You're seriously advocating Binder to a self-proclaimed noob? Sirpercival, you are one evil, evil man (or woman, as the case may be?)! That's probably the one base class that needs the most system mastery to play successfully!
To OP: if you're still interested in playing a necromancy-themed caster, look into the Dread Necromancer base class from Heroes of Horror. It basically has the simplest of all casting mechanics: you know a certain list of spells, which is fixed, and you can cast off this list spontaneously - a bit like a Sorcerer with a fixed list of known spells. Your spells are themed for necromancy and allow only so much flexibility, but they're not bad. And you become more like an undead yourself by leveling, finally achieving lichdom at 20th level (if you stick it out). You also get a familiar, chosen from some more powerful creatures than is standard (Imp, Ghostly Visage, some others but these are the standouts). As long as your DM is OK with you creating/commanding a small squad of undead, it's hard to screw up a Dread Necromancer. And the class not only has good flavor, it can also hold its own quite well at all levels.
