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Book Review: Fell by David Clement-Davies
15 years ago
I would like to start by saying that this review is by no means an attempt to offend anyone, especially Clement-Davies, who in my opinion is a brilliant author and I certainly loved and have been inspired by his work “The Sight”, a novel I have no doubt will remain with me for some time. If you are obsessed with this book, please do the mature thing and don't get too emotional over the potentially hurtful words I have to share within this review. Also, be warned, there are obviously spoilers involved with this, not just of the book being reviewed, but also of it's prequel. Take heed and prepare to suffer the consequences of reading this. With that being said, this disclaimer can come to a close.
Firstly, the title of this book is extremely deceiving. One would think that, after the end of The Sight, with a title like “Fell”, that the book would largely be about Larka's brother, Fell, who had also been revealed to have the gift of the Sight at the end of the first book. Well, if you were like me and had these very same (or similar) thoughts upon purchasing this book, you will be (or have already been) severely disappointed. A more appropriate title for the book would be “Alina”, and if you had already read it, you'd know why.
The first chapter gives off the impression that this book is about wolves, as was the last one. The Sight was an amazing piece of work that told a story of a small pack of wolves within the country that is today known as Romania and the author did an amazing job at grabbing the reader's attention and interest in the characters involved with the story, even though several of them suffered from a very early case of what can only be known as “sudden-death” syndrome. The story and the plot are both very engaging in spite of this and even though the book dips pretty heavily into the “fantasy” genre, you're never really left feeling like all of the sorcery and witchcraft is way too over-the-top. Additionally, though a human being plays a rather significant role in the plot, he is a child at the time so fortunately his involvement doesn't engulf the story with the illusion that it is animal literature. The Sight is actually about animals.
In the case of Fell, however, you are immediately thrust into the life of a character you know nothing about and care nothing for in the second chapter. After the end of The Sight, my interest laid entirely with Kar and even Slavka and Fell to some extent. I was dying to see how Kar would live on without Larka, as it was obvious those two had rather meaningful feelings for one another. I wanted to see how Slavka would fit in with the pack she nearly destroyed and I actually kind of wanted to see how emo Fell was going to get over the loss of his sister. I know if it were up to me, I could have created an amazing story based on the lives of those three alone, but Clement-Davies has so many other characters at his disposal after the end of The Sight, it would be lunacy to ignore even one of them in the sequel.
Unfortunately, that is largely what we get with Fell. If I had to come up with a quick estimate, I'd say that Fell is roughly 30% about the characters within The Sight and 70% about Alina WoovanWurd, or SkypeTail, or whatever you wish to call her, as she's given somewhere between seventy and infinity names throughout the book. Who is this character and why do we care about her? I thought this was a story about wolves? In case you didn't know, Alina is a human gifted with the power of the Sight, which allows her to communicate with Fell throughout some of the book. The sad thing is, though, even when they are together and helping each other through the story, Fell is always a background character. The character who's name graces the very title of the book has such a menial role compared to SkeinTale that it is insulting to think of this book as a true sequel of The Sight. Considering that Fell is the wolf most largely concentrated on throughout all 500+ pages of this book, you can quickly see why I have a hard time considering it animal fiction, let alone a sequel to one of the best animal fiction novels I've ever read.
So after the first chapter drawing you in teasingly, we are bombarded with several more chapters about this teenage girl's plight, and how she has to dress as a boy to avoid detection and the fate (or the plot) catching up with her. Some nasty business goes down and she ends up fleeing her village and finally in chapter five we return to Fell – for awhile. Fell basically encounters a heavily German accented beaver and we're back to Alina again. I am so glad we get to see Fell develop as a character in the shadow of this books obvious “main character”. So much time and detail is spent on Alina's plight that you sometimes forget Fell is even there. We see Alina struggle with life and death on a constant basis throughout each and every chapter, we see her go through your typical angsty teen melodrama at every turn there after (did angsty teens even exist in the late 1400s? I thought there were more things to concern yourself with than crying about every damn thing that comes up in life). After awhile, it feels like I'm reading an article out of Seventeen Magazine or some such. Way too much bawing Alina, not enough Fell.
