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Sherwood Smith's Reviews > Summoned
Summoned (Summoned, #1)
by
by
Copy received courtesy of NetGalley
The first quarter or so of this book began really slowly for me, though a reader who loves descriptions of action and sex, action and more sex, action and even more sex, will adore it.
But sex is . . . well, sex. It’s one note in all the possible notes of character development, so I found myself skimming all the sex in hopes that Syd, the girl 23-year-old Dmitri had fallen in lust with would get a personality along with her gazillion orgasms, meanwhile I was intrigued by the seemingly random action, while bumping up against my limits in certain types of violence. (view spoiler)
I might have given up altogether except for the voice. Dmitri’s wry self-awareness, the taut humor as well as the tight and vivid descriptions kept me as involved as the central premise: a genie, or jinn, trapped in the job. As the reader finds out in the blurb, Dmitri is a jinn, controlled by Karl Walker, who sends him out on horrible missions without any explanation of why. Not even any training, which Dmitri had to get himself, though he’s given all the material things he needs for his missions.
Meanwhile, Karl’s horrible daughter Silvia is lurking around, obsessed with Dmitri, and reminding him that as soon as her father dies, she will inherit him, and then they will be together all the time. What, she asks, affronted, why isn’t he as excited as she is that she will be his to command one day?
As I hoped, Syd begins to show some personality, as Dmitri struggles to put together the whys and wherefores in his miserable life. The pacing then begins to accelerate, to a climax that was utterly riveting.
The author has a wicked imagination and a taut, ironic, often darkly witty voice. The book nearly topped my limit on types of violence, but held back a hair this side, and I mentioned that there is a lot of sex. If you are good with those, and like a tense tale at the speed of a runaway train, I recommend you seek out this book.
The first quarter or so of this book began really slowly for me, though a reader who loves descriptions of action and sex, action and more sex, action and even more sex, will adore it.
But sex is . . . well, sex. It’s one note in all the possible notes of character development, so I found myself skimming all the sex in hopes that Syd, the girl 23-year-old Dmitri had fallen in lust with would get a personality along with her gazillion orgasms, meanwhile I was intrigued by the seemingly random action, while bumping up against my limits in certain types of violence. (view spoiler)
I might have given up altogether except for the voice. Dmitri’s wry self-awareness, the taut humor as well as the tight and vivid descriptions kept me as involved as the central premise: a genie, or jinn, trapped in the job. As the reader finds out in the blurb, Dmitri is a jinn, controlled by Karl Walker, who sends him out on horrible missions without any explanation of why. Not even any training, which Dmitri had to get himself, though he’s given all the material things he needs for his missions.
Meanwhile, Karl’s horrible daughter Silvia is lurking around, obsessed with Dmitri, and reminding him that as soon as her father dies, she will inherit him, and then they will be together all the time. What, she asks, affronted, why isn’t he as excited as she is that she will be his to command one day?
As I hoped, Syd begins to show some personality, as Dmitri struggles to put together the whys and wherefores in his miserable life. The pacing then begins to accelerate, to a climax that was utterly riveting.
The author has a wicked imagination and a taut, ironic, often darkly witty voice. The book nearly topped my limit on types of violence, but held back a hair this side, and I mentioned that there is a lot of sex. If you are good with those, and like a tense tale at the speed of a runaway train, I recommend you seek out this book.
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