The Inquisition

One year has passed since the ending of the first book. Without spoiling it the solution to Fletcher's situation seems to be more of an excuse to let him age a year off page.Nevertheless the story itself draws the reader in without pulling them out too much. I rather enjoyed how the author was able to round out the world as well as the people who populated. You will get to see plenty of action and a dash of romance and tragedy. The Twist are pretty awesome however the author once again leaves the story on a cliffhanger. Thankfully the third and final book of the trilogy is already out. It does make me think that in the future I might wait until the author actually publishes an entire series if he continues with the Cliffhanger endings.In my opinion series such as these are more like one book rather than 3. Thankfully I am a fan of Epic fiction so long stories or books does not bother me.

Matharu is a skilled world-builder, really did his research in presenting mythical beasts from around the world and his magic system is unique. I couldn't put this book down and thought the pacing was great and the use of real world issues (Racism, Elitism) made it even more enjoyable and more relatable. Matharu creates good conflict with his characters as far as their obligations, motivations and what they have at stake throughout the plot. I am only giving it 4 stars because I feel like certain things you can see coming. For example, 2 characters are having a talk in a common area outside some dorms. They hear some rustling, brush it off and continue a sensitive discussion, not moving location at all. Sure enough a short time later, they find out someone overheard them. **insert eye roll** He may mention details in passing that you may not be meant to pay any mind to.. but they end up being significant. and i think most readers can tell they will be really important which is why they are kind of brushed by. Overall though, i do recommend this story as a light read for a fantasy lover.

Omg, I absolutely loved this second book! It took me at least a chapter or so to get back in the swing of things because I totally forgot that Fletcher was captured and imprisoned. But once I got through that, this was hard to put down.I ended up hating even more characters in this second installment, loving new ones and being surprised and even knowing some of the outcomes. We get to see Fletcher and Sylva's relationship blossom a bit, Othello capabilities and even even get introduced to some new characters. Unfortunately we also get to see more of Didric in this one as he teams up with the two others that Fletcher despises he most, Isadora and her brother.I definitely can't wait for the third book to hit shelves. I will be first in line at my local bookstore to purchase that!

I cant even describe how much I hate Rook, Didric, and the Forsyths. They get on my nerves ugh!!!!! But again Fletcher and his friends are freaking amazing. And holy cow about Fletcher's parentage 😱 but it explains so much. Im so glad that the king likes Fletcher and is trying to make a difference. That ending though. A twist i didn't even expect!!! Jeffrey ugh freaking triator. And I feel so bad for Sylva. Her poor Canid.

my son could not put this trilogy down.He had finished his Warriors books and while waiting for the latest book to come out on paperback, I came across these and decided to see if he would like them. He not only liked them, but he read them all in less than 2 weeks!! He is not a reader by any means. So, this says a lot!

Enjoyed this second installment of Summoner. It was just as engaging as the first book and I really want to buy the third book, but won't. The increase of price from 1st, to 2nd, to 3rd book is dramatic and imho, not worth it. A digital book does not have all the costs of a hard copy book. The price should reflect that. Jumping from 2.99 to 7.99 to 9.99 is just greedy.

No spoilers here. Nothing more than what is given on the book jacket.Ok, I needed a day or so to think about this before actually taking finger to iPad. I was blown away and couldn't think of how to start. Soooo, I guess, I will begin with saying I was blown away. I really liked the first book and rated it as a four. So my expectations were high and I was not let down. The characters became more defined and relationships a bit more tangled; but that is the spice. The story itself just flowed for me with each page that I turned and I turned them fast, believe me. The story doesn't begin where The Novice drops you off... Fletcher being hauled off to jail on a trumped up attempted murder charge. Oh, no. It starts a year later, the same time as the second book debut. Coincidence? I think not. Rather a great ploy. Fletcher has spent a year in a prison cell. I mean, how much catching up do you need here? You are brought up to date about the rest of the characters as you went along. Again, nice. Very quickly, however, things change. Obviously, Fletcher is set free and the reason comes out of nowhere. Again, I'm taken aback. My attention and my heart is racing by this time. A mission is put into motion to save their world from the ferocious orcs and somehow solidify relationships between man, dwarves and elves. Four teams are sent in with an exact extraction time and place. Anyone not at the extraction point at the designated time will be left behind. Ok, my brain is going 100+ miles per hour. Soooo many things could go wrong. Espionage, betrayal, cowardice, weather and just plain random acts. I knew from the start that this was not going to end well for Fletcher. I mean, there is one more book in the set. And I was right. BUT, I did not expect this! It literally blew me away. I did not see this coming! This is evil! I repeat pure evil! Taran Matharu, you are truly, EVIL!PS. I would love a map! That would make my day!

