Rating: 
Summary: Another Fascinating Bentley Book!
Review: "The Summoning" orginally came out in 1993 and went out of print. Now, luckily for all us horror fans, Bentley re-published it! This novel takes place in Arizona, just like all of Bentley's other novels. Brad Woods, a local coroner, is noticing a change going on in his small town of Rio Verde, Arizona. People are acting strange and having their blood sucked out of them and left to die. Brad, Robert, (the town sheriff), Rich (the newspaper chief), must hunt down this "vampire" and kill it before another one of their friends are drank to death. They along with Sue Wing, a local twenty year old woman, whose grandma knows a lot about vampires join the task force. This book is quite long, 541 pages to be exact, but it is by far, the best vampire horror novel I have read in my life. Brad Stonecipher
Rating: 
Summary: 3rd rate dime store horror fiction at best . . . .
Review: "The Summoning" is a tired, uninspiring, cliched, and frankly boring piece of horror fiction that borrowed heavily from the works of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Although Little has "reinvented" the notion of vampire by transforming it into a sort of pseudo-"boogeyman," the new creature he created is only a conglomerate of other monsters of popular myth, ranging from the basilisk (the shapeshifter) to medusa (the hypnotist). There is nothing "original" about the "vampire" he created; Little merely called it something else. Aside from that, this story lacked the most essential element in horror writing: suspense. The outcome was never in doubt, and the various killings and meditations on evil (i.e. Wheeler and his flock) throughout lacked focus and direction. The heroes are all one-dimensional characters we care nothing about, and the Chinese myth and spiritual mumbo-jumbo ring hollow. The worst part was the grand finale, when our group of intrepid vampire slayers (led by a Chinese Buffy so to speak) including an old woman entered the lair of the big bad monster and dispatched it with ease, after we are led to believe up until then that the vampire is as omni-potent as it is. What a disappointment and total waste of time this novel is!
Rating:
Summary: Another Fascinating Bentley Book!
Review: "The Summoning" orginally came out in 1993 and went out of print. Now, luckily for all us horror fans, Bentley re-published it! This novel takes place in Arizona, just like all of Bentley's other novels. Brad Woods, a local coroner, is noticing a change going on in his small town of Rio Verde, Arizona. People are acting strange and having their blood sucked out of them and left to die. Brad, Robert, (the town sheriff), Rich (the newspaper chief), must hunt down this "vampire" and kill it before another one of their friends are drank to death. They along with Sue Wing, a local twenty year old woman, whose grandma knows a lot about vampires join the task force. This book is quite long, 541 pages to be exact, but it is by far, the best vampire horror novel I have read in my life. Brad Stonecipher
Rating:
Summary: Bentley Little is one sick puppy.
Review: Although I do agree with those reviewers who state that Mr. Little could have gotten us more deeply acquainted with some characters, and that he could have explained somewhat further the origin of the cup-hu-girnsi (being a Stephen King fan will make you want that, I guess), I also happen to think that a lot of things go best unsaid. That is to say, what is a flaw in some parts of the book (shallow characterization) is a virtue in some others, like some back story which Little never got around to explaining. Not everything should have gone that way, though. I guess going further into the vampire's appearances when grandmother was a child would have done good. Also, I can't help but thinking the characters behaved like in those typical horror movies, where they split up knowing there's danger. However, Bentley Little succeeded in making my spine tingle and giving me gooseflesh with this one. He truly is a master of the macabre, he seems to go where few if any dare go. If you learn to look beyond this book's shortcomings, you'll be involved in a really scary plot, and will not regret it, unless you treasure your sleep to much, that is. This dude's mind is twisted, I definitely will read more from him. I just wish "University" and "Dominion" were not so hard to find...
Rating: 
Summary: Kind of slow at first...
