Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I completely agree with a previous reviewer that this is pretty much Robert Stanek rides again. Mitchell Graham delivers a bunch of superficial fluff in the grand style of Robert Stanek (yes, I'm mocking them both). I didn't find a single character that I identified. This is a racecar without the gas, a book all hyped up with nowhere to go. I rate this a yawn!
Rating: 
Summary: As Good as Potter
Review: My dad got me this book for my birthday and I really loved it. I love science fiction and fantasy and this was one of the best ones I have ever read. The Harry Potter books are my currently favorite, but this is a close second. I actually think that it's just as good in about every way.The bad guy in this story is named Karas Duren and he'll give you the creeps. He is a mass murderer, who doesn't like the sight of blood. I thought all of the main characters were excellent too and I loved the battles.
Rating: 
Summary: Not An Outstanding Book, But a Good One
Review: This isn't, by far, the best book I've ever read. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, but it just didn't "click" with me. But it's not a bad book. I can see how it would appeal to others.
When you've been reading novels for over 25 years, there are very few plots and storylines that you haven't seen or can create by mixing two books. So there were very few surprises in this book.
Having said that though, let me clarify that my rating is actually 3½ stars, but I bumped it up to 4 to offset the conspiracy nut(s) who wrote prior reviews.
It's highly likely that I will get the next two books in the trilogy. Primarily because I enjoy the "Post-Apocalyptic" storyline mixed with the fantasy genre. For a storyline in much the same vein, see "Saber and Shadow" by SM Stirling.
Rating: 
Summary: . . . . . . .A Forgettable First Effort . . . . . . .
Review: I will acknowledge that this is author Mitchell Graham's very first foray into the realm of fantasy fiction, but it is a very unremarkable work. The usual suspects are all here - young heroes chosen by fate to undertake an epic quest, evil tyrants who wish to destroy the world, magic rings that are sought by the villains and corrosive to the human soul. Worst of all, though, it gets very boring after a mildly entertaining first 100 pages or so. Graham spends far too much time loading this tome with "filler" to acheive his 500 pages and allow for this book's forthcoming sequels. On top of this, look for quotes and moments 'borrowed' from "Conan the Destroyer" and "The Fifth Element" (or else coincidence is a wonderous thing!). I suppose it's no surprise - the entire plotline was borrowed from other authors. "The Fifth Ring" has its moments, but it's a book so forgettable that in the end you'll have dismissed it mere seconds after you've finished reading it. Unless Graham pulls some special magic out of his hat for the follow-ups, there's no reason to read this. Turn to the classics by J.R.R. Tolkien and Lloyad Alexander, or to the modern efforts of George R.R. Martin or David Gemmell instead. You'll be glad you did. If Mitchell ever matures as a writer in the field, maybe he'll be worth your efforts. In the meantime...
Rating:
Summary: Boring and Unoriginal
Review: "The Fifth Ring" is author Mitchell Graham's very first published novel, and it weaves a somewhat inept saga of young heroes forced by fate to save a fantasy realm from impending disaster - and at the center of it all is a lone magic ring which "drains the body, and corrupts the soul." Oh, yeah, and according to the publisher website, this is the first novel in a forthcoming trilogy. Any of this sound at all familiar to you yet? It should. Fortunately, the events in the book do manage to stray from Tolkien (even if the overall plotline does not), but the resemblence to another popular series, "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan, is hard to dismiss. I am no Jordan fan (his series is horrendously bloated and likewise unoriginal), but I must hasten to add that Jordan builds a far more fascinating and credible world than Graham. In all truth, "The Fifth Ring" has so much in common with "The Eye of the World" that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. To make matters worse, Graham's lead characters are a bland assortment of the usual suspects and (like Jordan) he is particularly bad at designing his female characters. Oh, and he also enjoys very much wasting the reader's time with incidents that do not serve in any way to advance the story (just like Jordan!). The book is 500 pages in length, but it easily could have been 300 - which, of course, would have gone a long way toward holding my interest. I recommend this novel only if you're an aspiring fantasy writer, because it should serve as a nice lesson on how fantasy should NOT be written in this day and age. It's not because "The Fifth Ring" is awful. It's not. It's just completely forgettable. In the end, I can only give it 1 star and hope that the next genre newbie gives us something better.
Rating:
Summary: Fifth Ring
Review: First of all, I picked this book up on a whim and as a number of the other reviewers have given plot synopses in their descriptions, I will skip one. I want to say that there are elements mentioned in the review written by "A reader from Massachussetts, USA" that I definitely agree with, at least in regards to the originality and prose. However, I would limit my negative feelings about the prose to the character dialogue and as this was a first novel, I can forgive the similarities to other series and books. After all, we can't even write a theoretical research paper in school without using references. Hopefully, Mitchell Graham will develop as an "original" writer as he gains more notoriety, self-assurance, and more creative freedom. This book had some of the BEST fighting descriptions that I have read in a very long time. As Graham is a fencer, I think we will see more of this in the later books for the series. The books are worth reading for the fights in the first half alone.
Rating:
Summary: Bring on the Hook!
Review: This is a not very original story with heavy "borrowings" from Robert Jordan as to plot and character. The main character is obviously based on Rand al Thor as is the "magic." The author even goes so far as to borrow Jordan's one dimensional female characters with their "looks" and "crossed arms." Shades of Egwene!
Buried in the book are such howlers as the two main protaganists in their main "love scene" feeling "sexy." I kid you not - in a fantasy novel in a make believe world.
Rating:
Summary: Acceptable commercial fantasy
Review: Actually 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding down (see the final paragraph of this review). In many ways, this is a decent book: the prose is awkward at times but no more so than in much other commercial fantasy, the story is reasonably interesting, the pacing is decent, and the characters are varied, if not especially complex or fully-developed. It held my attention while I was reading it, and provided enough entertainment and suspense to keep me going to the end. "The Fifth Ring" does not, however, offer any real originality--either in story structure (the trope of the young rustic with an amazing fantasy destiny is, shall we say, familiar), theme (for a more interesting take on a post-nuclear-holocaust scenario, complete with the re-discovery of ancient technology, check out Isobelle Carmody's "Obernewtyn" series), and story elements (Morlocks, anyone? And don't get me started on the rings.) The superficial topicality of some of the story elements (bloodthirsty King Karas Duren bears more than a passing resemblance to Saddam Hussein, or at least to George Bush's idea of Saddam Hussein) isn't enough to confer originality. It's as if the author had either read too much commercial fantasy, causing him to rely too heavily on standard themes and settings, or too little, preventing him from realizing how derivative much of his scenario really is. Looking at the slew of gushing 5-star reviews of this book, I notice a suspicious sameness in their format and wording, and also in the elements of the book they pick to praise. For that reason, I've rounded my rating down, rather than up--which would have been my inclination, before arriving here and forming suspicions as to the authenticity of other reviews.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I read this book and found myself extremely disappointed by it. I thought the writing was poorly done. The book loses it's interest relatively quickly. If you are just starting out in fantasy reading, do not start with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Note to Author: Don't quit your day job!!
Review: There is nothing new or orginal about this book. Its story is derivative and dull, its characters are completely two dimensional, and its prose is pedestrian. After reading the first two chapters, I began to wonder why this book had been published. I forced myself to read the entire book out of a sense of fairness to the author. It didn't get any better. I read an interview with the author in which he was asked why he wrote a fantasy book given his other professions. He replied that his son had given him a fantasy to read and he thought he could do a better job. Maybe someone should tell him he can't!
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