Review of Feast of Souls . . . Posted September 30, 2007

Feast of Souls by Celia Friedman Orbit, 2006 Reviewed by Jason Fischer Book reviews index

The first of a new trilogy by Celia Friedman, Feast of Souls is a page-turner of the highest order. Despite the standard medieval setting, the magical element of her tale is anything but standard, and immediately lifts this from the canon. Magic is possible for some, but each use of power subtracts minutes or hours from the caster's life-span. The trick is to dole out sorcery sparingly, but for many of these garden-variety sorcerers a young death is inevitable.

That is, except for the Magisters. They have discovered a way to cheat death and are nigh on immortal. A wilful girl named Kamala gains this power and attempts to break into their sorcerous fraternity, and as a result of her ascendancy their dark secret is almost revealed. What if the life a Magister drains is not his own?

Feast of Souls is billed as dark fantasy and is a fare typical of the sub-genre. What makes it stand out is the seamless way the book is stitched together. There is virtually no world-building, but it is there, almost invisible in the background. There are no maps, no extensive history lessons, no invented languages. It's all about characters, motivation and plot. This book has agency through the roof, and will keep you reading "just one more chapter" well until the wee hours.

Some of this momentum is lost towards the end of this instalment, and while events are being set up for book two, this lag is noticeable in comparison to the rest of the work. Without spoiling the piece, a major story thread is ended abruptly by the conclusion, and while this shows she isn't afraid to make big changes, it makes the expectations for book two so much different. There is also one moment near the end where a physical relationship between two major characters develops, but the timing seems forced and inappropriate in the overall context.

It's been expressed by others that this work is an exercise in man-bashing, but this reviewer has to disagree. While many of the male characters are depicted as violent, nasty, rapists and worse, it is set in a medieval world, not Earth 2007. This is a patriarchal society, warts and all, and the author is simply keeping faith with the accuracy of the setting she has chosen. The story thread of Kamala struggling to be accepted by the male-exclusive order of Magisters is a great plot device, and the story is a little more complicated than man = evil. This method serves to contrast the good and noble male characters that Kamala encounters on her travels. The seedy underside to this world just highlights again that we are reading about a dark setting where bad things do happen.

These concerns aside, this book is eminently readable. You could do worse than to describe this work as George-RR-Martin-Lite. Friedman writes with the same ruthlessness, but there is an elegant simplicity about her narrative. She depicts world-spanning events with a feel of history and backstory, but there is no cast of thousands and no pseudo War of the Roses.

If you like the work of Fiona McIntosh and similar authors, give this one a go. Feast of Souls is not amazingly original, but it's a bloody great read and one of those rare books that is genuinely hard to put down.

Reviewed by Jason Fischer