The Fade, by Chris Wooding, Orion Books, available in all good Aussie bookstores now

One of the most important things in any story for me is for it to be to be believable, for the "suspension of disbelief" to be invoked. Well, in this fantasy (although I might dispute this genre label below), in my opinion, the author, Chris Wooding, has excelled in that invocation. No magic involved.

The Fade is a fantasy that's set on a distant moon, Callespa, orbiting a gas-giant planet, Beyl, that itself orbits two incredibly active suns — so active that the radiation has driven most of the moon's life underground, into caverns, where warmth and life comes from tectonic activity, and — for humans at least — light comes from something unexplained called chthonomancy. Thing is, chthonomancy could easily be an advanced but otherwise forgotten technology under the control of a guild. Other than that, the world of "crystalline outcrops and giant fungal blooms" is a milieu well enough described and delineated that it feels, smells, and looks real.

Into this "reality" steps Orna, the so-called "Fade" of the title and a member of the highly trained "Cadre", whose job it is to protect and serve the aristocracy in the midst of an ongoing underground war. Orna is an assassin, a spy, a thief, a trained killer, and a mother — but she has been captured by the enemy, and she is imprisoned in a place from which it seems impossible to escape.

The plot of The Fade is one of dark revenge, and follows Orna's attempts at escape, and her acquisition of knowledge that might tip her civilisation upside-down, culminating in an ultimate triumph — with a final plot twist that's sure to satisfy the most jaded of readers.

Indeed, The Fade isn't another interminable fantasy novel that has been padded out to thousands of pages. The action is concise, the writing is focused, the characterisation is profoundly shown, not told, and the structure is a perfect blend of now-focused action in present tense, interspersed with flashbacks that give the reader an insight into Orna's world and how she came to be a "Fade".

This is a must-obtain for your reading list in 2008.

Nuke