10
Sep092011
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Fated’ by S. G. Browne
by Carolyn • Posted in 4 Star Reviews, Authors A-D, Piatkus, Reviews by Carolyn, SG Browne, Urban Fantasy
Title: Fated
Author: S. G. Browne
Publisher: Piatkus (UK) | Penguin (US)
Publication Date: Sept 2011 (UK) | Nov 2010 (US)
Paperback: 312 pages
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Source: Review copy from publisher
Reviewed by: Carolyn
RATING: 8/10 – brilliant, couldn’t put it down!
SUMMARY:
Over the past few thousand years, Fabio has come to hate his job. As Fate, he’s in charge of assigning the fortunes and misfortunes that befall most of the human race—the 83% who keep screwing things up. And with the steady rise in population since the first Neanderthal set himself on fire, he can’t exactly take a vacation.
Frustrated with his endless parade of drug addicts and career politicians, it doesn’t help watching Destiny guide her people to Nobel Peace Prizes and Super Bowl MVPs. To make matters worse, he has a five hundred year old feud with Death, and his best friends are Sloth and Gluttony. And worst of all? He’s just fallen in love with a human.
Sara Griffen might be on Destiny’s path, but Fabio keeps bumping into her—by accident at first, and then on purpose. Getting involved with her breaks Rule #1, and about ten others, setting off some cosmic-sized repercussions that could strip him of his immortality–or lead to a fate worse than death.
REVIEW:
“Fated” is a very clever and imaginative story. It’s quite different from what I usually read, and although I enjoyed this authors previous book, ‘Breathers’, I thought “Fated” was much better in every respect.
Fate is disillusioned with his five and a half billion humans. He’s fed up with watching them make mistake after mistake and waste their lives, diverting from the path he has set out for each of them.
However, one day he meets Sara, a human and falls in love. Which means his broken rule #1 – never get involved with humans.
The story takes us through his relationship with Sara, which is touching and funny. I really liked Fate, also known as Fabio when on Earth. He’s endearing even when he scorns his human herd.
I thought the way the author integrated Destiny, Death, Gluttony, Sloth among others, and even God, (known as Jerry), into the story was brilliantly done. They all had personalities which went along with their name.
I loved the whole idea of how Jerry made the universe and how all the planets including Earth came to be, although it isn’t an original idea, it was skilfully composed which had me smiling.
“Fated” is a satirical novel, which did occasionally turn a bit preachy. Some passages where Fate was venting his anger about the stupidity of his billions of humans went on a bit too long. I was also saddened to see that all the humans were portrayed as pretty awful.
There was one particular passage where Fate was in a church and he could see the futures of all the people that were there – he listed them: adulterers, pedophiles, school drop-outs, unhappy housewives. Not one was happy or good or kind. Humanity is bad but surely not that bad!
However, because of what happens to him, which I won’t go into as I don’t want to give any spoilers, Fate does eventually realise that humans aren’t as bad as he first thought. He begins to understand what it is like to be human, he realises that by being immortal and able to transport at the speed of light didn’t really give him the empathy he needed to understand them. It was touching to see him grow and learn and ultimately see hope.
The ending I didn’t see coming for a long time, but I did eventually begin to have my suspicions. I was really hoping to be wrong, but I wasn’t, the ending is slightly disconcerting and I can’t say I liked it. But as I found with ‘Breathers’, Browne doesn’t write nicely wrapped up happy endings, which actually makes his novels deliciously unpredictable.
VERDICT:
“Fated” is a unique and well written novel. It’s also funny, quirky, warm-hearted and hugely entertaining, which made this book hard to put down. I would definitely recommend it!
You can find out more about the author here:
This book counts towards the following BCC reading challenges:
10 Comments
Enjoyed your review and now of course, I'm interested in reading Browne's work. {However, all the links you listed for him take me to Jesse Peterson's pages.
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I haven't heard of S.G. Browne until just now, so I'm glad you reviewed his book.
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I am looking forward to reading this one.
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Mardel – Glad you enjoyed the review! I'd definitely urge you to read FATED as it's just so brilliant. Thanks for letting me know about the links, not sure what happened there as I added the correct links, anyhoo they have now been changed
Vivienne – It's really good. I enjoyed Breathers but FATED is just SO much better. I hope you like it – looking forward to hearing what you think
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Sounds like a very interesting book, and I really enjoyed your review. Thanks for posting!
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I have never heard about this book but the summary sounds great.
Thanks for the review
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This sounds like a really interesting book, great review too. I really like the idea of the book, it sounds refreshingly unique
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It sounds very interesting. The premise of Fate (and others) as people sounds like Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series. I love his books, so I might just have to pick up this one to see what it's like.
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Great review a very good read by the sound of it. Shame I cannot enter the giveaway as I am not on twitter and it will not accept unless you are. never mind.
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Amy – Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed my review! As well as being a really clever book it's also a lot of fun to read
Nimue – It is a great book, would definitely recommend it
Laura – I have a spare ARC if you want it?
Sarah – I've never heard of Piers Anthony's "Incarnation of Immortality" series, so I will check it out. FATED definitely sounds like your kind of book then, so I'd definitely recommend it to you
carol810 – Thanks, glad you liked the review. Sorry about the form, was incorrect, I didn't mean to make the twitter bit a requirement – but I have now sorted so please do enter!
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Thank you for changing it. have now entered.
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