Stormcaller

The Age of Dawn #1

by Everet Martins

Librarian's Note: This is an alternate-cover edition for ASIN B00PHLAGV0 — Stormcaller

Everet Martins introduces readers to the fantastical world of Zoria, a land of volcanos and carnivorous plants.

10,000 years have passed since Asebor was sealed during the first Age of Dawn. The power binding this malevolent god has finally waned, allowing him to once again beat the drums of war.

Men worship the Phoenix and Dragon gods. Some are fortunate enough to touch their essences, transforming ordinary women into fearsome warriors and men into miraculous healers.

The beginnings of the next scourge brushes the town of Breden, where Walter, son of elixir bean farmers, itches for adventure only to discover the harsh brutality of combat.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Amazon

699 pages, ebook

First published November 10, 2014

About the author

Everet Martins writes stories of the fantastic. His first foray into the published realm is Stormcaller. It has the type of visceral action and fun he had always dreamed fantasy could be.

Living in New Hampshire, Everet finds inspiration for his books within his exciting life. He has always loved getting lost in role-playing games and novels. In his youth, he was notorious for being found with his face lost behind the cover of a book. Fascinated by the written word and always wanting to try putting pen to page, he started writing short stories, and eventually a novel.

As a young boy he was exposed to the rigors of martial arts and continued to practice them throughout his adult life, dabbling in various styles. The love for physical fitness morphed into other bodily challenges such as strength training and long distance running.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, it was a nice escape into a unique "universe".

[Leslie OBrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I generally enjoy an engaging fantasy story and Everet Martins’ “Stormcaller” was no exception. In fact, one of the things I enjoyed most about it was the use of language. To be clever enough to turn a good phrase can be a difficult task for most writers, but Martins takes it to a new level and I found his use of language surprising and refreshing. I admit that I do get tired of reading elementary level content and to find a story that caters to more sophisticated readers was a great find.

Or rather, he found me because the author did offer me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve been lucky in that my recent story forays have resulted in some seriously good quality content in a variety of genres, which happily feeds my greedy reading self. And to come across a fantasy novel that fills an empty slot in my library is a great find.

Warning, this IS book one. There are more books in this series and the first one does leave you hanging, compelling you to want to continue.

[Jarod · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this one. It seemed like a good idea for a fantasy novel. I read 7 or 8 chapters and gave up. The main word that comes to mind to describe this book is awkward. The word choices and some of the descriptions and are awkward. The dialog was also awkward with modern phrases being used along with cultural slang that seemed out of place and forced.

The story telling is rough with descriptions being crammed in and other descriptions of the location and people left out leaving the reader wondering who these people are. After the chapters I read I was still mostly in the dark about the land the characters inhabited and their culture and the organization of the civilization.

The story has potential, I just think it needs polishing.

I received this book free as part of the Goodreads First Reads.

[William · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was not a good book. The parts of it that were familiar were either blatant lifts from other fantasy stories or jarring attempts at fantasy analogs for elements of our society. The parts of it that were unique did not serve any real purpose by being unique - they were weird for the sake of weirdness. The whole book felt rushed. The characters did not have truly distinct voices, and it would be generous to describe them as two-dimensional. People trust too quickly, flail too wildly in their emotions, and generally do not act believably.

The main benefits of this book are its ease of reading and the fact that it is short; I did not waste a lot of time reading it. It was not painful to read, either. I would rather reread this a dozen times than try to make it through The Catcher in the Rye again, once.

[Pieter V Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sword and Sorcery

Very good story, lots of violence, interesting characters, and a rapidly moving plot. How can you go wrong with the resurrection of an evil god.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story, the characters are simple but not idiotically simple, they have a background but it is just enough, the beginnings are kind of boring, first few chapters are too descrptive for my taste, but once you get past them you get really sucked in by the plot. It icks me wrong how the MC ignores the book and one or two things more, probably for the next book in the series. I still dont get what are the "demons" but they are evil or corrupted, i like that the book does not mess too much with the religion of dragon and phoenix and make it a background and unimportant factor for the story.

i was thinking more like 3 1/2 stars but GR does not allow those.

all in all its a funny story with enough jokes and hearthwarming stuff all arround to have a good time reading it, i read it in arround 5 hours.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was asked to do a review of this, so here goes.

Great storyline overall. I can't wait to read the next one to enjoy the further adventures of the heroes. I noticed a few homages to other works of literature, or maybe I just read more into it than was meant. Like the sign in the Sid-Ho dojo with the five sayings, representing the five factions in Divergent. As always, magic and dragons are always great for a storyline, but throw in a Phoenix and you have a real winner. Basic plot, young backwater individual is the one fated to end the evil that has arisen from its prison. But I believe the path to that information is what makes the tale interesting. So, as I said at the beginning, I can't wait to read the next installment in this adventure.

