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zephyr42's review against another edition
5.0
I've never wanted to visit Florida until I read this book. Elemental fantasy, pirates, a metamorphic heroine, and an honest insurance inspector. A book entirely its own. Don't sit down with it until you have time to get absorbed, just like with the rest of Priest's books.
yoliesbookdates's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
dreizehn's review
4.0
This novel was quite unlike anything I've read before. Cherie Priest quickly became one of my favorite authors with her Clockwork Century series. I breezed through Boneshaker, Clementine and Dreadnought, and loved them all. That said, this work by Priest is an entirely different beast from those novels. However, it is worth mentioning that it is still undeniably Priest. The styling is masterful, and her great skill at story-crafting makes the book an interesting and enjoyable read. Having always been a bit of a mythology geek, I very much liked the idea of the gods, goddesses, and the like. Crafting a story about these beings into one about Florida takes skill, and Priest manages it more than capably. One of my favorite things about this book is that, near the end, all of the many story threads and arcs come together to form a nice, neat close. As I reader, I enjoy the realizations of "oh, that's why the that happened the way it did!" I would recommend this novel to readers who enjoy fantasy, particularly if they enjoy urban fantasy, dark fantasy, and a heaping dose of mythology.
sunspot's review against another edition
2.0
If pressed to sum up "Fathom" in one word, that word would be "anti-climactic." On one side of the plot there's the wicked, murderous Bernice, her companion and adopted brother, Jose, and their "mother," the sea witch Arahab. On the other, there's , Bernice's cousin Nia, rescued from drowning and transformed into a fast, powerful creature "made from stone; the shunned outcast creature Mossfeaster; and Sam, the paper-pusher who just wanted to go home. One side tries to bring about the end of the world by waking Leviathan, a giant God who sleeps beneath the sea, beneath the earth; the other tries to prevent it... apparently.
It's well-written and the plot is intriguing, but the novel's ending left much to be desired. The giant God, on the verge of waking, is soothed back to sleep by the lullaby of a sound played on the bells within a giant tower. Nia discovered that Leviathan slumbers just beneath the tower, and... that's it. Add in the island's strange cult whose origins and motives are frustratingly never illuminated and the questions such as "Why couldn't Mossfeaster just get to the fire God's servant before he created the trinket Arahab needed?", "What about the ship-through-the-earth thing? If that wasn't necessary why not go the 'call' route in the first place with José?", and "What's to prevent Arahab from grabbing another human tomorrow, transforming him/her, and having another call made?" and I was left wholly unsatisfied by the book's end. There's a difference between an open-ended ending and an ending riddled with loose threads. Fathom's ending falls into the latter category.
It's well-written and the plot is intriguing, but the novel's ending left much to be desired. The giant God, on the verge of waking, is soothed back to sleep by the lullaby of a sound played on the bells within a giant tower. Nia discovered that Leviathan slumbers just beneath the tower, and... that's it. Add in the island's strange cult whose origins and motives are frustratingly never illuminated and the questions such as "Why couldn't Mossfeaster just get to the fire God's servant before he created the trinket Arahab needed?", "What about the ship-through-the-earth thing? If that wasn't necessary why not go the 'call' route in the first place with José?", and "What's to prevent Arahab from grabbing another human tomorrow, transforming him/her, and having another call made?" and I was left wholly unsatisfied by the book's end. There's a difference between an open-ended ending and an ending riddled with loose threads. Fathom's ending falls into the latter category.
calamity_mary's review against another edition
2.0
It's an ok read but it left me disappointed. The narrative is a bit disjointed, uncertain and it drags a bit. The characters are not really fleshed out but the mythology in place is enough to leave one curious enough...even if it feels a bit like it's an incomplete idea.
Feels more like a draft of a really good idea for a book than an actual novel.
Feels more like a draft of a really good idea for a book than an actual novel.
xoffelokin's review against another edition
3.0
I quite liked this novel.
It was a nice read,though not a "can't put it down" one. It was still enjoyable, and the plot was really intriguing. Of course, I'm a sucker for anything where a human being is turned into something un-human. : )
It was a nice read,though not a "can't put it down" one. It was still enjoyable, and the plot was really intriguing. Of course, I'm a sucker for anything where a human being is turned into something un-human. : )
erinsanson's review against another edition
4.0
Definitely slow in some places; the book doesn't really take off until the first third, in my opinion. But whether it's creating a steampunk world (with zombies, no less) or creating the dark fantasy world that is Fathom, all I have to say is that Priest really knows how to build engagng, rich environments. Even though I didn't know what was going on sometimes, I really, really enjoyed this book.
mferrante83's review against another edition
5.0
Cherie Priest is an author better known for Southern Gothic fiction and, despite its Florida locale, Fathom is a slight deviation from that area. Fathom certainly makes use of Priest’s familiarity with that genre but places more emphasis on the fantastic elements and overarching plot than on the setting and atmosphere of the story. In essence Priest trades elements of horror for elements of the fantastic to craft a story more in vein with Charles de Lint than say Edgar Allan Poe.
Read on for more
Read on for more
jefffrane's review against another edition
4.0
It definitely took some concerted effort to get through the early pages of Fathom but I have enough confidence in Cherie Priest that I stuck it out. Once the framing got out of the way and the plot really got rolling it was a treat. Wildly inventive and lovingly brutal, the story hooked me completely.