After reading the blurb I was prepared to find something akin to David & Leigh Eddings’ Belgariad and/or Malorean series, but I was wrong. All the right characters are here but they are all tortured souls, very little humour among them. In the first 20 hours, I found the characters did not grow, or if they did anything to evolve they quickly regressed.
Every character’s background is covered to give the listener insight to why he/she is justified in being a tortured soul now, and yet it’s not engrossing in the least.
This book drove me back to the Belgariad in an effort to define the difference between the writing styles, and I think it might be description. The description in FoW is bland. And anti-climactic. Any anticipation that might build is quickly thwarted by dull reasoning or reference to the event which left their soul tortured…
The narration is fair, with good distinction between all characters.