s in the rack with the other fantasy books. I would give this book 2.5 out of 5.  

source: www.google.com
 

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