The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd

Twelve people gathered at the organizer’s house to discuss The Stormcaller, Tom Lloyd’s first novel. It’s about a young man, Isak, who rises from humble beginnings to become the heir to the lord of his tribe. All started the book and seven of us finished it.

About half the people at the meeting liked the book and felt that it was a well-told adventure story. The rest of the group felt that it read like a completely generic fantasy novel and had nothing new to offer; most of this latter group did not finish the novel. We all felt that The Stomcaller was not nearly as good as other first fantasy novels that we’d recently read (The Blade Itself and The Lies of Locke Lamora). The discussion was pretty short. People either liked the book or didn’t, and there wasn’t any middle ground.

After the meeting, many of us went to dinner at Opal Divine’s.

—A. T. Campbell, III