Rating: 
Summary: Stupendously bad
Review: I usually try to avoid writing a negative review for anything, since I personally feel that if I have read something awful it is best to forget about it and move on. But I really must let this out and hopefully warn the still-doubtful. This book was bad-- at first laughably bad, in a so-bad-it's-funny sort of way, but by the end, it was just agonizingly, embarassingly bad. Please. I actually wept in frustration the 47th time I read about Wigg's left eyebrow raised "sardonically," and I can't even describe the torment of how often Mr. Newcomb insists on using the word "indeed." Indeed, indeed, indeed. I read the whole mess, hoping against hope that the book would become, at the very least, tolerable-- instead I found myself itching to scratch out my own eyes in disgust. Please, everyone, I am not kidding-- save yourself, and avoid this foulness.
Rating: 
Summary: Evil of sorceress' is explained in the book
Review: (First of all, I'm only half-way through the book)
I agree with all of the reviews that this is a decent 1st book, not epic, but a good read. The strong area to me was that he did a fairly decent job of creating a new world. The bad parts are too much explanation (as a previous reviewer said). He will show the thoughts of people in a room and then have them say what they were just thinking. Somewhat sophomoric.
It almost seems like he's writing a script. All of the magic seems visually exciting, but it never seems to have any consequences to the caster such as tiring them or requiring concentration or anything.
As far as my title, he explains that using the "vagaries" can (like the dark side of the force) warp you a little bit. I think since these women are so advanced, the are in thrall to the "vagaries" and become more inhuman in their desires, such as killing and warping people. As for the higher sex drive, big deal. He keeps it pretty clean, it's not porn. Not many people have the guts to use that these days. Hey, the druids used sex magic!
Rating: 
Summary: Not great, not good. Somewhere just under mediocre.
Review: There are plenty of reviews already, so I'll make this a brief one.- Some of the characters could have been intriguing, but I felt that there was a rampant lack of sense and logic. It's difficult to put my finger on this problem exactly, but I often found myself thinking that the characters' thoughts and actions did not fit the situation. - I think a bit of shock value is not necessarily detrimental to an epic fantasy, and can serve to add a some gritty realism, but I don't see sufficient justification for many of the nastier happenings. For example, even after some explanation of the Vagaries, it's difficult for me to reconcile with such one-dimensional characters as the Coven sorceresses. They repeatedly indulge in sadistic and perverse play, and they believe that this enhances their magic, fine. But just how did they become so depraved, what were they like before, what remains of their original personalities, exactly how do they manage to be such successful villains when they've thrown most of their common sense and logic out of the window, etc. Simply put, the villains are poorly characterized with little depth. - One last point for this review: exposition. Newcomb wields this tool like a sledgehammer. I feel that exposition is best done subtly when possible, with much information about the characters' world gleaned casually from dialogue and narration. In this book, too much information is revealed by the 20 Questions method or by expositional monologues from villains who think they've won. At times it seems that Newcomb is trying to anticipate the reader's questions and wonderings, so arranges to loose seasonal floods of raw info so that we won't be left wondering for too awfully long. This book had the potential to be good, just too many glaring flaws. I ALMOST stopped halfway (a first for me), but regardless of the quality of the writing, I was curious to see if the book improved and what the outcome would be. Sadly, the book did not improve, although I did "cheer" for the characters once or twice. I'm not terribly inspired to read the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for first try.
Review: I thought that this was a good effort by a rookie writer. The book, The Fifth Sorceress, was not perfect, but it kept me turning pages, and the author is not afraid to get graphic and nasty with his characters. For those of you who found the book offensive, you should stick to the Harry Potter drivel that is supposedly so popular. Leave the real fantasy novels for adults to read. I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series.
Rating:
Summary: What were they thinking?