Eventually, we're tossed into six through eight, which is about Alina bonding with her wolf sidekick and they go through some rough patches and what-have-you. This part of the book is mildly entertaining at best, because Alina still continues to steal the spotlight away from who the book should be about.
Further on, the two separate (finally) and Alina takes refuge within a small village, befriends blacksmith (who used to be a warrior for the sake of convenience) and several chapters are spent on her getting to know the blacksmith and his son. The obvious seeds of romance begin to grow between her and Catalin right from the very beginning and somehow Catalin seems undaunted by this teen who has no problem being a whimpering little whelp when we are supposed to sympathize her, but turning into the Hulk when she needs to keep the story going. I can't quite figure out how spending a short time with the blacksmith before the plot continues on its merry way manages to shape her into a warrior capable of raping chain mail wearing sword toting warriors as if they were made of delicious, angst killing chocolate and caramel. But whatever, I guess we all need to encounter a human Mary Sue in a book that is supposed to be about animals. There must be a rule about that sort of thing written somewhere, sort of like “How to make a James Bond film” for dummies.
After we spend another few chapters with Alina DrunkenBard, we get a little bit of time with Fell, somewhere around the beginning of the double digit chapters. Oh, and we also run into Kar and a new female named Tarlar, who Fell takes an instant liking to (though subtle). Kar mentioned how they came to have Tarlar in their pack, how Huttser and Palla are 13 and 14 years old now (but still alive!), how Slavka “went peacefully in her sleep” (what? The warrior-diva going out before Huttser and Palla? I guess she ate too much bacon – but seriously, this pissed me off) and how this evil pack is plotting to destroy their precious little pack – and, as quickly as they came, they are gone, and Alina's over dramatic emo ways apparently consume Fell, because he goes through a phase of doubt and self-loathing (after basically refusing to go back with Kar and help his ancient father fight the Vengerid) and though it is easier to feel sorry for him than it is Alina, this is a side of Fell I think we could do without. It doesn't feel like him.
Then we enter the second part of the book which basically introduces a new main villain. Wait. Why aren't the Vengerid good enough? Oh that's right, this book isn't about the characters we grew to love in the first book. So this human lord, the one responsible for Alina's grief, is discovered by the reader to be in communication with Morgra via some dark arts and witchcraft. That's right, he's speaking to her from this world into what could basically be described as the middle ground between the living and the dead. Though it is a spoiler at this point, it's obvious, as this Lord Vladeran is not only the new lover of Alina's mother, but also the father of “Bran”, now known as Elu, from the first book. Not only that, he wears Morgra and Larka's fur as a cloak. Rather distasteful I would say.
Morgra eventually comes into communication with Fell, briefly, and reveals to him that he will be the one to kill Alina. Well, she warns him, the Sight actually reveals it. It's refreshing to see that Morgra hasn't changed as I rather adored her character in The Sight. So sick, sinister, and twisted, but to me, it was easy to sympathize with her as well (until she basically ended up killing Larka. Boo to you, Morgra). This sends Fell into an even more flighty, pansy-like response and he locks himself in his room for awhile with the music turned up so loud no one can't hear him screaming into his pillow.
Since the middle part of the book was rather boring to me, I'm going to sum up the summarization of it. Alina's blacksmith friend dies (killed by Vladeran's troops), her and Catalin run away, Catalin (understandably) cries like a little girl and blames Alina. They take Fell with them and head into the hills. Catalin and Fell eventually find themselves jealously circling and snarling at each other over Alina's affection, Fell saves Catalin's life (from the Vengerid and their leader Jalgan) and gains his trust, then Catalin reveals that he isn't as much of a pansy as I thought by cutting down some of Vladeran's troops who tried to kill Fell and Alina. That about sums up the rest of the middle part of the book. Riveting, I know.
