Author: Gail Z. Martin (Author's Site)
Book 1 Page Count: 637 pages - softcover
Book 2 Page Count: 615 pages - softcover
Publisher: Solaris
Publication Date: 2007 (book 1); 2008 (book 2)
Review originally written 4-18-2008
This review is not of a single book, but rather of two: The Summoner and its sequal The Blood King. These two books form the first part of the series Chronicles of the Necromancer by new author Gail Z. Martin. While the series looks to have at least two more forthcoming installments, these first two books manage to tell a complete story. That alone is a bit suprising. While looking over the first book, I assumed the story to be part of a trilogy. After finishing the first two novels, it is clear that Martin had enough story to fit into three books (or more), yet nevertheless managed to cram it all into two medium sized novels.
That is not necessarily a good thing. While I am glad that I was able to read the entire story of Prince Tris and his stalwart companions and not have to wait for the publication of a third book, sections of the storyline, especially in The Blood King, felt considerably rushed. In simple terms, book one had Prince Tris escape from his home country after his brother launches a coup, picking up companions along the way. Book two has Tris and all his companions heading back home to depose his brother and in doing so save the world. However, over half of the second book progresses before Tris actually heads back home. While the first half of the book continues the fairly leisurely pace that The Summoner had, the second half felt rushed. Most of the action is concentrated in just under a hundred pages at the end of the book, with the rest of the novel focused on Tris' preparations for his journey back. Because of this, the first half of the second novel is fairly forgettable.
The ending was fairly prosaic, albeit with one or two small twists that kept it interesting. I was rather suprised when all the protagonists survived. I kept expecting at least one of the group to die in the final battle against King Jared and the Mage Arontala. Had I been writing this book, I would have probably killed one or more of them, but then I like my fantasy dark. I was happy that nearly everything was concluded in the course of two novels. Just enough was left open for a third (and subsequent) novels involving the vampire clans and Dark Haven, or even concerning the other kingdoms that were only briefly mentioned in the first two books.
These novels were not perfect. Distances were an issue that continually bugged me. A simple map is included at the beginning of both novels, but it proves only minimally useful. In the first book, the included map image was so pixellated that it was unreadable. I actually had to go online to the author's website to find a higher resolution image. I do not know if this was a problem in all the books, or just in the copy I read. Luckily, the map was much sharper and actually readable in the second book. However, the map lacked any type of scale. Because of this, I never knew exactly where the group was during their journey until they reached a city marked on the map. I also kept getting the impression that the world was much larger than it actually was, once again because the map had no scale. Furthermore, all the romances in the novels were quite conventional. The moment the character Kiara was introduced, I knew she would become the love interest of the protagonist Tris. And it happened exactly as I expected. Likewise, the antagonistic relationship between Carina and Jonmarc was also fairly stereotypical for a fantasy series. However, since I classify books like this as "easy fantasy", I didn't expect much more that I got.
Regardless of my few gripes, these novels were quite good, and very easy to read. They didn't really break any new ground, but they were still diverting and fun. They were also an extremely fast read. I would open one of the books, expecting to just read twenty or thirty pages, and would end up reading two to three hundred before looking up at the clock and realizing it was the early hours of the morning. The large text size certainly helped. When the third book arrives, I expect it to be just as quick.
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