3 1/2

This book is marketed as "the beginning of a new adventure set in the world of the Chronicles of the Necromancer". It both is and isn't.

For the ways that it is, we are introduced to a few new characters, threats, and concepts which we haven't seen before. We also see more of the Winter Kingdoms, as the new threat is against the entirety of the Kingdoms as opposed to being internal issues, as the previous books were.

Another way in which this feels like a new adventure is that this book is primarily information gathering and set-up. Not a lot happens, per se, in the sense that everything that does happen is either informational or sort of placing the pieces of the board for where they need to be for the big battle. Still, I was never really bored, which, for me, seems a rare feat - especially when it's mostly a lot of talking heads, with a few exceptions.

That said, I do have two main gripes:

1) This book is broken into multiple perspectives - 5, if I remember correctly - and they are in different places in the Kingdoms, so they're all gathering their own information; however, most of the information ends up being along the same lines, while it's realistic that different groups of people in different parts of the world would have to investigate things on their own and learn, generally, the same things, it becomes a bit repetitive when you're reading this happen in book form.

Luckily there are variations to the information, particularly in the gathering of the information (i.e. different types of magic, and a few quick and dirty battles), and this part, at least, added to the interest level.

2) Again with the perspectives, there's not really a lot of character development in this story, and you have a hard time really connecting with any of the characters, because a lot of what they're feeling comes from earlier stories and, also, one you get settled into a character/group the perspective switches and you're taken to a different group.

Now, I have a fondness for these characters, including ones like Carroway or were sadly underused in this book, but that fondness was grown over the last four books, in which the characters did grow and in which we saw much more of them as individuals. (I did like the addition of Jair and, especially, Talwyn and her magic to the mix, too.)

Which brings to me how this book is not the start of a new adventure. Or, at least, not a good place to jump into the series.

The "prologue" of the book is really just a 5 page summary of the first four books, to give the new reader an idea of what happened before - but it's not nearly enough, I don't think. It's useful for me, an old reader, to sort of jog my memory, but there's so much information dumped so quickly, I can't imagine it would actually be particularly useful.

Also, a lot of characters and events of those first four books are referenced, often with little "reminder blurbs", sometimes with enough information to help new readers, but not enough to really get a feel for the characters or what they went through before.

Since I'm a very character based reader, I think if I came into this book without reading the other four I would be very disappointed on that score, because almost everything about these characters comes from stuff that happened before, and, without that knowledge, it would be hard to connect with any of them based on the scant interaction you have with them here.

Not to mention reading this book is spoilerific for the four that came before it.

So, in some ways it is the start of a new adventure - or, at least, the introduction of a new threat. But I still don't think it's a good starting point because I don't think you'd really care so much if you didn't know everything which had come before.

As the fifth book in a series, and the start of a new arc, it's very good. I wish it were a bit better, and a bit less repetitive in places, and that we, perhaps, lingered on my favored characters, but, alas, there's a lot going on, so I guess we gotta go along to get along, as it were.

All-in-all, I enjoyed it but it wasn't the best in the series, since it was mostly set-up, and I do hope the next one's better. And I recommend that anyone who picks this up and is interested in it goes back to the beginning and starts with The Summoner. You'll thank me for it later. ;)