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A Shadow All of Light
In the province of Tlemia, where human shadows are powerful commodities, an apprentice shadow thief embarks on an extraordinary adventure.
This stylish, episodic fantasy novel, in the mode of classic Jack Vance, follows the exploits of Falco, a young man from the country, who arrives in the port city of Tardocco with the ambition of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Maestro Astolfo, whose mysterious powers of observation would rival those of Sherlock Holmes, sees Falco's potential and puts him through a grueling series of physical lessons and intellectual tests.
Falco's adventures coalesce into one overarching story of con men, monsters, ingenious detection, cats, and pirates. A wry humor leavens this fantastical concoction, and the style is as rich and textured as one would hope for from Chappell, a distinguished poet as well as a World Fantasy Award-winning fantasy writer.
This stylish, episodic fantasy novel, in the mode of classic Jack Vance, follows the exploits of Falco, a young man from the country, who arrives in the port city of Tardocco with the ambition of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Maestro Astolfo, whose mysterious powers of observation would rival those of Sherlock Holmes, sees Falco's potential and puts him through a grueling series of physical lessons and intellectual tests.
Falco's adventures coalesce into one overarching story of con men, monsters, ingenious detection, cats, and pirates. A wry humor leavens this fantastical concoction, and the style is as rich and textured as one would hope for from Chappell, a distinguished poet as well as a World Fantasy Award-winning fantasy writer.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 2016
12 people are currently reading
617 people want to read
About the author
Fred Chappell
112 books123 followersFred Davis Chappell retired after 40 years as an English professor at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He was the Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 1997-2002. He attended Duke University.
His 1968 novel Dagon, which was named the Best Foreign Book of the Year by the Academie Française, is a recasting of a Cthulhu Mythos horror story as a psychologically realistic Southern Gothic.
His literary awards include the Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers, the Bollingen Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize.
His 1968 novel Dagon, which was named the Best Foreign Book of the Year by the Academie Française, is a recasting of a Cthulhu Mythos horror story as a psychologically realistic Southern Gothic.
His literary awards include the Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers, the Bollingen Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
April 25, 2016
Maybe it's just that I read 'Ill Met in Lankhmar' just recently, but I don't think so. This book really brings Fritz Leiber and his ilk to mind, harking back intentionally to the swords and sorcery of an earlier era. The episodic structure and 'low fantasy' theme are similar to the Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser tales. The language that it's told in definitely references Jack Vance. (Think: a liberal sprinkling of archaic and 'ten-cent' words in the midst of an otherwise informal, chatty narrative.)
As far as that goes, YMMV. I know many people love Vance's writing style and laud it to the heavens. I personally have tended to find his prose stylings annoying. However, I actually found the language here amusing, because it fit with the narrator's personality of a belatedly-educated man with the desire to impress his readers.
This narrator is known as Falco, a onetime 'country bumpkin' who came to the big city with the goal - in which he succeeds - of convincing the notorious shadow master (or thief?) Maestro Astolfo to take him on as an apprentice. In this world, shadows are a commodity. They can be separated from their owners, bought and sold, used for disguise or other purposes. Much of the trade in shadows is less than wholly legitimate.
In this volume, Falco tells us a series of tales, spanning a couple of decades, of his various adventures (and misadventures) working for and with the Maestro. Sorceresses, pirates, burglaries, assassins, booby traps, magicked jewels, double-crosses and suchlike accoutrements of fantasy adventures all make their appearances.
Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinion is solely my own.
As far as that goes, YMMV. I know many people love Vance's writing style and laud it to the heavens. I personally have tended to find his prose stylings annoying. However, I actually found the language here amusing, because it fit with the narrator's personality of a belatedly-educated man with the desire to impress his readers.
This narrator is known as Falco, a onetime 'country bumpkin' who came to the big city with the goal - in which he succeeds - of convincing the notorious shadow master (or thief?) Maestro Astolfo to take him on as an apprentice. In this world, shadows are a commodity. They can be separated from their owners, bought and sold, used for disguise or other purposes. Much of the trade in shadows is less than wholly legitimate.
