Kindle Edition Amazon Amazon Category:  Fantasy Publisher: Jon Carlin Shea ISBN-10:  9780998571409 Type: Fiction Pages: 290 Copyright: December 2013 ISBN-13: 9780998571416 Price: $2.99 (eBook) Some Spirit Summoners can manipulate the Four Elements, turning the tide against the forces seeking unbalance, but such power comes at a cost. Focus is required, as is self-control. The Spirit Summoner, Darr Reintol, has to decide if he'll be the world's savior or its destroyer.  The spirit realm, a place built on memory, emotion, and timelessness overlaps the physical world. Only Spirit Summoners can reach into this other world and harness the magical powers beyond the knowledge of mortal men. Darr, a young Spirit Summoner, struggles to find his place in life. He possesses little knowledge of the spirit realm or the larger world, and daily he dreams of time when he can learn more. When a fire sweeps through his village, it sets him on a journey of discovery. Darr soon learns he may have sought more than he can handle. The Soul Seekers, led by the limitless power of the Devoid, are massing in force, preparing to take away the Light remaining in the world. Excerpt Every night since the Archon’s departure, Darr had gone into the Currents and searched for him. He tried calling out to the spirit creature, but his voice didn’t carry in the Currents like it did in the physical world. One other option remained, but the thought of it terrified him. Darr chewed at his lower lip and stared across the room at Erec and Jinn. The bright flame of a candle danced on the table beside the bed, sending up shadows across the walls. Jinn glanced over at him with a questioning look. “What’re you thinking, Darr?” she asked. Darr relaxed and gave a faint smile. “I have to try something, and I want you two to watch over me for a moment. Just watch. I’ll only be gone for a second.” “Gone. Where are you going?” Erec asked with skepticism thick in his voice. The Summoner didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and breathed into his stomach, his mind and body calmed. Carefully, he opened his ears to the voices of the spirits, and... ¬¬...he entered the Currents in a smooth, soundless rush. The wisteria light of the spirit realm spread out before him, laced with the blues and yellows, reds and greens of the Four Elements. The beauty of the place radiated so much awe it made him want to cry. His brother and sister were there, mirrored by the Light giving them life. Darr wanted to reach out and touch them, to feel what they were feeling, but he resisted the temptation. He quieted his mind and expanded his senses further, yet another lesson he’d learned from Racall. In doing so, the forms of Erec and Jinn receded into the wisteria light, leaving him alone with the fuzzballs of illumination that were the spirits. They danced and swirled all about him, their voices faint and indistinct. Darr prepared to reach out to them. How should he address them? --Welcome, Darr Reintol-- --Welcome, Summoner of the Archons-- --Welcome, Walker of the Currents-- The voices startled him. Racall had taught him how to shut out their voices until he was ready to hear them. Somehow, his preparations had failed. “Hello,” Darr greeted, though he remained wary. The spirits swirled around him, their listless forms coalescing all about his insubstantial body. --Do not fear us Summoner-- --Your fear is not necessary-- --What do you require of us-- --What do you desire-- A faint tugging sensation pulled at Darr’s mind, a warning perhaps. Emotions welled up inside him, and he fought to push them down. He couldn’t panic now. “I’m looking for the Archon of Earth. Where can I find him?” Darr asked. --Him-- “Yes, where can I find the Archon of Earth?” --Everywhere-- --In everything-- The spirits began to spin madly about him. Fragmented images tumbled into Darr’s mind. Mountains and trees and shooting blades of grass. Boulders rose out of rich soil and flowers and other plants sprouted from choking overgrowth. He saw rotting tree trunks fresh with green moss, and rockslides plunging down mountains, flattening grasses and trees only to renew them. Darr gasped in shock. In all of these images, he saw Racall. The spirits were showing him the ways in which Racall spread the magic of his Sephir out across Ictar, his physical presence by the loosest definition. The Summoner struggled against the images flooding into his head, trying to find an end to the web the spirits wove into his own Light. The images didn’t stop, they increased in intensity and frequency. Darr’s emotions rose to the surface. “Please, stop,” he cried in panic. “This isn’t what I meant.” The spirits didn’t hear him. The white pinpricks of light came swarming out of the ether. They touched him, weaving their minuscule bodies in and out of his own Light, a repulsive sensation. They were feeding off his emotions, and in turn, he began to feed off theirs. The memories and emotions of the spirits poured through his mind and soul, and in doing so, he had difficulty remembering anything about himself. The calming hue of the Currents, and the spinning white lights of the spirits, were all he was aware of. He could barely remember why he’d come here. Did he have a family? Did he have a purpose? What was his name? His questions no longer mattered. He gave in to the memories and emotions of the spirits driving him onward. He reveled in their wisdom and in the countless lives they shared. He danced with them, swirling about the ether as they did. The Summoner shared all his feelings of exhilaration and joy and... ...horror. He froze. Something clicked in his mind, a tugging sensation. The spirits closed in tight, choking off his suspicions. Something was wrong, but he’d fallen too far into the Currents to figure it out. He couldn’t even remember his own name. Yet, another name had been preserved in the depths of his mind, a name he knew would free him. But he mustn’t speak it. He must will it. --Racall-- A jolt of certainty coursed through him as he uttered the name, an utterance he made with only his Light. The spirits crowded over him in mad defiance, but their efforts were in vain. Wisteria light gave way to green and a massive shape exploded between the Summoner and the spirits. The ethereal forms scattered in every direction across the Currents. Darr’s memories cascaded down into his head, returning him to himself. First and foremost, he heard Racall’s lesson that the spirits were not to be trifled with for they would make him one of them. Racall’s broad shape materialized out of the green light, reflecting a number of emotions Darr didn’t know the Archon possessed, worry and relief. “I hope you have learned a valuable lesson, young Reintol,” he said in the familiar harmonized voice. Darr was still shaken from his experience. “I should’ve taken greater care when I approached the spirits. How did I reach you? My voice was so strange.” A trace of satisfaction radiated out of the Archon. “You are learning, Summoner. You are learning how to navigate the Currents as you are meant to.” Racall motioned towards a light spot in the spirit realm. The forms of Erec and Jinn appeared before them, their Lights unchanged since Darr began his journey into the Currents. “It is time to return, young Reintol. You have found what you came here for.” The Summoner looked back at his brother and sister, and he drew his mind out of the Currents...

