THE BATTLEMAGE (SUMMONER, BOOK 3) REVIEW

AUTHOR : Taran Matharu

PUBLISHED : 2 May 2017

PAPERBACK : 439 Pages

SUMMARY : The epic conclusion to the New York Times–bestselling Summoner trilogy, by Taran Matharu!

Fletcher and his friends fight for survival in the ether, where they pursue a mortally dangerous quest to rebuild their world and broker peace.

Even as hatred threatens to turn friends into foe in The Battlemage, Fletcher must lead a small army of soldiers into battle to protect his ancestral homeland, and face his biggest challenge yet: his nemesis, the albino orc, Khan, who seeks to destroy everything Fletcher holds dear.

MY THOUGHTS :

NON-SPOILER :

When I started reading 'The Novice', the first book in the Summoner series I already had all three books in the trilogy and it took me three and a half days to get through the series, once I started I couldn't stop, I was just so entranced by the concept of using the very familiar fantasy concepts to create something distinctive, beautiful and awesome like this series.

I was excited and sad at the same time getting to this book, I wasn't ready to let the characters go, that's how beautifully written this series is. This book had so much going on, the story I felt like was composed of three separate acts, all a complete story in its own. This book did a great job wrapping up the story.

SPOILER :

Ah, there's so much to talk about in this book, where to start?, but the story immediately picks up after the events of the last book, Fletcher and company with his mother recently liberated from Orc imprisonment having no choice left had jumped into the ether in the last book. Ether is a parallel world inhabited by the very demons our Summoners use. Now In this book, we finally get to see the full scope of this world, with varying landscapes and, treacherous terrains, and always dangerous and amiable demons.

They take refuge on the back of a colossal turtle, a tortoise hybrid demon called Zaratan, and turns out Ignatius still got some really good cards up his sleeve. Who can resist the charms of cute little fire-breathing, face-melting dangerous demon Ignatius, but you'll find out how dangerous he really could be in this book.

The company goes through some serious challenges to get back home and when they finally do they find the situation has become unstable in Hominum. The racial tensions are all-time high You'd think after the adventures in the Ether how could the world of Hominum possibly compare, but the book doesn't disappoint.

Fletcher seemed to always be at the helm of the charge in the face of danger in the previous books, in this book we see him truly grow into a formidable leader.

As I've said about the previous books, there are no characters left behind in this series, every single character is accounted for. We see some new faces some old ones from the previous books, it was great to see the characters from the first book.

And the book ends with what it had been leading Uup to all this time, an all-out war, the big bang, the Orcs with an army, and high-level demons which may prove impossible to overcome at last.

The final showdown between Fletcher and Khan I felt could have been stretched longer as it left me wanting more still. And I really appreciated the author for not turning this book into a sappy fantasy romance which it could have been if Sylva and Fletcher became too involved. I hate it when romance becomes this all-enveloping thing that destroys an otherwise amazing storyline.

In the end, the book leaves you still wanting more and sad that you'll have to get to the real world yet again after being part of the one so fantastical. As for me, I am not ready to part with it yet, I'll be picking this series up and rereading all the books quite soon.

I recommend you pick this series up if you are glad to be alive, and if you don't then more so because it will give you a reason to be alive.

CHARACTERS :

1. OLD KING ELFRIC

Donald Sutherland.