Eventually the trio makes its way into the wilderness, but I only found myself mildly interested in this because I wanted to see Fell finally go back to his pack and save his parents and family, or die trying. Something, anything to get me away from these god moding, snot nosed kids. Finally it comes when Fell finds out that Huttser was wounded in his last fight with the Vengerid and he leaves Alina to go to his pack's rescue, but then we get several chapters of Alina and Catalin playing with a bunch of tree hugging (and wolf hugging) hippie barbarians who can't even forge weapons since Vladeran killed their blacksmiths. Ouch, but who cares? Not me.
Finally Fell happens upon his family in chapter 20, which in my opinion is the best chapter (by far) of the entire book, because it's the only chapter that really has all of the main characters from the first book (that lived anyway) together, and the reunion is so sweet it almost brought tears to my eyes. However, Huttser's injury is clearly life threatening, Palla is nearly blind and doesn't even recognize Fell at first (when she thought him to be Kar, that was a rather emotional bit for me), they have their little get together and Fell meets his younger brothers and sisters for the first time in ages. Yes, ages. I never figured out how Fell was 8 years old in this story. The Sight began with he and Larka being born and ended after a single year's time (winter happened once). Some how, that means 2 – 3 years went by in the book because “Fell” takes place 5 years after the end of The Sight. His brothers and sisters are 5 years old, and holy shit – Palla and Huttser were around 7 years old when they had Larka and Fell (7 + 2 + 5 = 14). This kind of kills part of The Sight for me, I always thought Huttser and Palla were at most 5 years old, giving how “young” they felt. Neither of them acted at all like age was an issue in how they went about their daily lives. But now, Huttser and Palla are ancient wolves and “the oldest” in the land. Going back to his brothers and sisters, however, Fell makes mention (to himself) how beautiful Kipcha is now and how he barely recognized her. Incest is the best, put your sister to the test. In all seriousness though, I thought this was a touching moment.
Skop is immediately distrustful of Fell since he's not been with the family since he was a newborn pup basically. Kar is something of an uncle/older brother to the pups, which is very cute. Tarlar is basically that stranger that came to them who Huttser felt the need to protect. Interesting character, but she's no Slavka.
Eventually though, Palla speaks to her son about how she would not want to live after Huttser is gone in a very tear-jerking speech and eventually Fell can't take it anymore and leaves Palla's side to have a heart to heart with the old man. Fell has a very touching moment with his father here, recalling times of old when he was a puppy and the way Huttser treated him at times. I rather enjoyed seeing their similarities and differences clash like that, all the while both of them fully knowing this might be the last time they ever get to talk, though Huttser puts on a good show to convince you otherwise. Huttser ends up going into a little bit of a mental rant that really made me feel even more for the character than I thought possible. In retrospect, the conversation between Fell and Huttser somewhat reminds me of the scenario between my father and I at times, so I could relate.
As expected, Huttser's wound takes him due to the infection and his death, witnessed only by Fell, is very emotional and challenging to take (for me more than Fell it seemed). Fell went to tell his mother Huttser had gone only to discover she too had died in her sleep only hours or so before. Convenient, but very touching, very sad. I shed some tears over this.
Jalgan is on his way with his Vengerid, the grief of losing his parents causes Fell to go on another emotional tangent, Morgra tries again to “corrupt” him for Vladeran, taunting him with the inevitable future of him killing Alina by his own fangs (it eventually got to the point I was waiting impatiently and with anxiety for that to actually happen), because the Sight does not lie. She also mentions that Larka was indeed alive after her fall at the end of The Sight, but that Vladeran slit her throat when he happened upon her wounded form. I wanted to smash that bastard's face in when I read that, but I thought it was another of Morgra's tricks. That cunning minx, how I love her.
Fell returns to the pack, Tarlar tries to convince him to fight Jalgan (Jalgan would end his ways of causing suffering wherever he goes if someone can beat him in single combat), Fell refuses because he's emo, and Kar leads the pack away from the Stone Den, leaving behind Palla and Huttser's bodies because they knew they could not fight the Vengerid. Fell has an acid trip with a “great mouth” (which is quite obviously a bear in a cave) and decides to return in the most subtle, plot supporting manner possible.
