Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4787 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-05
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 640 pages

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

Unoriginal, yet engaging.
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
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 Fantasy Doctor Review
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.