The Chosen of the Light Begins
Matt Campbell’s “Spirit Summoner (The Chosen of Light)”, is an excellent start to a wonderful fantasy epic. The story moves fluidly from at once creating a world with a unique history and current characters that move through it. I enjoyed reading it, and I was so glad this was only the first book in a series from the author.

Campbell tells the fantastic story of Darr Reintol, a village boy and young summoner with hidden abilities and strength even he isn’t aware of. Initially, he thinks of his abilities as an annoyance, hearing the spirits babble incoherently. But when Darr meets up with the prophet Nadiq Waq, the world the village boy thought he knew is revealed as vastly different and very precarious. He learns that he can enter a realm of spirits, and control elemental magic, the very magic that might be turning against the world as evil starts to weaken artifacts meant to maintain balance.

Campbell does an excellent job developing the story and the main characters and the world in which they exist. He spends just the right amount of time on world-building, without making it over-bearing or dumping information on the reader as some authors tend to. There is a lot to follow, but Campbell weaves together the story with the background to reveal a living and breathing.

In this first book “Spirit Summoner (The Chosen of Light)”, Campbell brings life to both the heroic and the mental struggle of Darr Reintol. He creates a world and characters that are entertaining and believable, and manages this first stage of the epic fantasy with the adeptness of an expert. The reader will get a real sense of a larger world existing beyond that of the story, one in which the fantastic can, and will, take place.

I enjoyed the book
I was asked to read this book by my wife, who is friends with the author on some forums. As such feel free to treat my review with as many grains of salt as you would like! I enjoyed the book, and will definitely be getting the next in the series. I liked that the world building in the writing happened as a natural progression of the characters as they progressed, and was not delivered all up front like most fantasy does these days. I love fantasy but some writers I have given up on, as they plod around offering up so much detail into their worlds that it detracts from the story and simply makes the books a hard read. Matt has found the right mix of detail and story, so that it becomes one of those books harder to put down the further you get into it. For an authors first book, it's a definite winner, and look forward to more from his hand.

starsWhile this genre is not my favorite, it's still a great read
[Jon Carlin Shea]'s novel, Spirit Summoner, should please any fan of Fantasy/Sci-Fi literature. In a nutshell, the hero Darr can hear and speak to spirits who compel him to fulfill his destiny and start a quest that will keep you entertained and on the edge of your Kindle. Along the way he meets a slew of intersting characters - Nidec Waq, The Archon, and Racall - who help him in a journey I found very reminiscent of Baggin's voyage in The Hobbit.

Despite being a very imaginative and well written book, it was a little wordy - but that's usually the case for an author's first novel. Once you get past the inital set-up and introduction to the cast, and Darr's quest begins, the read grows both enthralling and addicting. The ending of Spirit Summoner will have you salivating for the arrival of the second book of the series. While this genre is not my favorite, it's still a great read. Five Stars