When Kar and his pack are stopped by Jalgan, Jalgan gives Tarlar an ultimatum. Jalgan views Tarlar as his mate and he will stop at nothing to have her. This guy is so twisted that if he had more depth I would have grown to like him. He basically gives her two choices. Surrender herself to him and be his mate and he will kill Kar, Skop, Khaz, Kipcha, and Larka 2.0, as quickly and painlessly as possible. If she refuses him, he promised to make their suffering last for as many days as possible before they died. He'd then take her with him anyway. What a bastard. At this point I was fuming, I was interested, engaged, and wanted to jump into the pages myself and tear this bastard a new hole or two in various places. Fortunately, before Tarlar fully accepts to go with him to spare her friends days of pain and agony, Fell pops out of the waterfall, having heard everything (and seeing into Jalgan's mind what he wanted to do with Huttser and Palla's corpses). Fell challenges Jalgan to a fight, Jalgan taunts him into not using the powers of the Sight, Jalgan almost kills Fell, but Fell uses the Sight at the very end to detect an attack of Jalgan's and moves just in time before finishing him off once and for all. Rest in peace, Jalgan, you won't be missed.
Tarlar basically admits she loves Fell, but despite his wounds he needs to save Alina. Or, right, Alina got captured by Vladeran. The book was sadly just starting to get good.
In a nutshell, there is then a huge battle for Vladeran's palace between Fell and the Helgra (the hippie wolf loving barbarian guys) with Catalin at their side using his marksman skill to fell Vladeran's men. Tarlar jumps in to aid Fell and after a long, somewhat details struggle, they manage to make it into the palace where Alina is being held with her mother and her half brother. Vladeran at this point is keen on capturing and taming Fell through any means possible so he can control the Helgra and stop the war and he manages to get a net over Fell and Tarlar. After concluding that Tarlar is “no use to him”, he decides to kill her and to introduce Fell to the “whips and chains” they use to tame their most vicious dogs. Fortunately, Tarlar is not killed, Fell uses the summoning howl after Morgra begs him to do so and Morgra's spectral form comes from Vladeran's little prayer circle and reveals to Fell that she is not evil anymore, that she understands now the true way of dealing with injustices, and she begs him for forgiveness. He doesn't actually give it to her, but with her help and the help of an old dog, Fell breaks out of his captivity and ends Vladeran's life and Alina's father pops out of nowhere and gives this huge speech about war and hate or some such, it's indicated that Alina and Catalin are to be lovers and what-have-you, Fell and Alina say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, Fell has a speech with Tarlar (he does most of the talking, self-righteous dick) and it seems like those two are to start a new life together. End of story.
It sure seems likely that there is room for a sequel and admittedly, I probably would still pick it up and read it even after my disappointment with this book. Don't get me wrong, I rather enjoyed this book, but sadly, the parts I enjoyed could have been condensed to less than 100 pages and the rest of the story could have been summarized and filled in with another 50 – 100 or so. The Sight was a far superior book and the reason I picked up Fell and gave it a read. The Sight was also the reason I kept going, even though I knew early on this wasn't going to be a favorite of mine. The characters native only to Fell were shallow (aside from Alina), uninteresting, and the ones that actually had a trickle of depth were human, not wolves (or even animals for crying out loud). David Clement-Davies is indeed a great author, but throughout much of Fell, I felt like this was actually another story he had in mind, separate from The Sight, but after The Sight became as popular as it did, he renamed some of the characters within this separate story, added a few lines and bits to pay homage to the characters from the Sight, and played it off as a sequel to The Sight. I doubt this is entirely true, but that is how it felt to me and it certainly left a deprived taste in my mouth. I want more from this series, but not more human bullshit lording over the story I grew so found of. I would like to see a “one and a half” or some such, related more to Kar and Slavka than anything else, as this is a chapter in the story that was completely passed over and ignored – but this saga needs it in my opinion, I sure hope he does decide to revisit this series and soon, but for now, we do have “Scream of the White Bears” to look forward to soon and based on the little blurb at the end of Fell, it does appear to be quite interesting. Wolves and polar bears? Oh my! In the meantime, I will be starting Fire Bringer by the same author.
