This book BLEW ME AWAY! Once I really started getting into it, I could not put it down. Absolutely something that I needed to find in the Epic Fantasy genre that feels new and familiar at the same time. Feast of Fates by Christian A Brown is a book that is a must read for fans of Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.
I confess, I am a horrible person. When I first started this book, I had no idea what I was getting into. I picked it up in 2014 and read the first 10% and thought, this is not what I had in mind. At the start, you meet the three fates and I thought yes, this is good. I like this. But then, viewpoint switches over to handmaiden Morigan and a smith named Caenith. Things seemed to get hot and heavy and that was when I put the book away for a LONG time. I didn’t want to read another epic fantasy with gratuitous sex or romance.
Finally, earlier this month, I decided to finish reading all of the books I picked up but put away, and came back to Feast of Fates. I am a fool for putting it down when I did. Right as their romance is starting, viewpoint switches again and things GET GOOD. We meet the rest of the main players of Geadhain: a pair of immortal Kings born of the earth and time itself (so it seems), a pair of Queens fighting a war away from the Kings, a former pleasure slave turned spy messenger, a reanimated dead man, an elderly mage, a wolf in men’s clothing, a metal mouth sadist, a selkie, and a psychotic necromancer. All of these wildly different characters (and more I’ve not mentioned) connected. Where one moves, the others follow and react in an elegant dance of intrigue and warfare. And through it all remain Morigan, the handmaiden, finding the threads of each character attached to her.
The characters are amazingly fleshed out. I want to know about all of them, the Kings, the Fates, Sorren (who is a horror and a madman, yet one of my favourites?!). They each carry their own voice through the book and their motivations for their journey remain true. Morigan, the main heroine, rings likeable and believable, which is quite a feat considering her origin and powers. Mr. Brown tactfully was able to ground her, show that she is not invincible, that she is not a “Mary Sue” (a term I despise.)
As I mentioned earlier, the book reminded a bit of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. It has the intrigue and multiple converging storylines and characters, but not the gratuitousness for the sake of being gratuitous that ASOIAF has. It does amazingly well with world building, creating unique biomes with their own cultures, landscapes, and rules.
For me, however, where the story truly thrives, is in its writing. That is where I think of Lord of the Rings. It feels epic. It feels grand. The writing is descriptive, but purposeful. It does not over encumber the reader. Every word feels carefully chosen, every description and detail given means something and brings knowledge to the reader. There is also a big great doom as one (if not the) main enemy, but as Sauron was the enemy in LotR, and Melkor before him. There are bonds created through necessity, through kinship, through blood.
The second I finished Feast of Fates by Christian A Brown, I immediately told my fellow fantasy readers, go, buy this now, read it. I myself am buying a physical copy of this and of the next instalment in the series, Feast of Dreams, which I cannot wait to begin (but will have to for the time being).
