Monday, October 25, 2010

Fated: By S.G. Browne

FATED

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.

Frustrated with his endless parade of drug addicts and career politicians, Fate has to watch 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 fallen in love with a human.

Getting involved with a human 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

Who would you rather be? Destiny or Fate?

Destiny gets all the successful, world-changing people. The people who things just seem to naturally flow their way. The cool kids.

Fate gets everyone else.

The people who cheat, lie, rape, steal, and kill. That’s who Fate gets, oh and all the nobodies left in the world.

In Fated, Browne does a fantastic job of creating a world where the different compulsions are given their respective humanistic characters. Gluttony is fat and a slob (aka gluttonous), Sloth is always falling asleep, and Destiny is ravishingly beautiful and compelling.

The story follows Fabio (Fate) as he does his job and is forced to see the inadequacies of the human race first hand. He’s pained as each and every human under his watch makes the same predictable mistakes. He wants them to stop, but the #1 rule is no interfering. So it’s perfectly understandable that the story takes place around Fabio’s indiscretion and breaking of this number one rule.

I thought Fated moves at a pretty good pace and I really enjoyed meeting the different deities and compulsions and see how they interacted. I thought some of Browne’s side jokes such as that Jerry’s (Gods) office is certified by OSHA were really funny, but I felt some of the continuous jokes (which I realize are part of the theme throughout the story) such as the “the thing about” jokes become old after the first hundred pages or so.

Yet while some of the jokes grew old after a few dozen reinterpretations. I felt Browne’s narrative is strong and humorous through most of the story, his characters funny and charismatic (I especially liked Dennis (Death)), and his story compelling. Because of this I would recommend Fated for people looking for a fun new book with a different spin on things, but not for people who will be caught up in a religious fight.

RATING
8 out of 10

INFO

Publisher: NAL Trade

Published: November 2, 2010

Price: $15.00

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