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A review by jolietjane
Fate of the Fallen by Kel Kade
Did not finish book.
This is one of the most bizarre chop shops I've ever read. DNF @ about 2/3rds complete.
Fate of the Fallen is an incredible missed opportunity. The concept is so cool. What if the chosen one dies- and his friend- the side character needs to complete his mission.
BUT WAIT..what if that side character had to carry his best friend's head around with him, and that head wouldn't stop talking to him.
Hold on, what if this impending doom is actually a bunch of asshole gods and goddesses controlling a multiverse who seem to just be sick of this world.
Fate of the Fallen is an absolute crack infested fever dream. Every plot thread is so exceptionally strange that you can't help but read a little further to see what happens next. Kel Kade deserves points for originality, of that there is no doubt.
Unfortunately, this book needed editors. A whole team of them. Reading Fate of the Fallen kind of feels like watching someone play a videogame.
The beginning of the book does a good enough job justifying this. Aarlo and Matthias are hanging out together talking about going to a dance (?) like they are on an episode of The Vampire Diaries. You then find out that his lifelong love actually isn't that into him and wants to marry Matthias. Then BOOM, they find out he's the chosen one. His grandma stole him from his parents to raise him because shes the only person strong enough...but she never trained in him anything. Also, something is destroying the world, but nobody knows about it or feels its effects. The kickoff is super strange, really fast, and instantly will give you whiplash. I wish I had the Ebook so I could drop some of the utterly bizarre, fast-moving, super strange dialogue that you get within the first 50 pages of the story.
Aarlo, the main character, keeps running into people on his vague mission, and they all feel like soulless NPCs meant to exhaust out dialogue options with them. It feels like this book is wearing the mask of what it thinks an epic fantasy should be with none of the personality of one. Aarlo's journey is diced into small sections where he runs into wealthy folks, thieves, kings, sorcerers, etc, and then...leaves. And that's it. It's so hard to put the whole picture together to understand what it all actually means because none of these characters truly leave their mark on him. None of his adventures change who he is or make him feel he is more deserving of his quest. There's no theme, no character growth, just a ton of extremely strange character introductions.
The gods and reapers side of the story also works awkwardly with the rest of the book, and the short POVs you get with them feel super jarring, like perhaps they were meant for another book.
I was determined to finish this because I think its subversive exploration of fantasy tropes was too cool not to honor, but the farther I got in the book, the more it felt clear to me that the clumsy writing and bullet train pace of the novel wasn't an accident- and I found it harder and harder to give a shit about Aarlo and his quest.
I think if you like weird stuff, this could be a great book for you. It's very weird and very readable. It's also short (Goodreads says 400 pages, but its only 344) Personally though, this one ain't for me.
Fate of the Fallen is an incredible missed opportunity. The concept is so cool. What if the chosen one dies- and his friend- the side character needs to complete his mission.
BUT WAIT..what if that side character had to carry his best friend's head around with him, and that head wouldn't stop talking to him.
Hold on, what if this impending doom is actually a bunch of asshole gods and goddesses controlling a multiverse who seem to just be sick of this world.
Fate of the Fallen is an absolute crack infested fever dream. Every plot thread is so exceptionally strange that you can't help but read a little further to see what happens next. Kel Kade deserves points for originality, of that there is no doubt.
Unfortunately, this book needed editors. A whole team of them. Reading Fate of the Fallen kind of feels like watching someone play a videogame.
The beginning of the book does a good enough job justifying this. Aarlo and Matthias are hanging out together talking about going to a dance (?) like they are on an episode of The Vampire Diaries. You then find out that his lifelong love actually isn't that into him and wants to marry Matthias. Then BOOM, they find out he's the chosen one. His grandma stole him from his parents to raise him because shes the only person strong enough...but she never trained in him anything. Also, something is destroying the world, but nobody knows about it or feels its effects. The kickoff is super strange, really fast, and instantly will give you whiplash. I wish I had the Ebook so I could drop some of the utterly bizarre, fast-moving, super strange dialogue that you get within the first 50 pages of the story.
Aarlo, the main character, keeps running into people on his vague mission, and they all feel like soulless NPCs meant to exhaust out dialogue options with them. It feels like this book is wearing the mask of what it thinks an epic fantasy should be with none of the personality of one. Aarlo's journey is diced into small sections where he runs into wealthy folks, thieves, kings, sorcerers, etc, and then...leaves. And that's it. It's so hard to put the whole picture together to understand what it all actually means because none of these characters truly leave their mark on him. None of his adventures change who he is or make him feel he is more deserving of his quest. There's no theme, no character growth, just a ton of extremely strange character introductions.
The gods and reapers side of the story also works awkwardly with the rest of the book, and the short POVs you get with them feel super jarring, like perhaps they were meant for another book.
I was determined to finish this because I think its subversive exploration of fantasy tropes was too cool not to honor, but the farther I got in the book, the more it felt clear to me that the clumsy writing and bullet train pace of the novel wasn't an accident- and I found it harder and harder to give a shit about Aarlo and his quest.
I think if you like weird stuff, this could be a great book for you. It's very weird and very readable. It's also short (Goodreads says 400 pages, but its only 344) Personally though, this one ain't for me.