Firstly, the title of this book is extremely deceiving. One would think that, after the end of The Sight, with a title like “Fell”, that the book would largely be about Larka's brother, Fell, who had also been revealed to have the gift of the Sight at the end of the first book. Well, if you were like me and had these very same (or similar) thoughts upon purchasing this book, you will be (or have already been) severely disappointed. A more appropriate title for the book would be “Alina”, and if you had already read it, you'd know why.
The first chapter gives off the impression that this book is about wolves, as was the last one. The Sight was an amazing piece of work that told a story of a small pack of wolves within the country that is today known as Romania and the author did an amazing job at grabbing the reader's attention and interest in the characters involved with the story, even though several of them suffered from a very early case of what can only be known as “sudden-death” syndrome. The story and the plot are both very engaging in spite of this and even though the book dips pretty heavily into the “fantasy” genre, you're never really left feeling like all of the sorcery and witchcraft is way too over-the-top. Additionally, though a human being plays a rather significant role in the plot, he is a child at the time so fortunately his involvement doesn't engulf the story with the illusion that it is animal literature. The Sight is actually about animals.
In the case of Fell, however, you are immediately thrust into the life of a character you know nothing about and care nothing for in the second chapter. After the end of The Sight, my interest laid entirely with Kar and even Slavka and Fell to some extent. I was dying to see how Kar would live on without Larka, as it was obvious those two had rather meaningful feelings for one another. I wanted to see how Slavka would fit in with the pack she nearly destroyed and I actually kind of wanted to see how emo Fell was going to get over the loss of his sister. I know if it were up to me, I could have created an amazing story based on the lives of those three alone, but Clement-Davies has so many other characters at his disposal after the end of The Sight, it would be lunacy to ignore even one of them in the sequel.
Unfortunately, that is largely what we get with Fell. If I had to come up with a quick estimate, I'd say that Fell is roughly 30% about the characters within The Sight and 70% about Alina WoovanWurd, or SkypeTail, or whatever you wish to call her, as she's given somewhere between seventy and infinity names throughout the book. Who is this character and why do we care about her? I thought this was a story about wolves? In case you didn't know, Alina is a human gifted with the power of the Sight, which allows her to communicate with Fell throughout some of the book. The sad thing is, though, even when they are together and helping each other through the story, Fell is always a background character. The character who's name graces the very title of the book has such a menial role compared to SkeinTale that it is insulting to think of this book as a true sequel of The Sight. Considering that Fell is the wolf most largely concentrated on throughout all 500+ pages of this book, you can quickly see why I have a hard time considering it animal fiction, let alone a sequel to one of the best animal fiction novels I've ever read.
So after the first chapter drawing you in teasingly, we are bombarded with several more chapters about this teenage girl's plight, and how she has to dress as a boy to avoid detection and the fate (or the plot) catching up with her. Some nasty business goes down and she ends up fleeing her village and finally in chapter five we return to Fell – for awhile. Fell basically encounters a heavily German accented beaver and we're back to Alina again. I am so glad we get to see Fell develop as a character in the shadow of this books obvious “main character”. So much time and detail is spent on Alina's plight that you sometimes forget Fell is even there. We see Alina struggle with life and death on a constant basis throughout each and every chapter, we see her go through your typical angsty teen melodrama at every turn there after (did angsty teens even exist in the late 1400s? I thought there were more things to concern yourself with than crying about every damn thing that comes up in life). After awhile, it feels like I'm reading an article out of Seventeen Magazine or some such. Way too much bawing Alina, not enough Fell.
Eventually, we're tossed into six through eight, which is about Alina bonding with her wolf sidekick and they go through some rough patches and what-have-you. This part of the book is mildly entertaining at best, because Alina still continues to steal the spotlight away from who the book should be about.
