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Book Review: A Necromancer Called Gam Gam

Table of Contents

Torwyn burns as Sanctan Egelrath tightens his grip on power. The Draconate Ministry has gathered its forces, determined to eradicate the Guilds, but Rosomon Hawkspur still stands in their way. 

Her only hope could lay with Lancelin Jagdor, sent to gather allies in their struggle against the usurper. Can even the greatest warrior in Torwyn hope to succeed with so many adversaries determined to stop him?

Tyreta returns home with newfound strength and mysterious sorcerous abilities, only to discover it is not the land she left behind. She will have to call upon her untested powers to survive when she embarks on a mission that could turn the tide of war. 

Conall, trapped in a dangerous land, has his own enemies to defeat before he can hope to escape and join the conflict that threatens his family. Even if he succeeds, he must overcome the demons that threaten from within or face damnation. 

Though Rosomon is vastly outnumbered, and her family lost, she is determined to strike back against her enemies. But saving her homeland might prove an impossible task.

-Goodreads

Book Information

  • Title: A Necromancer Called Gam Gam
  • Series: Chronicles of Gam Gam #1
  • Author: Adam Holcombe
  • Page Count: 110
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • Rating: 4.5/5.0
  • Date Read: June 9th, 2024

Opening Thoughts

A Necromancer Called Gam Gam by Adam Holcombe has been on my radar for near a year at this point. I hadn’t realized just how short this read was or I more than likely would have squeezed it into my month TBR sooner. The good news is I picked this as my selection in the month of June for the Domains Reading Challenge to represent Witheryn the Domain of the Necro. The timing was rather coincidental as I noticed another author I follow on Twitter/X mention people should get to reading this on near the end of May to help Adam’s numbers for the month. I was sticking to my guns and simply posted I had it slated for June so I can at least guarantee Adam would have some read pages the following month.

Pacing

As far as the pacing goes, this is definitely a quick one. I don’t want to take anything way from Adam though, as this being a novella just over a hundred pages in length, he does a good job of throwing us into the thick of things early on and then filling us in as the story progresses. This is certainly a cozy read in the fact it’s rather hyper focused on just a few characters and locations throughout this entire story. I didn’t find any trouble with keeping up on what was going on or any names of characters or locations to trip me up.

World Building

The world building was nicely done. This really gave what I would consider a fairytale vibe but the spin is we are finding out the ones society might be more keen on being afraid of may be the ones wanting to do the right thing compared to the more traditional people or law. There was plenty of tension or suspense through this short tale but always hope as well. This is a very magical world that I think we’ve only just scratched the surface of. The author does an excellent job in painting the scenes for us which allows us to feel as if we are there as readers.

Character Development

The character development was strong and seemed to be the heavy focus in my opinion. There were some truly great characters in this story. Of course Mina and Gam Gam were wonderful but even some surprisingly well done support characters as well. So many of the undead sprinkled throughout were very entertaining. I’m not much of a cat person myself but Nugget was so cute!

Roundup & Recommendation

I truly hope that Adam continues to provide us more stories from this world he has exposed us all to now. I enjoyed the finishing comments in the back of the book talking about the origin of this story and I hope that lends to further future creativity to enjoy!

I’ll be keeping an eye on this author and seeing what he can continue to provide us. I’d also be interested to see what he can do with a full length novel in the future perhaps as well.

Scoring

World Building 4.5/5
Pacing 4.5/5
Character Development 4.5/5

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Chad Barnard

Owner/Operator of The Hiking Reader Blog. Sharing thoughts on books and hiking trails and trying to find ways to continue to incorporate both hobbies together.

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