Book 2 was a fun read and had a few errors. The overll plot and characters have developed well. The overll plot has been interesting, if not somewhat predictable. The characters have developed well in book 2 and advanced in skills. I look forward to book 3.

‘O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t.’ (Shakespeare ‘The Tempest” V:1; 182-4) ‘The Inquisition’ is the sequel to ‘The Novice’, Book 1 of ‘The Summoner’ series. The cliff-hanger at the end of Book 1 left Fletcher, after a successful year at Vocans, the school for Demonology, i suddenly confronted by his past flight life which started his adventures. Book 2 starts one year later, when Fletcher has been largely rotting in prison while the world marched on. Indeed, no longer is punishment restricted by the security of a school’s Rule Book: now anything can happen in an adult world containing lifelong enemies.Perhaps, there are two problems with this book, each demanding an immediate in command of language and appreciation of a wider world and its challenges.Firstly, in the nature of the plot changes. Suddenly the subject matter is but a pawn in a political and social system in which, to quote Shakespeare again:’ one may smile, and smile, and be a villain’ ‘Hamlet’ 1:5;128. Riches appear to decide what anyone expects (and gets) in life. Would that explain the scarcely credible rapid rise in social status of Fletcher; however, this transfiguration is essential to move the story on and beyond the restraints of Book 1. So, for the reader it’s a jump perhaps – and, with war being, confrontation with the nastier side of life.Secondly, the circumference of the book expands from backwater Pelt and education at Vocans to that of a vastly extended variety of creatures and lifestyles. In Hominum different kinds of creatures (e.g.213-4) manage to exist together (albeit with hostility - but not as just jibes stemming from ignorance as in Book 1) Differing settings (jungle and pyramid interior to name but two) and a complex combination of demons and spells challenge the reader’s imagination. Contrast the outburst of Miranda quoted as a title above and what sometimes the reader encounters. Must that produce a negative result? Not necessarily: problem solving may lead to failure (the reader abandoning ‘The Summoner’) or add to the richness that awaits any reader in the diversity of world literature.Even so, the highly readable style continues and is punctuated by cliff-hangers (Pages 9 & 407 are but two examples). The language level appears to rise – especially for some of the descriptions as here:‘Fletcher examined the creature. It looked somewhat like a gremlin, for it had the same droopy, triangular ears, elongated nose and bulbous eyes. The fingers were long and nimble like a gremlin’s too, with a similar, if less exaggerated hunch. It even wore a loincloth of the same design’. (130)Is there more to be appreciated in this book? Matharu only occasionally switches between plot-lines; so the reader, comfortably settled into a story-line A-B-C-D-E suddenly finds that it’s really A-B-C-A2-B2-D and so on. Tolkien uses that technique in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Book 3; but the individual storylines are so long that it’s like reading two books. Thriller writers (e.g. Jeffery Deaver) will switch storylines after about a dozen pages – and often BEFORE the cliff-hanger appears. Matharu’s ‘concentrated’ plot-line helps a reader already facing an overload of detail. Here the author doesn’t rise / fall to the technique of teasing the reader by introducing MISLEADING plot lines or - does he do that regarding the ‘traitor’ trying to murder Fletcher?Inevitably, there are similarities with other works of Fantasy – so is the Inquisition like the Magisterium in ‘His Dark Materials’? Not quite. The Magisterium ‘protects’ the world from any knowledge of other worlds which would undermine essential belief. Strangely, the Medieval Inquisition persecuted heresy as undermining the SOCIAL order as well as religious belief: but the Inquisition here convicts Fletcher of TREASON, an offence against the POLITICAL government. Is the rivalry among the nobles present here heading for the wars making up ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ by George R.R. Martin (better known as ‘Game of Thrones’)? Perhaps that change is prevented by the continuous struggles against the external threat to ‘civilisation’. The inhabitants of Tolkien’s Middle Earth are more physically separated than the Dwarves, Elves and Humans in this book. The Orcs appear ‘beyond the Pale’ and only the goblins, like Tolkien’s Uruk-hai are an ‘unnatural’ form of life (see the above quotation). Note ‘similar’ doesn’t mean ‘same.One of the major successes of the book is the physical description of demons or just strange species. Here’s one example: The creature looked a lot like a mountain hare, were it not for its slightly extended snout, shorter ears and long, coltish legs. It reminded Fletcher of what a hare might look like if it had the skeleton of an antelope and the hind legs of. a desert kangaroo.’ (285-6) Perhaps that’s more ‘realistic’ than most of the descriptions in the Demonology section forming an appendix.The pace of the adventure inevitably increases. Fletcher is warned that, ‘If you thought spell craft was difficult before, just wait till you have to do it in a dog-fight.’ (219) The book’s latter half is focused on what resembles some of the ‘suicide’ operation beloved by fans of war films (e.g. ‘The Guns of Navarone’ (1961), ‘Too Late the Hero’ (1970). ‘The Eagle has Landed’ (1975)). Just like them success against overwhelming odds is exaggerated, luck / coincidence is important and ‘the enemy’ appear as somewhat stupid. Perhaps that criticism is unfair because this merely follows the whole nature of the genre.However, the pace is slowed by occasional detail: ‘… these hieroglyphs are in an essentially different language. Whichever civilisation built this place, they died out long ago. That would explain the difference in size and architecture of the ziggurats that surround the pyramid. No wonder it’s so important to the orcs, I bet they think this place was built by their ancestor-gods’. (333) That prefaces a lengthy description of ritual sacrifice (334-336) but doesn’t explain the proximity of ziggurats (found in modern Iraq) and a pyramid (found in Egypt and Mexico), perhaps such a distortion can be explained as of ‘gilding the gingerbread’.To conclude: ‘The Inquisition’ continues the high standard of its predecessor but, owing to the above criticisms, I award it only 4 stars.