Further on, the two separate (finally) and Alina takes refuge within a small village, befriends blacksmith (who used to be a warrior for the sake of convenience) and several chapters are spent on her getting to know the blacksmith and his son. The obvious seeds of romance begin to grow between her and Catalin right from the very beginning and somehow Catalin seems undaunted by this teen who has no problem being a whimpering little whelp when we are supposed to sympathize her, but turning into the Hulk when she needs to keep the story going. I can't quite figure out how spending a short time with the blacksmith before the plot continues on its merry way manages to shape her into a warrior capable of raping chain mail wearing sword toting warriors as if they were made of delicious, angst killing chocolate and caramel. But whatever, I guess we all need to encounter a human Mary Sue in a book that is supposed to be about animals. There must be a rule about that sort of thing written somewhere, sort of like “How to make a James Bond film” for dummies.
After we spend another few chapters with Alina DrunkenBard, we get a little bit of time with Fell, somewhere around the beginning of the double digit chapters. Oh, and we also run into Kar and a new female named Tarlar, who Fell takes an instant liking to (though subtle). Kar mentioned how they came to have Tarlar in their pack, how Huttser and Palla are 13 and 14 years old now (but still alive!), how Slavka “went peacefully in her sleep” (what? The warrior-diva going out before Huttser and Palla? I guess she ate too much bacon – but seriously, this pissed me off) and how this evil pack is plotting to destroy their precious little pack – and, as quickly as they came, they are gone, and Alina's over dramatic emo ways apparently consume Fell, because he goes through a phase of doubt and self-loathing (after basically refusing to go back with Kar and help his ancient father fight the Vengerid) and though it is easier to feel sorry for him than it is Alina, this is a side of Fell I think we could do without. It doesn't feel like him.
Then we enter the second part of the book which basically introduces a new main villain. Wait. Why aren't the Vengerid good enough? Oh that's right, this book isn't about the characters we grew to love in the first book. So this human lord, the one responsible for Alina's grief, is discovered by the reader to be in communication with Morgra via some dark arts and witchcraft. That's right, he's speaking to her from this world into what could basically be described as the middle ground between the living and the dead. Though it is a spoiler at this point, it's obvious, as this Lord Vladeran is not only the new lover of Alina's mother, but also the father of “Bran”, now known as Elu, from the first book. Not only that, he wears Morgra and Larka's fur as a cloak. Rather distasteful I would say.
Morgra eventually comes into communication with Fell, briefly, and reveals to him that he will be the one to kill Alina. Well, she warns him, the Sight actually reveals it. It's refreshing to see that Morgra hasn't changed as I rather adored her character in The Sight. So sick, sinister, and twisted, but to me, it was easy to sympathize with her as well (until she basically ended up killing Larka. Boo to you, Morgra). This sends Fell into an even more flighty, pansy-like response and he locks himself in his room for awhile with the music turned up so loud no one can't hear him screaming into his pillow.
Since the middle part of the book was rather boring to me, I'm going to sum up the summarization of it. Alina's blacksmith friend dies (killed by Vladeran's troops), her and Catalin run away, Catalin (understandably) cries like a little girl and blames Alina. They take Fell with them and head into the hills. Catalin and Fell eventually find themselves jealously circling and snarling at each other over Alina's affection, Fell saves Catalin's life (from the Vengerid and their leader Jalgan) and gains his trust, then Catalin reveals that he isn't as much of a pansy as I thought by cutting down some of Vladeran's troops who tried to kill Fell and Alina. That about sums up the rest of the middle part of the book. Riveting, I know.
Eventually the trio makes its way into the wilderness, but I only found myself mildly interested in this because I wanted to see Fell finally go back to his pack and save his parents and family, or die trying. Something, anything to get me away from these god moding, snot nosed kids. Finally it comes when Fell finds out that Huttser was wounded in his last fight with the Vengerid and he leaves Alina to go to his pack's rescue, but then we get several chapters of Alina and Catalin playing with a bunch of tree hugging (and wolf hugging) hippie barbarians who can't even forge weapons since Vladeran killed their blacksmiths. Ouch, but who cares? Not me.
