Fatemarked
Fatemarked, book 1 in The Fatemarked Epic by David Estes, is a great introduction to a chivalrous fantasy epic.
…a kind of hybrid Elf-Dwarf race…
With clear parallels to both ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Stormlight Archives’, the reader is taken on a journey through the varied and imaginative geographic and political landscape of a world dominated by feudal violence and war. It is certainly a dark and brutal narrative with little humour or lightheartedness. With the exception of any sexual intercourse the scenes are very graphic and portray death, misery, anguish and dismemberment full on.
The action jumps between two main and several secondary parallel story lines which, with few exceptions, converge to the Grand Finale battle.
Though the prose were, very occasionally, a little clunky the narrative flowed well with a pleasant mix of action, exposition and dialogue. Once or twice, I had to go back and re-read sections of dialogue because the attribution was unclear. Otherwise it was all good.
Not only were most of the characters multi facetted to begin with, but they all grew and developed in a satisfying way in response to the events around them.
The magic system had two branches: witches, whose abilities were only briefly addressed; The Fatemarked, who, thanks to special birthmarks, demonstrate individual abilities. This second system is explored in some depth and the author does a good job of explaining the limitations and then keeping the use of the magic within the set boundaries. In addition to this there are a few primal and mythical beasts and an interesting take on a kind of hybrid Elf-Dwarf race that live in harmony not only with nature but also some of the humans.
In addition to the main story, the end of the book offers several short stories that promise more in-depth character background and world building in preparation for later books in the series. I didn’t read these and so my comments are limited to the main story only.
A solid and forceful 4 out of 5 stars for David Estes. If you like dark foreboding settings and continent spanning action, I am sure you are going to like this book.
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