Ahhh! This was such a brilliant sequel to The Novice. Honestly, this is one of the best book series I've read in a long time. I absolutely adored the first book and was a little apprehensive going into this one as often the second book in a trilogy fails to maintain the same magic and momentum as the first. I needn't have worried! The Inquisition didn't suffer from middle-book syndrome at all, in fact I enjoyed it more than the Novice.The story picks up a year from the ending of the first book, with Fletcher imprisoned and accused of the attempted murder of Didric. The book wastes no time in throwing us into the trial and introducing us to more of the nobility of the Summoner world, including the King himself (who I loved just for being a bit of a rebel). There's no time to stop and dwell on the result of the trial or the big revelations that take place during it, as our hero is reunited with his friends and sent on a dangerous mission right into Orc territory.The Orc jungle that they go to was like a feast for the imagination. Taran’s engaging writing style describes this fantastic new location in such lush detail that I got sucked in immediately. I felt like I was there right alongside Fletcher, Othello and Sylva. It was fascinating to learn more about their enemies, their motives, and to meet more of the many demons that exist in their world.Some familiar enemies return in this book, good old Didric is back, along with the charming twins Isadora and Tarquin. There is still animosity between the nobles and Fletcher’s group but it was great to see them put this aside somewhat in favour of the task at hand. There were far more important things to be worrying about than petty rivalry and the fact that even the nobles could rise above this to a certain extent, just shows the maturity of the characters and the writing.We get to meet some new people this time around too, a female dwarf called Cress was easily my favourite. I loved her so much. She's snarky and gutsy, my perfect woman! And more familiar faces returned, we got to see more of Lovett and Arcturus, my two favourite teachers <3The plot was fast-paced from the onset and the latter half so gripping that I struggled to put it down. Though I read it over a few days, in reality it was more like four separate reading sessions where I devoured a big chunk of story in each one because I couldn't put it down after just a few chapters! Outside of the main mission that they're on, there were lots of small discoveries and a betrayal plot woven in (and I was so disappointed by who the betrayer was! I liked this person! How could they do this to Fletcher? Boo).It ends on another cliffhanger (seriously, this author loves his cliffhangers) but luckily I already have book three lined up and ready to go! You might want to consider having it handy too because you're going to want to plunge straight into it after you finish this one!This is easily one of my most recommended fantasy series, it has elements that remind me of so many great series. There are vibes from Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and Lord of the Rings. Don't get me wrong, the story is completely unique and I'm not saying it was influenced by these other books, but I get the same wonder and excitement from it that I did reading them. It's a fantastic series and if you haven't already, I urge you to try it – you’ll love it!