Finally Fell happens upon his family in chapter 20, which in my opinion is the best chapter (by far) of the entire book, because it's the only chapter that really has all of the main characters from the first book (that lived anyway) together, and the reunion is so sweet it almost brought tears to my eyes. However, Huttser's injury is clearly life threatening, Palla is nearly blind and doesn't even recognize Fell at first (when she thought him to be Kar, that was a rather emotional bit for me), they have their little get together and Fell meets his younger brothers and sisters for the first time in ages. Yes, ages. I never figured out how Fell was 8 years old in this story. The Sight began with he and Larka being born and ended after a single year's time (winter happened once). Some how, that means 2 – 3 years went by in the book because “Fell” takes place 5 years after the end of The Sight. His brothers and sisters are 5 years old, and holy shit – Palla and Huttser were around 7 years old when they had Larka and Fell (7 + 2 + 5 = 14). This kind of kills part of The Sight for me, I always thought Huttser and Palla were at most 5 years old, giving how “young” they felt. Neither of them acted at all like age was an issue in how they went about their daily lives. But now, Huttser and Palla are ancient wolves and “the oldest” in the land. Going back to his brothers and sisters, however, Fell makes mention (to himself) how beautiful Kipcha is now and how he barely recognized her. Incest is the best, put your sister to the test. In all seriousness though, I thought this was a touching moment.
Skop is immediately distrustful of Fell since he's not been with the family since he was a newborn pup basically. Kar is something of an uncle/older brother to the pups, which is very cute. Tarlar is basically that stranger that came to them who Huttser felt the need to protect. Interesting character, but she's no Slavka.
Eventually though, Palla speaks to her son about how she would not want to live after Huttser is gone in a very tear-jerking speech and eventually Fell can't take it anymore and leaves Palla's side to have a heart to heart with the old man. Fell has a very touching moment with his father here, recalling times of old when he was a puppy and the way Huttser treated him at times. I rather enjoyed seeing their similarities and differences clash like that, all the while both of them fully knowing this might be the last time they ever get to talk, though Huttser puts on a good show to convince you otherwise. Huttser ends up going into a little bit of a mental rant that really made me feel even more for the character than I thought possible. In retrospect, the conversation between Fell and Huttser somewhat reminds me of the scenario between my father and I at times, so I could relate.
As expected, Huttser's wound takes him due to the infection and his death, witnessed only by Fell, is very emotional and challenging to take (for me more than Fell it seemed). Fell went to tell his mother Huttser had gone only to discover she too had died in her sleep only hours or so before. Convenient, but very touching, very sad. I shed some tears over this.
Jalgan is on his way with his Vengerid, the grief of losing his parents causes Fell to go on another emotional tangent, Morgra tries again to “corrupt” him for Vladeran, taunting him with the inevitable future of him killing Alina by his own fangs (it eventually got to the point I was waiting impatiently and with anxiety for that to actually happen), because the Sight does not lie. She also mentions that Larka was indeed alive after her fall at the end of The Sight, but that Vladeran slit her throat when he happened upon her wounded form. I wanted to smash that bastard's face in when I read that, but I thought it was another of Morgra's tricks. That cunning minx, how I love her.
Fell returns to the pack, Tarlar tries to convince him to fight Jalgan (Jalgan would end his ways of causing suffering wherever he goes if someone can beat him in single combat), Fell refuses because he's emo, and Kar leads the pack away from the Stone Den, leaving behind Palla and Huttser's bodies because they knew they could not fight the Vengerid. Fell has an acid trip with a “great mouth” (which is quite obviously a bear in a cave) and decides to return in the most subtle, plot supporting manner possible.