[[ J o ] · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author really had not a lot of idea on how to write a novel. She deigns to expose all of the protagonists features in one sentence, labelling his eyes as "emerald". Also thinking there was such a thing as "morning supper". I care not to get past even the first few chapters.

[Israel Leon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This dark bloody fantasy read is good start to the series. Stormcaller was very fast paced and easy to read. I love the cover of the book which I believe is Walter. The Cerumals and Black Wynch were creepy creatures. I liked the Shroomlings who were tiny humanoid mushroom head creatures. I loved the characters with the exception of two namely Casey, the chef from Breden and Mar, who kidnapped Walter and Juzo and attempted to eat them alive. I hope to see more of the villain, Asebor in the next four books. And I hope to learn more about the magic system.
Spoilers....

I loved Walter's character and it was sad when he lost his training master, Noah from the Sid-Ho dojo and his parents, Aiden and Isabelle by the monsterous creatures called Cerumals. Juzo is Walter's best friend and he seemed to be a natural fighter. When Juzo and Walter escaped from Mar and encountered Cerumals underground and they defeated it and Walter found gauntlet lash which he names Stormcaller. Juzo obtains the blade Blackout and he was then captured by Asebor devastating Walter. It would have been nice to have seen Juzo being tortured by Asebor since Juzo barely appeared in this book. Lillian and Bayland cross paths with Walter and they join him on his way back to Breden however, they encountered more of the monsterous beasts and after the fight; Walter puts on the armor from the fallen Cerumal which was cursed. I thought Walter was going to turn completely evil by the end of the book but good thing he didn't. Casey gets killed by Walter after realizing he caused the town to be sick and him capturing children from orders from Asebor. Bayland attempted to free Walter from the armor but it back fires causing his hand to burn down to a stump. Lillian gets killed by a horde of Cerumals. Walter reunites with his crush, Nyset and while fighting Cerumals and the Black Wynch learning Nyset has the power of the Dragon just like him. Baylan and Walter discover that Walter has the power of the Dragon and Phoenix. Walter and his friends head to Midgaard to free him from the cursed armor, then stop at Soldiers Way where they meet a young man named Grimbald and a man named Charles. Grimbald accompanies Walter and his friends to Midgaard as he wants to be a soldier in the Midgaard's Falcon army. They meet Baylan's friend, Malik a wizard and with Baylan's help they work to free Walter from the armor which is turning him into a Cerumal. Walter has an encounter with Asebor however, he manages to beat him although bloody and weak. Walter wakes up and realizes he is freed from the armor. Lastly, Juzo is tortured by a frail man named Uglyfuck later revealed that his name is Terar while in The Nether and Juzo's eyes turn blood red.

[Everet Martins · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Camilla Hansen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I honestly don't know where to start.

How did I finish this? It had the typical chosen one plot with a Mary Stue as a main character, badly fleshed out sidecharacters, and stiff dialogue with lots of exposition.

I don't even..

[Henry Tova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novel with lots of fantasy and cool characters! Would read again.

[Harris Guilmette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too Slow

For ME, way too much verbiage for so little plot movement.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before I start, I'd just like to say that I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is going to be pretty in depth and is going to be very spoilery, so for those of you who read some reviews before you decide to read the book, who are probably all 'Jesus, Kristen, just tell me if the damn book is good':

tl;dr - It's good but not great. You should give it a try at least. You never know!

And now for the more in depth bit. :) Spoilers abound!

Firstly, this book is quite short, and this is not at all a detriment (to me). Long ago, when I first started reading fantasy, I started with Lord of the Rings, and then Wheel of Time, and then the Sword of Truth and Shannara. What this means is that in my brain when I pick up a fantasy novel on my kindle and have no reference to how 'thick' it is, I always assume that it is a thousand page long epic romp through seventy different countries. Not so, here. I finished it in a day, which for me lately, is quite impressive. We go from one town, to another town to a city. Phew. Easy. The language is simple, and while it does seem to be half modern and half not modern, overall the entire book was an easy read, and I'm okay with that sometimes. There also weren't any very glaring spelling or grammatical errors. That was also nice.

