Author/Editor: Christian A Brown
Publisher: Amazon CreateSpace
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often reward aplenty!
This novel had a prologue which I skipped as I do all prologues. If it’s important enough to be in the story, then it’s important enough to be in chapter one or beyond. If the writer doesn’t think it's that important, then I don’t think it’s worth wasting my time reading it. I've been consistent in by-passing prologues and I have never observed a story to suffer for it. QED.
This tale starts with Morigan Lostarot seeking a sprig of fireroot for her master, and she's searched all over town for it unsuccessfully. She doesn’t think this last shop will have it, but she has nothing to lose, so she enters. It turns out that the store is no more - instead there's a forge, run by a large man, described as a 'wolf' who works there - and not one which uses magic as other such establishments do, but which uses 'old-fashioned' fire and charcoal.
This man-wolf, Caenith, is very reminiscent of Iorek Byrnisson from The Golden Compass, except that he appears as a human and not as his animal form. I don't get why werewolves are consistently presented as large and muscular these stories when in their human form. Given that wolves are pretty limp and skinny-looking in their wolf form, it makes no sense at all. This is why I'm not a fan of werewolf stories. JK Rowling got it right!
We're told the buildings are white but the building stone is sandstone, which is not known for its whiteness, unlike limestone! The world-building is confusing. The text rambles on and on about Morigan's attraction to Caenith, but says very little about the land or the town, or the people. It’s hard to know what’s what. When the sorcerer for whom Morigan works talks about a million people living there, I thought he meant in the city, but perhaps it’s the land. I think the city is called Faire of Fates, and the land is Eod? Or the city is Eod and the land is Geadhain, and the district in which Morigan finds the smith is Faire of Fates? Who knows? The map included at the front of the book is not helpful. It doesn’t show Faire of Fates.
The novel is extraordinarily rambling. Morigan takes a page-and-a-half to make the journey from her home to the forge. The whole story is like that, as far as I read - one rambling digression after another, and I simply could not be bothered to continue to read this. Maybe others will like endless digressions with literally nothing happening, but I certainly don’t. I read about one tenth of the five hundred or so pages and I decided that if maybe this had been a three-hundred page novel, it might have said much more with much less and drawn me in better. I'm not interested in wasting time trying to find out: not when there are so many other sweet books calling to me to read them!
I have to close by saying that I really don't know why publishers post Kirkus review of their book. If every review it publishes is gushing, then of what value are any of its reviews?! For me, I can't recommend this one unless you like slow and plodding.
Okay, here it is, my song for a negatively reviewed book (each one newly coined for a specific book!). This one is to the tune of Motörhead's Ace Of Spades:
If you like to gamble, then you might try this book
You skip some, sleep some, it's all the same to read
Something nice to read each day, makes a difference what you say
I gotta have some action, what I don't need is
The Feast of Fates, the Feast of Fates
I like to get high on books, reading endlessly
Going with the flow, it's all fiction to me
But when it gets boring, my eyes are falling shut
The plot just gives me fits, I'm ready now to quit
The Feast of Fates, the Feast of Fates
You know I'm born to read, but wasting time's for fools
Can't read if I don't like it, baby
I don't wanna read for ever
When the story's hard as leather
Pushing through the pages, I try to find a story
Read 'em and weep, the dead plot struck me down
I see it in the words, the whole thing starts to die
It's one thing I don't need, you know I cannot read
The Feast of Fates, the Feast of Fates!
