The thrilling prequel to the New York Times-bestselling Summoner series When stable boy Arcturus accidentally summons a demon and becomes Hominum’s first common summoner, he becomes the key to a secret that the powerful overlords would do anything to keep hidden. Whisked away to Vocans Academy so he can be kept watch over, Arcturus finds himself surrounded by enemies. But he has little time to … he has little time to settle in before his life is turned upside down once again, for Hominum Empire is in turmoil.
Rebellious intent simmers among the masses, and it will not be long before it boils over. Arcturus must choose a side . . . or watch an Empire crumble.
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(3.5 / 5)
In a land where only children of noble birth have the ability to summon demons, Arcturus, an orphan and stable boy, accidentally becomes the first common summoner. He is drawn into a political battle that threatens his life and the lives of those noble-born students he is studying alongside. He’ll have to choose between his fellow commoners or his fellow summoners.
On its own, this book was intriguing and exciting with good world-building and some engaging characters. However, as a prequel, it had some issues–namely too much repetition from the original trilogy and too many characters in common.
The first third or so especially had a lot of similarities to the first book in the series. A commoner unintentionally summons a demon, is whisked away to Vocans, the summoner school, and is snubbed by some, but not all, of the nobles while being far friendlier with the servants and “lower” races than most other humans. Even some of the early explanations of how spells work felt repetitious.
Prince Harold in particular I really liked in this book. And Captain Lovett as a teenager was quite the fun and rambunctious character too. However, while it was kinda neat to see characters in this book that were in the trilogy, or were parents of characters in the trilogy, when all of these characters who we know are alive years later are put into peril, there’s no question of whether they will survive or not. Though I will say that, for me, this didn’t mean there was no suspense. There was still some danger, but it wasn’t as exciting as it could have been.
As for Arcturus himself, who is very similar in personality to Fletcher from the trilogy, when I was reading through the trilogy, I really liked Arcturus. And when I saw there was a prequel about him, I expected there to be a lot more of him in the last half of the trilogy than there ended up being. In the end, perhaps he wasn’t the best choice for the subject of a full-length prequel novel. Yes, he was the first common summoner, which was mentioned in the trilogy but made for a decent story on its own. But from what I understand, Matharu had already written a shorter story of his origin, and then later turned that into the full novel. But the story wasn’t far enough removed, and the time it took place wasn’t long enough before the trilogy, for this to work all that well as a prequel.
I wonder if it might actually work better if this book were to be read before the trilogy. I can’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be some world-building that was lacking in the prequel, because the reader is expected to know the world already, but I didn’t really think that was the case. Whether or not someone who has read the trilogy absolutely needs to read the prequel before calling this series complete, I would say…it’s a toss-up.
I thought this book was pretty good. The whole series is amazing actually. However, I thought that this book was going to be a mini life story about Arcturus from his time in school up until he meets Fletcher, who is the main character of the novice series. For example, Arcturus’s time at school, his big “graduation fight”, his time in the military and so on and so forth. So the main character of this story, Arcturus, is a orphan commoner who ends up going to this prestigious school to learn the art of summoning demons and to learn magic as well. I thought this book was pretty good. The whole series is amazing actually. The Outcast is a prequel to the Novice series but I can honestly see this as a stand alone book if you not have read the other 3 books. Arcturus tries to navigate life as a peasant while being among nobles while his fellow class mates try to kill him. As well as being nearly captured and have to go on the run from rebel soldiers who try to kidnap him and the prince due to the fact that the king is beyond shitty and a magnificently horrible ruler and leaves maybe perhaps 95% of his people dirt poor and starving. which causes a near civil war. Overall its a great story, check it out