From the author famous for using ideas from other books, in the last book we had The Golden Compass, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pinkertons, in this edition we find King Arthur and StaegateFletcher woke in a prison cell, he had been there a year, he attended Vocans Academy where his best friend a dwarf known as Othello had managed to avoid a war between the dwarfs and the EmpireThe book continues with Fletchers dream of becoming a Battlemage, he had a book once belonging to James Baker and was learning his spellsNot the most interesting plot

This is simply an amazing read! I don't normally write reviews but after reading this book, I just had to!!Now I will not give much away but it has the perfect balance of excitement, adrenaline, magic, curiosity/wonder and courage. These books will relate to you (no matter who you are) and really does relate to differences in culture and beliefs that are relevant in our current and (very) real world. It is fresh and fast moving but the way in which it is written enables you to pick up where you left off and is easily digestible making this fun and enjoyable to ready to lose yourself in.However, I could not imagine having to wait for the next book in the series to come out... if your going to buy this book, buy the first three at the same time because the suspense of where the book ends will drive you mad. The cliffhangers are that good!! To my understanding there will be six books in this series, I have written this review at the end of book three (The Battlemage) which doesn't end on a cliffhanger, still I cannot wait for the fourth book (The Outcast) to be released next year! All three books are brilliant. Truly fantastic!!!

Having loved the beginning of Fletcher's journey in THE NOVICE, I couldn't wait for this second installment! And as someone finishing off their own Book 2 of a trilogy, I was keen to see how Matharu both expanded and deepened his world - a boy, was there a lot to appreciate.My favourite aspect of THE INQUISITION was the marvellous secondary world introduced: from Hominem, the human world, we are plunged deep into the orc jungles. It drips with atmosphere - espeially in the culminating scenes. Matharu has plainly researched Aztecs culture to paint the orc realm, and the result is so spot-on you wonder why you've not seen it done that way before. It's one more example of the way these books take familiar tropes and elements, but shake them up so creatively that what you're reading feels fresh and original.So the world widens ... but the relationships also deepen. A winning cast of secondary characters is introduced - like Cress the female dwarf warrior. Imagine the love-child of Brienne of Tarth and Tyrion Lannister. No, really do. A personal favourite is Verity Faversham, who is not quite what readers of Book 1 may be expecting, given her family background.Matharu really excels at the bonds between Flether and his demon, Ignatius, and in this book Fletcher acquires two more non-human helpers. To say more would be so giveaway, much spoilers, wow. And then at the end: loyalty, treachery, and a shocking revelation. In all, the perfect cocktail to leave you wanting more... Shame it's another year till the final SUMMONER installment!