In Feast of Souls: Book One, the reader is introduced to Magisters and Witches whose power comes at a cost. For witches, they have to use their own "soul fire" in order to cast magic, and when that fire expires those poor witches die. Male magisters, however, seem to be immune to this rule and live in the service of the wealthy and powerful. When Andoven, the son of a powerful king, falls ill from a diseas known as "The Wasting" the magister's gather to decide on a course of action as it is against their laws to harm a royal figure, and only a magister can cause The Wasting.

I would recomend this book for college students and above who enjoy fantasy and can take all the emotional throws this book contains. There are no fantasy races as the witches and magister's are human, but this story takes the concept of witches and wizards who help the royals and puts and adult spin on it.

I liked Andovan and his mother, and all the detail the author went into while describing the characters, their world, the different regions, rules, and religions.

There were a few moments when things seemed drawn out a bit more than necessary, but overall these were not too bad. The characters were a bit cliche and the endign seemed rushed. It is very gender biased, so be warned. It can be a little hard to get into it as the beginning is very slow.

Make sure you read this book with someone else because you'll want to talk about it afterwards.

It was a roller coaster, there was sad, angry, joyous, proud, desperate, horrified, disgusted, happy, sympathetic, and whatever emotion makes a twenty-year old snarl and be amused at the same time.

Did a wonderful job. I'll admit that historical fantasy has never been my favorite thing even though I like historical aspects- if that makes any sense- but C. S. Friedman did an excellent job on this book with the dialog and imagery. She explained the world so well and described the rules so anyone could enjoy the story and never have to wonder if what was happening was just a trend in fantasy novels. So if you're not even a big fantasy fan, you can still enjoy this book.

It was a good read with a lot of symbolism. Dark versus light, life versus death, physical versus spiritual strength.

It is quite graphic, involving a lot of death and rape. It's very sexist in parts and that can get a little old. Some of the characters could be a little hard to understand and the magister's seemed to copy each other's emotions, so if you're a huge fan of the author I would warn that many have said this is not up to her usual standard thanks to the above mentioned shortcomings.

So I would recomend this for fantasy fans, but warn you that this is an introduction book and very gender biased.

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Created Nov 13, 2009 at 12:22pm • Submit your own review...