Four Summoner's Tales
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Four bestselling authors. One hellraising premise.
What if the dead could be summoned from their graves—for a price? What if a quartet of distinctive storytellers took a stab at this deceptively simple idea—on a dare? The answers lie here, in Four Summoner’s Tales, as these acclaimed writers accept the challenge and rise to the occasion—in four brilliantly chilling ways. It’s all in the execution. . .
“SUFFER THE CHILDREN” BY KELLEY ARMSTRONG, #1 New York Times bestselling author
A preacher and his adopted daughter must solve the mystery of the newcomers to their isolated 19th century village—men who are preying on residents' overwhelming grief with promises to bring the stricken back to life.
“PIPERS” BY CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN, New York Times bestselling author
Twenty-three people have already lost their lives to the ruthless cartel terrorizing their small Texas border town. But one man has a plan for revenge, if the town’s survivors will let him use their loved ones—to raise an army of the undead.
“A BAD SEASON FOR NECROMANCY” BY DAVID LISS, National bestselling author
In merry old England, a rascally con man stumbles upon a book for raising the dead. But instead of using it to make money by reviving relatives for the rich, he'll do just the opposite. Because some family skeletons need to stay buried.
“ALIVE DAY” BY JONATHAN MABERRY, New York Times bestselling author
In war-torn Afghanistan, a U.S. military operative and his team face off against an ancient horror during a harrowing off-the-books search-and-rescue mission.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Powered by adept story-crafting skills, this anthology of novellas delivers limited thrills, but it does successfully showcase four prominent authors' inventive takes on a central theme: "A strange visitor comes to town, offering to raise the townsfolk's dearly departed from the dead for a price." The worthy, if not terribly satisfying, "Suffer the Children" from Armstrong (the Otherworld series) follows the prompt most literally, with actual strangers, and an actual town. "Pipers" from Golden (The Graves of Saints), about the victims of a Mexican drug cartel becoming a vengeful undead army, has a jarringly sepia-hued evocation of Texas border life. Maberry recruits his own series lead, Joe Ledger, for "Alive Day," perhaps the most ambitious of the quartet, and, unfortunately, the least effective. Confusing point-of-view changes and a nonsequential narrative turn his depiction of a death cult in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan into a muddle of feverish hallucinations, dismembered bodies, and blustering dialogue. Liss (The Twelfth Enchantment) rescues the project from mediocrity with "A Bad Season for Necromancy," a witty account of a necromancer who blackmails rich widows in 18th-century London.
