TSR Code:

The following is taken from a description of the product by TSR:

'From the depths of the demiplane of shadow comes a new magic so mysterious it confounds even the Chosen of Mystra.
From beneath the dune seas of Anauroch escapes one of Toril's most powerful and ancient evils - the phaerimm.
From Evereska, the last elven refuge on Faerun, comes word of invasion.
From nowhere appears a group of enigmatic sorcerers deternined to destroy the phaerimm and save Evereska... for purposes known only to themselves.'

The Summoning is the first Forgotten Realms product to show the new Forgotten Realms logo for the 3rd Edition Realms.

Other novels in the Return of the Archwizards series are:

• Book II - The Seige
• Book III - The Sorcerer

Well, it's another great one from Troy Denning. The Summoning is written in Dennings wonderful writing style, which I count to be among the best in FR. It has a really excellent plot, and I am thrilled that they are finally doing something big with the Phaerrim. I am also thrilled that they managed to tie together many ideas from many different series.

However, there are a few things which drag this book down to a four. First of all, I am not a third edition fan, but I can cope, I realize that the realms are going to change, I want a reason. When they rereleased the realms for the first time, they kicked out assassins. They said that their god had died and that they got swept away with him or something. Admittedly a very bad reason, but a reason non the less. Here, we have third edition ideas, and no explaination. Exactly why did the elves suddenly have darkvision (which is stupid in my opinion)? Also, I hate to label this to Denning, and the guy usually does a great job, but there is something I have beeen noticing a recent trend among authors. They are running out of ways to make monsters scary. A simple beholder or Illithid used to be enough, but they have been so overused they are no longer scary. So authors apparently figure that if one beholder is scary, a hundred must be a hundred times as scary. Sadly, this isn't true. But all in all, a great job