Review: But still worth reading. I came across The Summoning from a reviewer on amazon, and he recommended Bentley Little, so I went to the local library and found The Summoning. Having not read a single Bentley Little book, so I decicded to pick this up. Was it a good choice? Yes. The Summoning is scary in parts, but the characters I thought were excellent. The Summoning takes place in a small town called Rio Verde in Arizona, and it is about Brad Woods, and Sue Wing. Brad Woods does autoposies for a living, until bodies drained of all body fluids come into his shop. So all over town, people find animals drained of all body fluids, people all over town think that the town has vampires. No human can drain all body fluids with through the neck. Sue Wing's parents are Chinese, and who own a restaurant, her grandmother then tells Sue Wing Cup-hu-girngsi (corpse-who-drink-blood). Her grandmother knows about cup-hu-girngsi because she experienced it when she was a little girl in a remote village in China. In a church, a pastor is rebuilding a church for the second coming of Jesus Christ where he had a vision to build. A young couple is killed when their bodies are again drained of blood and other body fluids, a cemetary is dug up overnight, and the bodies are dug up. Sue Wing then goes to the local newspaper so that she can get some credits for college, but then things go terribly wrong.
I have not finished the book yet, but I am slowly making my way to the end, and I have to say that a majority of the book is kind of slow, but the scenes where the people are killed is scary as hell. Worth reading if you have read everything by King.
Rating:
Summary: Not your ordinary bloodsucker story
Review: I hate vampire novels, this wasn't one of those. It's about a creature that drinks blood. There should be a whole other word for Little's character. He tells a good story, great characters, and an Asian main character to boot. Refreshing. I like his work, it's always fun. Not excessively deep, but good old "once upon a time" storytelling.
Rating:
Summary: A truly, unique vampire story!
Review: I just finished this book tonight and had to come on here to praise it. I found "The Summoning" to be a dark tale full of eerie twists and turns. Its the story of a small town who becomes the target of a particularly spooky kind of vampire that I found to be quite different from most others. This is a vampire who can change forms, who can manifest itself as your darkest fears and who has a uniquely different appearance than the aristocratic, gothic vampire of most novels. This isn't one of those romantic figures but something hellish. I also liked the characters especially Sue Wing. She was a very smart, strong heroine. There's also pages of this that made me genuinely freaked out especially some of the forms this vampire took. The use of different cultures, the way this book unfolded to the explosive end made this one of the most chilling novels I've ever read. It was nice to see a horror book where the vampire was so unique. I've never heard of vampires being afraid of jade nor a vampire quite so ugly or so vicious as this one. I give this 5 stars for its unique and frightening story.
Rating:
Summary: A truly, unique vampire story!
Review: I just finished this book tonight and had to come on here to praise it. I found "The Summoning" to be a dark tale full of eerie twists and turns. Its the story of a small town who becomes the target of a particularly spooky kind of vampire that I found to be quite different from most others. This is a vampire who can change forms, who can manifest itself as your darkest fears and who has a uniquely different appearance than the aristocratic, gothic vampire of most novels. This isn't one of those romantic figures but something hellish. I also liked the characters especially Sue Wing. She was a very smart, strong heroine. There's also pages of this that made me genuinely freaked out especially some of the forms this vampire took. The use of different cultures, the way this book unfolded to the explosive end made this one of the most chilling novels I've ever read. It was nice to see a horror book where the vampire was so unique. I've never heard of vampires being afraid of jade nor a vampire quite so ugly or so vicious as this one. I give this 5 stars for its unique and frightening story.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Little: Excellent 'til the End
Review: I say 'typical' simply because the two Little novels I've read ended, thematically at least, similarly: very unsatisfying after the great buildup. This book is an over-the-top example of this. 520 pages of really interesting, really intriguing buildup, then 10 pages of climax, in which a character dies for a pretty unclear reason. Bentley Little is a great writer, but it just seems like, at the end of every novel, he runs out of steam and just wants the damned thing to be overwith. But the first 520/540ths of the book is definitely worth it. Fun.
Rating:
Summary: Bentley Little's Scariest Book
Review: I've read them all to date, and this juicy vampire story is the spookiest, scariest book of all his books. Other good ones are "The Store" and "The Walking", but "The Summoning's vampire is one creepazoid character, as are his minions, like Pastor Dan Wheeler. When they are crawling around beneath the black church you'll gt shivers up and down your spine. This is Little's equivalent to King's "Salem's Lot" (which coincidentally, I think is the scariest Stephen King book by far).
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