When Kar and his pack are stopped by Jalgan, Jalgan gives Tarlar an ultimatum. Jalgan views Tarlar as his mate and he will stop at nothing to have her. This guy is so twisted that if he had more depth I would have grown to like him. He basically gives her two choices. Surrender herself to him and be his mate and he will kill Kar, Skop, Khaz, Kipcha, and Larka 2.0, as quickly and painlessly as possible. If she refuses him, he promised to make their suffering last for as many days as possible before they died. He'd then take her with him anyway. What a bastard. At this point I was fuming, I was interested, engaged, and wanted to jump into the pages myself and tear this bastard a new hole or two in various places. Fortunately, before Tarlar fully accepts to go with him to spare her friends days of pain and agony, Fell pops out of the waterfall, having heard everything (and seeing into Jalgan's mind what he wanted to do with Huttser and Palla's corpses). Fell challenges Jalgan to a fight, Jalgan taunts him into not using the powers of the Sight, Jalgan almost kills Fell, but Fell uses the Sight at the very end to detect an attack of Jalgan's and moves just in time before finishing him off once and for all. Rest in peace, Jalgan, you won't be missed.
Tarlar basically admits she loves Fell, but despite his wounds he needs to save Alina. Or, right, Alina got captured by Vladeran. The book was sadly just starting to get good.
In a nutshell, there is then a huge battle for Vladeran's palace between Fell and the Helgra (the hippie wolf loving barbarian guys) with Catalin at their side using his marksman skill to fell Vladeran's men. Tarlar jumps in to aid Fell and after a long, somewhat details struggle, they manage to make it into the palace where Alina is being held with her mother and her half brother. Vladeran at this point is keen on capturing and taming Fell through any means possible so he can control the Helgra and stop the war and he manages to get a net over Fell and Tarlar. After concluding that Tarlar is “no use to him”, he decides to kill her and to introduce Fell to the “whips and chains” they use to tame their most vicious dogs. Fortunately, Tarlar is not killed, Fell uses the summoning howl after Morgra begs him to do so and Morgra's spectral form comes from Vladeran's little prayer circle and reveals to Fell that she is not evil anymore, that she understands now the true way of dealing with injustices, and she begs him for forgiveness. He doesn't actually give it to her, but with her help and the help of an old dog, Fell breaks out of his captivity and ends Vladeran's life and Alina's father pops out of nowhere and gives this huge speech about war and hate or some such, it's indicated that Alina and Catalin are to be lovers and what-have-you, Fell and Alina say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, Fell has a speech with Tarlar (he does most of the talking, self-righteous dick) and it seems like those two are to start a new life together. End of story.
It sure seems likely that there is room for a sequel and admittedly, I probably would still pick it up and read it even after my disappointment with this book. Don't get me wrong, I rather enjoyed this book, but sadly, the parts I enjoyed could have been condensed to less than 100 pages and the rest of the story could have been summarized and filled in with another 50 – 100 or so. The Sight was a far superior book and the reason I picked up Fell and gave it a read. The Sight was also the reason I kept going, even though I knew early on this wasn't going to be a favorite of mine. The characters native only to Fell were shallow (aside from Alina), uninteresting, and the ones that actually had a trickle of depth were human, not wolves (or even animals for crying out loud). David Clement-Davies is indeed a great author, but throughout much of Fell, I felt like this was actually another story he had in mind, separate from The Sight, but after The Sight became as popular as it did, he renamed some of the characters within this separate story, added a few lines and bits to pay homage to the characters from the Sight, and played it off as a sequel to The Sight. I doubt this is entirely true, but that is how it felt to me and it certainly left a deprived taste in my mouth. I want more from this series, but not more human bullshit lording over the story I grew so found of. I would like to see a “one and a half” or some such, related more to Kar and Slavka than anything else, as this is a chapter in the story that was completely passed over and ignored – but this saga needs it in my opinion, I sure hope he does decide to revisit this series and soon, but for now, we do have “Scream of the White Bears” to look forward to soon and based on the little blurb at the end of Fell, it does appear to be quite interesting. Wolves and polar bears? Oh my! In the meantime, I will be starting Fire Bringer by the same author.