Review: Now let me get this straight. The high point of this book comes when a gnome named "Shannon the Small" bites the hero on the crotch, and yet Del Rey is calling this "The epic fantasy of the year"? Tolkien must be spinning in his grave. In all honesty, the awfulness of "The Fifth Sorceress" and the pathetic tactics that Del Rey used to market it have both become the subject of internet legend, so posting yet another scathing review here would almost be redundant. But my rage at having my time wasted by such lazy and lousy rubbish has yet to die down, so I'm going to do it anyway. To say that "The Fifth Sorceress" is the most pathetic, incoherent, solipsistic, tedious, and idiotic fantasy novel ever written would be to give this turkey far more respect than it deserves. A fantasy novel by definition is supposed to have a storyline, characters, and some sort of plot progression. The Fifth sorceress, by contrast, is nothing more than a collection of disgusting NC-17 sex scenes pitched together in a heap of rubble, bearing no relationship to the book's alleged plot and no obvious justification for their existence other than that the author apparently feels that his horny teenage audience wishes to ogle at such material. I'd like to point out that when I say this, I'm not referring merely to the sorts of BDSM filth that's been proliferating among talentless hacks of the fantasy genre during recent years, though Newcomb does gratuitously douse his readers with several hundred pages of such material. This book also includes extremely lengthy and very graphic depictions of women being dunked in piles of feces and vomit, getting eaten alive by rats, and being raped by monsters, and it's all presented in such an exploitative manner that it's clear the author enjoys these scenes and expects his readers to as well. Needless to say, the publisher does not admit that this book is pornography, but instead dredges up the ludicrous claim that stuffing chapter after chapter with such filth makes "The Fifth Sorceress" adult fantasy. Exactly how dumb do they think we are? Adult fantasy is achieved through high quality writing and thorough character development; authors who devote half their book to juvenile masturbation fantasy do so with the sole intention of roping in a teenage audience that has not yet developed good taste. And the fact that Mr. Newcomb has yet to advance beyond the "girls are icky, they've got cooties" stage is really just adding insult to injury. I could delve into that topic further, but other reviewers seemed to have covered it adequately. So if we look past the masochistic porn, what do we get? Not much. Some fantasy authors such as Robert Jordan have stumbled upon the problem that later volumes of their series' grow slow and repetitious. Newcomb neatly circumvents this obstacle by making his opus labored and tedious right from the start. As a matter of fact, there is only one real action scene in the entire work, and the plot is not even set into motion until two hundred pages have gone by. Most of that opening section is consumed by pointless descriptions of dresses and furniture and equally trivial interior monologues by which the main characters state their personalities or lack thereof. Newcomb also packs an fixation with annoying mannerisms (if you think that Jordan is obsessed with women's braids, you ain't seen nothing yet) and is so in love with the sound of his own writing that he makes his characters repeat oaths of loyalty and other patches of uninspired dialogue over and over again. His total inability to edit down his bulky blocks of text eventually leads him to stretch a trite and formulaic fantasy plot over seven hundred pages, not one of which contains the slightest hint of excitement. Fantasy is not a genre known for great psychological depth or outstanding logic, but there are times where Newcomb's stupidity is so aggressive that he seems to be rubbing it in the reader's face. For instance, when main hero Tristan sees most of his family and friends get butchered off in a surprise attack, it seems intuitively obvious that this would be a rather traumatizing experience. Tristan, however, displays no emotional reaction to it at all, and instead just sits patiently while his wise old bearded wizard mentor regales him with a fifty-page lecture of how Newcomb's magic system works. (What's particularly embarrassing is that it's just a standard light magic vs. dark magic system.) For that matter, the wise mentor also says that he knew the attack was coming, but doesn't provide any explanation as to why he didn't move to prevent it. If Newcomb ever does bother to take up classes in psychology or logic, he might want to consider sitting in on an English class as well. He overuses cliches and his descriptions are so poorly written that they frequently become entirely meaningless. It might appear to some that I've been overly nasty in my review. But the fact is that Del Rey is being nasty to us, the fans of the fantasy genre, by printing such filth and asking us to spend money on it. By publishing "The Fifth Sorceress", they're basically saying that they treat the whole genre as a joke and its fans as idiots. While I feel contempt for the editors and publishers who approved this rubbish heap, I can't summon up anything other than pity for Robert Newcomb, an author who has obvious been pampered and sheltered from reality for so long that he is not even capable of considering the possibility that anything he writes could be less than literary gold. This unfortunate miscalculation will only earn him notoriety in the minds of generations of fans as an author whose incompetence in storytelling was matched only by his hubristic opinions of his own work. It's sad, but nothing can be done about it now.
Rating:
Summary: Check out the Map
Review: I just noticed, the map has East and West crossed.
Rating:
Summary: Wooden
Review: Wooden writing, irritatingly obtuse protagonist, cliches galore. "What he saw took his breath away" repeated at least three times, probably more. Whenever the protagonist purportedly felt a real emotion I just shook my head. (The only breath being taken away was in my sighs.) Unbelievable. Newcomb has cobbled together elements from successful fantasy novels, figuring if the formula works for them it'll work for him. He doesn't realize it's all nothing without real people, and he doesn't know how to create a real person.
Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Beginning
Review: This was really more of a 3.5 or 3.75 stars but that doesn't exist so. As I believe this is Newcomb's first fantasy novel, it is not an award winner but it is a very decent first novel. The main characters are pretty well developed but most other characters are flawed and underdeveloped. The plot is original although not always in a good way. The most interesting thing about the plot and ideas behind the plot is the idea of wizarding talent. The idea of blood is interesting and original but it makes a huge impact into the book. The skill of wizardry is not by the amount of skill you possess but by the "purity" of one's blood. So that means that no matter how much studying and training one does, he or she can never be as good as one whose blood is more pure than theirs. The whole difference of endowed and unendowed blood is huge is the novel. Certain characters are well-developed and others are somewhat flawed. Wigg and Tristan are the best characters as far as development goes and the sorceresses are okay but some of the others are flawed. Kluge is one of these in my opinion. There is a question about Robert Newcomb's relationship with women in his life because women are sadly abused in The Fifth Sorceress. In fact, looking back on the novel, the women are all bloodthirsty and evil or dead or mentally diseased or they are just plain abused by the men of the story. Also the book may not be for the innocent. The sorceresses have interesting sexual pleasures and Newcomb does not hesitate to go to these sometimes-unpleasant levels of sexuality. If the reader wishes to remain entirely innocent, there are parts in the book that they will find disturbing but although it is not overwhelmingly bad.
Overall it is a pretty decent book and I will be reading the rest to see how it all plays out. It is definitely not the best book I've ever read but I have read much worse.
Rating:
Summary: This book should be burned...
Review: I've read of powerful, 3-dimensional, depraved & evil women antagonists before (most notably in Anne Bishop's Daughter of the Blood), but Newcomb's writing is different-- the entire female gender is portrayed in an amazing black-and-white, unequivocal, completely unexplained evil way. Probably Newcomb just wished to set up a culture that thinks that way--however, he comes across as being unable to think in any other way. My main problem with this book was definitely the characters. I strongly disliked the main character, for the only characte flaw I can't get past is stupidity. Several times he drew his sword at butterflies or village folk or the sound of the wind --a.k.a. for no good reason-- and not only wasn't he embarrassed at this sign of stupidity, he proceded to repeat the mistake within the next two pages. I can't stand it when characters jump at every loud sound or swing a sword at every bunny rabbit. And he sulked over his sworn duty to his people & tussled in the mud while drinking just before his audience with his father (the king) and just before a great ceremony he had to attend. And this was when he was thirty. Tristan later falls for the old enemy-disguised-as-innocent-woman-needing-rescued act, even knowing that his enemy was female & face-changing. The rape scene seemed unnecessary, and didn't seem to have a real impact on Tristan. Also, Tristan doesn't think before he speaks or acts, often interrupting his (-cliched-) wise & knowledgeable, wizardly elders, who, strangely, usually seem to bow to his (lack of) wisdom & experience. Plus, on the subjects of characters, I disliked the sudden and complete reversal of a certain character (unnamed to avoid too much spoiling) due to the amazing brainwashing magic. It seemed too quick & easy, with the supposed threat of death or madness having very little impact anywhere, on anyone. I guess, looking over my complaints, the entire problem lay with the characters--the sorceresses being Evil, the wizards being kindly and wise, the main character being naive and thoughtless even at the age of thirty. Readers have to be with the characters throughout the whole book, and if you hate them, you're bound to hate the book. I couldn't finish this book, although I got very close to the end. I just couldn't manage it. This book is written in black-and-white, the antithesis of all good fantasy. Good fantasy writers don't have horribly Evil black knights and pure Good white knights--they write in shades of grey in a reflection of human life. Someone please tell Newcomb to read George R. R. Martin; maybe he could learn a few things.
Rating:
Summary: Are you KIDDING me?!?!?
Review: I was actually dumber after reading this [...]. I will not waste any more words on this review- enough have been wasted by Newcomb with this DRIVEL he calls a novel. This seriously is the single worst written fantasy book I have ever read, after 25+ years of reading the genre. It is the FIRST book I have ever stopped reading midway.
I was actually embarrassed to have purchased this book. I hope to God these books are printed on recycled paper, as they are certainly not worth the life of a single tree.
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