Faithless

If I were going to choose a dark fantasy book purely for the way the author sets a scene and builds tension, this would be the book I would choose. So many fantasy books these days rely on war, confrontation and combat, but this one is more of a fantasy thriller. It has combat, yes, but it isn't what defines the book's contents.In essence, this book is about blacksmithing and uses the skills and techniques of the forge as a faith (religion). A fresh angle for me and I really enjoyed the way the author constructed this novel.Plenty of twists and turns, the magic system is wrapped up with the faith in the forge, lots of characters and great suspense. All in all a fantastic read!

Enjoyed every pafe

_Faithless_ is to me many things, all interesting. It is well described fantasy medieval setting, one not like any I have read before, a place that to the outside world is the above ground church of the Forgefather, a once powerful faith centered around a blacksmith god. The church has fallen on harder times but is still a force to be reckoned with, though little known (or perhaps little questioned by outsiders, who may not really want to know), is also a church that sets atop a gritty, vividly described underground city know as Aspiration, one populated by practically slave labor that tunnel into deep, dark tunnels (not of their own making) to feed the church’s endless appetite for coal and metal, especially precious metals._Faithless_ is a book on faith, the lack of faith, and perceptions of what faith means, as the church of the Forgefather doesn’t really hear their god anymore, to an extent coasting on physical resources (the mines and the skill of those in the church at metal work is of considerable value) and also on what latent magic survived from the heydays of the church (though the reader questions through most of the book the rituals and songs using in metal working, wondering if they are just tradition, perhaps ways of marking time or keeping focused on the task at hand, or if they really contain power). Does one need to really believe in the Forgefather to live and work in the church, to use the rituals, to reap the benefits? Or as the miners and craftsmen of Aspiration show, is it just more about at the end of the day survival? Is faith just belief in a god, is it also not just knowing a god exists but believing in what that god stands for, can one have true faith in a god’s beliefs if one sees or knows only a limited amount of information about that (was the Forgefather just a god of the blacksmith and metalworker, or was he more), or can faith also mean keeping the faith with one’s beliefs, in standing up for what is right and opposing what is wrong, no matter the cost? Is a person who just does whatever it takes to survive, no matter who it hurts, the man or woman who is truly faithless?_Faithless_ is a book about hidden threats, hiding in either the literal dark (the seductive, whispering Utterdark deep in the caverns, tempting miners to their doom, never to be seen again, a phantom creature that may or may not exist, though the people who disappear are definitely gone) or figurative dark (the hidden secrets of the church, hollow as it may no longer believe in the deity they claim to serve, a church also hiding deep sins like slavery, sexual assault, and murder)._Faithless_ is also, perhaps most importantly, a story of two people caught in the world of the church of the Forgefather and the mines and town of Aspiration, dealing with mining accidents, rival mining gangs, rebellions against the rule of the church and the authorities in Aspiration, conspiracies, the whispering temptations of the Utterdark, and a murderous pedophile priest who offers on one hand power, knowledge, influence, and a way out of the mines (for a very, very few people are chosen from Aspiration to become novices and enter the church, having to make their way up its various hierarchical rungs to become a full priest) and on the other abuse or worse (as those who displease him can be sent back to the mines or made to disappear in the deep dark caverns). One individual the reader gets to follow is young Wynn, a former farm boy apparently sold into slavery to the church by his father (whom we never really even see to any extent), who discovers the harsh realities of being a miner, of life in Aspiration with its many unwritten rules, and of testing to become a novice in the church. Another individual is an older, bitter, broken man, not as hopeful, much more prone to do whatever it takes to get out of the mines, a place he had left once before, a man by the name of Kharios. Wynn and Kharios provide some vivid contrasts; Wynn, still learning, Kharios quite knowledaglbe about how this world works, Wynn filled with hope, believing in much of what he is told, Kharios much more cynical and distrusting, his conscience and concern for others buried under layers of abuse and painful lessons, some from what was done to him, some from things he failed to do.The town of Aspiration, the mines they work, the personalities of both the town and the church were very vividly described and sucked me right in. The descriptions of the activity of mining itself, of blacksmithing, felt real and definitely had a palpable weight of authenticity without being in any ponderous or “info dumps,” with the very acts of mining and metalworking being use to explore the thoughts and actions of the individuals in the book and the nature of the setting, be it the Utterdark, the faith of the Forgefather, or of magic in this world; it was never “fantasy setting with well described mining and metal working scenes” but rather “the mining and metal working scenes, even the physical acts of using the hammer or working the forge had deeper meanings that were surprisingly revealed later in the book.”The book has one of the biggest twists I have seen in any fantasy setting, maybe about the 60% mark, where the entire tone and definitely the plot radically changes. At first it was jarring, it felt like a different book at times entirely (but it was quite exciting) but the author very skillfully shows it isn’t anywhere near as divergent as it first appears and is quite logical and thought out in terms of the setting. I will admit now quite getting how well grounded it was may have contributed a bit to how exciting it was, as the change was quite surprising though in retrospect, logical.Well written book, It stands out from all the fantasy I have read in recent years.