Like other reviewers have pointed out, it does have many of the same tropes that a lot of fantasies share. The seemingly normal farmboy/smith's apprentice/sheep herder finds himself on a quest to smite the evil god/demon/fiery eye on top of a tower/his dad or uncle or grandfather/dragon, because he is special/chosen/uniquely gifted/can use both sides of the power/magical and didn't know it until omigod, right now (OMG!). He is totally a master of his new-found skill immediately because he's been training for years/naturally gifted/a voice in his head teaches him, so it's all good! Along the way, he ends up picking up a ring/dagger/ceremonial knife/necklace/armor/sword which corrupts him, and makes him a total dick to the seemingly normal farmgirl/innkeeper's daughter/herb gatherer that he's had a crush on for his entire life, and his lifelong best friend and/or crush gets kidnapped by the evil whatever, so he has to save him/her, so he and his new best friends/allies/dude he met in the pub go on a grand adventure!

This could be a summary of any number of fantasy novels, and so the fact that they share tropes doesn't always mean that the story is bad, if the novels are, in fact, enjoyable to read. I thought this one was good. It kept me interested, at least.

I have a few criticisms, and I'll try to explain them as best I can:

-It feels a bit 'thin' in parts. What I mean by this is that it sort of skips from event to event with nothing in between. We go from one day to the next or one place to the next without anything to segue the transition. This happened at our starting point, then this happened further down the road, then this happened aaaand we're at our destination five days later. It felt more like a series of events that were written down in the order that they happened than a story, sometimes. Then, it just sort of... ends. Very abruptly. Annoyingly so.

-A character was introduced and then, uh, un-introduced like two chapters later, and I did not really care. I don't feel like Walter cared either. Hell, Baylan seemed to get over it pretty quick and he was supposed to care. Never found out why exactly, but there was obviously something there that I was never let in on and wish I was. Baylan and Walter are BFFs after two days. Nyset and Walter go off on an adventure into the mountains for an entire day without telling anyone and nobody notices, even the people who are staying at his house. People die left right and center, and everyone just seems to shrug it off after very little time, with a few exceptions. The characters' relationships with others need a bit of work.

-Characters are described almost matter-of-factly, and some of the descriptions just don't seem to flow well with the story. Walter is tall and blond with emerald colored eyes, one sentence in the first chapter pointed out, but twenty chapters later I have no idea how old this kid is. Sixteen? Eighteen? I had a hard time visualizing anyone, really. I know what kind of shoes Baylan wears but I can't remember what he looks like. Things like that. Character development needs a bit of work too.

-There's cannibal murder-rapists camping outside your town, and a pedophile murder-rapist living in your town kidnapping kids left right and center. That's an obscene number of murder-rapists to run into randomly in a two day period in a rural area. This is me being nitpicky, but dude.... god. dayum. >.>

All and all, like the tl;dr says, it's good. It has a lot of potential as a story, and the idea is totally there. With a bit of polishing and some more development, it could be great.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This first book in a series shows considerable promise. Martins' writing style is simple but reasonably engaging. My only real issue is with his inclusion of some modern slang which jars quite badly against the high fantasy setting he has chosen. I believe it to be a deliberate attempt to make the story more readable to the younger demographic, but to me it's somewhat distracting. It's not that the words themselves are poorly used, but that there is no frame of reference for their being used in that way inside the world, even if it were as simple as attributing it to a book or a person.

In terms of plot, Stormcaller is a textbook fantasy opener, a seemingly ordinary young man with a certain amount of wanderlust discovering that he is not so ordinary after all. That may not seem terribly original, but origin stories are practically a necessity in this media day and age where every detail is explained for the consumer, and classic plots are classic precisely because they continue to resonate with readers and viewers. The mythology introduced and built on in the course of the story is solid so far, and much more has been hinted at ready for sequels.

The characters are much the same, classic roles have been filled, from the adventurous, unwary protagonist to the unlucky childhood friend to the beautiful girl next door love interest. What makes Martins' characters stand out in their own way is the way that he has unfolded their back-stories. I felt that he struck just the right balance between being economical and giving enough detail for them to seem real and believable. I do, however, have to criticise their apparent lack of reaction to what goes on around them. A prime example is the death of a character in the story, which is basically shrugged off by everyone, even the person that character was introduced alongside. Also the protagonist says and does some very reaction-worthy things that no one bats an eyelid to. This is justifiable in the long run, since they are aware of the situation causing his actions, but I feel like there should have been some immediate reaction followed by later understanding rather than it being taken in stride.

The setting is where I felt this book performed the worst. It seems likely to me that Martins has done a significant amount of world-building in his head (he's even generated world-specific names for the books on people's shelves), but very little seemed to show through in the story. The geography of the story was nebulous at best, and the maps at the start are a definite necessity to give any sense of where the characters were and where they were going. Also descriptions of the landscape were, I felt, too minimalist. It was difficult to really picture a lot of the landscape in my head, especially town-buildings.

