Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #268058 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 438 pages

MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
"This stars Isak, a young man brought up as a 'wagon brat' in a world ruled by the whims of the gods, who have been inactive far too long. Though desperate to escape the fear and abuse, Isak finds himself chosen by the god to be his world's ruler, and facing murderous rivals. A wonderful bit of world building."

Review
"It gallops along with scarcely a dull moment." (Lisa Tuttle THE TIMES )

"This first novel has good ideas and a suitably flawed hero. The world is beautifully realised, the battles suitably grim and the dragon, when it appears, is magnificent." (THE GUARDIAN )

"A fantasy with the same magnificence of conception, the same sense of looming presences whose purposes are not ours to apprehend. Fragments of old stories which stud and sometimes drive his narrative are not just there as decoration or machinery. They are there to make this world seem deeper and darker than Lloyd's gloom ridden narrative allows." (Roz Kaveney TIME OUT )

"Magical creatures and high speed action scenes... packed with detail without being too heavy. The Stormcaller shows how high the bar has been raised with its sheer vision and inventiveness." (SFX )

"As the book progresses, Lloyd's ball-juggling skills improve, and the plot becomes more coherent, his characters more convincing, and his story starts to grip. It'll be interesting to see how both author and series develop." (STARBURST )

"It is intelligently written with good characterization. Fans of fantasy will want to keep an eye out for Tom Lloyd." (CONCATENATION )

"The world that Lloyd has created seems much more real than that of most fantasy books. He has created a fantasy world that has believable politics and is inhabited by large numbers of ordinary people..." (Cheryl Morgan EMERALD CITY )

"Lloyd creates a vivid world, which gradually comes alive and promises more for the future [He] echoes writers such as Moorcock and Gemmell." (Ian Emsley INTERZONE )

"Stormcaller's magical land is far from the cosy backwater we've become so used to of late. A pretty confident first novel." (DREAMWATCH )

"This stars Isak, a young man brought up as a 'wagon brat' in a world ruled by the whims of the gods, who have been inactive far too long. Though desperate to escape the fear and abuse, Isak finds himself chosen by the god to be his world's ruler, and facing murderous rivals. A wonderful bit of world building." (MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS )

Emerald City - Cheryl Morgan
The world that Lloyd has created seems much more real than that of most fantasy books.

Customer Reviews

Guilty pleasure
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, almost as a guilty pleasure, because it is so lacking in so many areas but remains a book I couldn't put down.

Compared to say the Malazan series or a Song of Fire and Ice - this book is childish, with little character development, complex themes or underlying conflict. The plots are thin, Isak's development is very linear and formulaic, the speed of relationship development between him and his bondsmen is so fast as to be comical but it is a really really good page turner.

The addition of magical creatures almost made me give up out of embarrassment but I'm pleased I didn't, looking forward to the next chapter in the series.

Emperor's new clothes?...
I brought this book on the strength of its reviews on Amazon. About ten pages in I thought i may have bought the wrong book, by a hundred pages i was cetain! This book really doesn't merit the abundance of five star reviews that it has been given in any way.
It is quite simply not good.
The characters are all one dimensional cliches, with extremely wooden dialogue. The world-building is shallow - the world the story is set within is called "The Land" - hardly inspired creativity! And most of the places mentioned in the book aren't even on the map.
The concept of "White-Eyes" is interesting, but could have been so much better.
The book reminds me of a cross between one of my son's role plying video games and his Warhammer collection, which is o.k. if you like that sort of thing, but if you like your fantasy with interesting characters, believable dialogue and an ability to "suspend your disbelief" then this is probably not for you.
There are a lot of ideas crammed into this book - magic, elves, wyverns, minotaurs, dragons, vampires etc. really just about everything that has featured in fantasy's roll call, but none of it is given enough space or, more importantly, written well.
This book has been compared to the likes of Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch, but they are unfortunately in a different league from this book.
In short the book has an abundance of themes and ideas that could have led to an interesting read, however, it is let down quite simply by the quality of writing. It is worse than poor!

Not what is says on the tin
I bought this book because it was recommended for people who had bought Joe Abercrombie's fantastic "The Blade Itself". I like my fantasy novels and I like a good bit of storytelling. This had all the right ingredients of a good fantasy novel, although it perhaps had too many. The storytelling however was terrible. The author has obviously worked out a complex back story and history for his "Land" but the way it is presented is as if the reader should know all about it before he even reads the book. Names are just thrown in a at random, every chapter has a new character that appears once and then vanishes leaving the reader wondering who exactly is important and why. There is a lengthy appendix of names to aid in the confusion but some names are not even in there. As for the ending it justs come out of the blue, with non of the subtle clues or build up you expect from a decent author. In fact the only reason I had a slight clue as to what was happening at the end was because I read the antagonists entry in the appendix, I shouldn't have had to do that. I can't understand why there are so many 5 star reviews for this book, and the mention of gemmell on the cover as well as the quote about the bar for fantasy being raised so high, I feel conned. As one of the other reviewers says borrow do not buy.