I will say this for "The Fade," the world it depicts is a vibrant, original, and enthralling masterpiece of worldbuilding. Never before have I seen such a thing as a dark fantasy set in the underground of an alien moon, and it is this which attracted me to the book in the first place. While the wonderful setting was everything I wanted, it was the only thing that kept me reading.

The main character of this book, Orna, is meant to be a deadly spy and assassin. She does not come off as such. Throughout the course of the book, I found Orna to be a miserable, whiny, and disgustingly emotionally encumbered character that I could not begin to like or to relate to. Pardon me if I spoil a little bit, but in the beginning of the book, Orna is thrown into an enemy prison, and is so stricken with the death of her husband, Rynn, that she can't bring herself to even attempt escape. Pathetic. That's not all she does; all through this book whenever there's a triumphal swell in the action, Orna has to ruin it with some new tidbit of her despicable weakness of character. Another example: Later in the book, Orna has to opportunity to watch a group of enemy soldiers die a horrible death. I won't say how, but it was very graphic and very satisfying, and while I was laughing with delight, Orna had to go and think something like, "Not even the Gurta deserve that..." What?! After all they've done, she can still feel such weakness? Disgraceful!

I won't elaborate on this one, either, but the character of Orna's husband Rynn is explored through the many flashbacks, and for a while he was my favorite character in the book. Wouldn't you know it, Wooding ruins him as a character, too. For your information, Orna was involved.

In brief, the setting is great, but the story told therein is nothing special, and the main character is one of the worst I've read of in some time. I would not recommend it. ( )

This isn't the type of book I'd usually read, so I wasn't sure what to expect from it. I liked the description of it, and it sounded quite promising. It turned out to be okay. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. I really enjoyed reading about the difference between all the tribes, both underground and aboveground. Oran had a very distinct voice which made her feel very real. Unfortunately, I didn't find the book all that engaging. It moved pretty slow and I thought the chapters counting down for the present, and up for the future, was more gimmicky than effective and useful to the plot. It was an okay book but not very memorable. ( )

Wooding has never failed to deliver a totally fresh and always intriguing world in each new book! No wonder I love this author! Not his best book but still worth reading and better than most other others in the genre. ( )

Borrowing heavily from many tropes and putting them together into an underground setting with two races at war this is a standard tale told competently. I fail to see the need for the structure in which the tale moves in both directions chronologically telling the story of the protagonist from when we meet her. It felt awkward and unsubtle. The twist at the end was obvious. A solid OK for this one. ( )

Chris Wooding is simply one of the best fantastical action thriller writers around: as soon as this came out I pounced on it with great glee and let me tell you, I wasn’t disappointed. The Fade has echoes of classic old-school prison-break stories like Papillon or even The Great Escape. But the book’s fantasy setting and hard-as-nails female assassin narrator make it something else again. Fast, fresh and very, VERY cool, this will grab you from page one and never let you go. ( )