Overall though, I found this an entertaining read, and I intend to go on to the sequels at a later date. I would recommend it for a few hours entertainment.

[Roman Santoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that Everet contacted me to read and review this book, so lets get that out of the way...
As for the review proper, let me say that there are many things that this book does well:
- Characters can feel a little bit generic at first, but you can see their growth as the story develops, which is great.
- Even though there are many elements that may seem taken from other series, let's be honest, there are not that many new things to do in this genre, but not all great books are revolutionary, some great books do the little things right, like this one does.
- The universe and lore on this universe may be darker than most fantasy books, but it is rich and makes you want to know a little bit more.
- Really good ending.
On the other side, there are a couple things that could be worked on:
- The use of language is strange, the mix between the usual flowery language and common day expressions/swear words takes a bit away from the immersion from the world (this may just be me, but I felt that it should be mentioned).
-Some parts of the plot seemed a little bit rushed (denoted mostly on the short/nonexistent mourning of some characters after passing away).
However, If I have to qualify this book, I will give it a 4/5, simply because it works as a good start for a really interesting universe, which will keep me hooked for many hours.
If you like fantasy, this book won't let you down.

[xenofixus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty enjoyable read. I liked the plot and the characters. I like the overall world (so much as it is described) and the lore. There are a couple key points that make this a 4/5 and not a 5/5.

First, the characters. While I liked them I felt that there wasn't much growth. That isn't to say that the characters are uninteresting or cliché but I felt like the events of the story were not accurately impacting how the characters acted. I can't say what I would change but I feel this will get better in the next book.

Second, the world building. I felt like more was described about the physical description of the world in the book description than in the actual book (slight exaggeration but hopefully this conveys my meaning).

Third, the length. This is a minor gripe but the stopping point felt like the end of a chapter rather than the end of the book.

Overall I enjoyed it and will be reading book 2.

[Alexis Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everet Martins contacted me in order to review this book. I dedicated an afternoon to reading Stormcaller (as that is really all the time you need) and found myself struggling to find the right "Mindvoice" to read it in due to extremely awkward phrasing and jolting/bumpy sentences. The biggest issue was, once I finally managed to start reading in earnest, the story was over!

I am not saying anything about the storyline itself, though others have obviously mentioned that a lot of the tropes aren't exactly original, but I think if more time were spent on the writing of the thing I would have enjoyed it far more regardless of where I'd heard what where in the past.

I'll definitely read the sequel, I'd like to give this series the chance it deserves.

[Leila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading this book again after initially reading and leaving a review for it last year. I also intend to re-read the following three again although at the time of my first reads I did not list them here - I begin Everet's fifth book which looks especially wonderful. They are the very best books I have read in a very long time in this genre. I recommend this young author enthusiastically and confidently for all epic fantasy lovers. His books have just got better and better. Don't miss them. He has I am sure a great future!

[Janet Arroyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to thank Everet Martin's for my free e-book of "Stormcaller " in exchange for an honest review. This book was a little on the dark side. This is a true good verses ultimate evil. The characters were amazing. I could visualize their towns. Boy, I know I definitely could use a cup of the red berry elixir. There is definitely plenty of action, adventure, suspense and magic. Due to some of the content I would recommend readers be late teens or older. It's a great read and a series. I can't wait to read the next book!

[David Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stormcaller, by Everet Martin's, is my ninety-sixth book that I have received and read from Goodreads. This novel for me was a little hard to read and understand the characters of the story. The word choices and the descriptions were somewhat awkword. I thought that the way the author told the story was a bit on the rough side. This story just needs tweeted a bit, and added a little more to it.

[Ron Sturm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this book for free for reviewing it.

I though this book was very interesting and also fast paced once i got past the first chapter. A great story line and good character development, but with a few to many descriptive words / adjectives in the first chapter. But as i continued reading the rest of the story the story snagged me and i enjoyed it a lot!

The story has great potential, I think it may have needed a bit more proof reading.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Left Me Wanting More

Excellent start to a new fantastic adventure with interesting cha caters and all new monsters and magic. Something unique is going on in this world and I'm anxious to find out what it is. Quite exciting.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome!

What a great read! I devoured this book as quickly as possible. Great action, balanced with romance. Fully developed characters, not only limited to just the protagonist. Really looking forward to what comes next! Highly recommended!

[Marielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate books that end in the middle of a paragraph..

[Eoraptor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good, right up until the hero starts becomes possessed by the one ring, I mean black armour.

[John Piper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great series! The characters are very relatable, and the action is great! I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the series!