In this volume, Falco tells us a series of tales, spanning a couple of decades, of his various adventures (and misadventures) working for and with the Maestro. Sorceresses, pirates, burglaries, assassins, booby traps, magicked jewels, double-crosses and suchlike accoutrements of fantasy adventures all make their appearances.
Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinion is solely my own.
August 23, 2016
Fred Chappell brings together various strands of his long and varied writing career in the richly textured novel-in-stories that is "A Shadow All of Light." A speculative work set in an alternate Renaissance Italy, it traces the arrival of a country bumpkin who has taken the name Falco, seeking to apprentice himself to the master of shadows, Astolfo. In a picaresque series of adventures, Falco is challenged, humiliated, threatened, chastised - in short, he matures and becomes an adept in the art of harvesting and managing shadows.
Many of these tales appeared in other forms in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction." They are threaded together to bring us to a spectacular climax as Falco leads a high-stakes gambit to save the endangered city that has become his home.
A special gift for cat lovers resides in these pages - I won't spoil it, except to say that the transformation of Mutano and the story of the King of the Cats is marvelous!
For those who know Chappell's work in speculative fiction, this is a welcome return. Those who best know his Appalachian tales will respond to this tale of a rural boy becoming a sophisticate. And those who are fans of his poetry will recognize in this story a parable for how a weaver of tales - is not a writer a thief and curator of shadows? - is shaped by apprenticeship in the word.
Many of these tales appeared in other forms in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction." They are threaded together to bring us to a spectacular climax as Falco leads a high-stakes gambit to save the endangered city that has become his home.
A special gift for cat lovers resides in these pages - I won't spoil it, except to say that the transformation of Mutano and the story of the King of the Cats is marvelous!
For those who know Chappell's work in speculative fiction, this is a welcome return. Those who best know his Appalachian tales will respond to this tale of a rural boy becoming a sophisticate. And those who are fans of his poetry will recognize in this story a parable for how a weaver of tales - is not a writer a thief and curator of shadows? - is shaped by apprenticeship in the word.
August 6, 2016
Unlike other reviewers, I loved this book largely due to the amazing mastery of English in the art of storytelling. While studying fabulous details of shadows that I never knew existed, I also learned amazing new but old words such as camelopard, fosse, tatterdemalion, and eremitic. These words are not inutile by any ell, but added sondes to the setting and characters of the story. This true fantasy used my left brain as well as my right.
September 12, 2017
See my other reviews at Never Enough Books
Falco is a young man from the country with high ambitions. He travels to the port city of Tardocco with the intention of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Almost immediately he meets Maestro Astolfo, the most well known of all shadow dealers, who sees a great deal of potential in Falco and agrees to take him on as an apprentice.
Maestro Astolfo is a unique man. Secretive with a power of observation and intellect that would rival Sherlock Holmes himself. As Falco trains and learns more of the Maestro, he cannot help but wonder if the rumors he hears are true and just how far Astolfo’s knowledge goes.
Set in a pseudo 17th-18th Century Italy, A Shadow All of Light is told in a series of short stories. Each short story chronicles a time in Falco’s training and eventual partnership with Astolfo as he learns the art of shadows. Through the stories we see Falco grow and mature from a brash young man in the beginning to an older married man in the eventual end.
If I have one complaint about the book, it would be that the speaking style of the characters is rather stilted. Their speech is obviously based on speaking patterns of the time and can be rather odd to the modern ear. I found it to be very reminiscent of reading Shakespeare and there were several times I had to reread a sentence a few times to understand the meaning.
The action itself was well written and well paced. There were also numerous humorous moments that made me smile.
A Shadow All of Light was another of those books that came to me as a recommendation. Being a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I often find it interesting how authors will take his well known skills and fit them to another character. Maestro Astolfo is one such character in that he has taken a lifetime of study and applied it to become the most well known and richest of shadow dealers.
If it weren’t for the sometimes awkward speaking style of the characters, I would have gladly given A Shadow All of Light full marks. As it is, I do recommend this book to most readers. I just advise them to take their time and go slowly and enjoy.
Falco is a young man from the country with high ambitions. He travels to the port city of Tardocco with the intention of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Almost immediately he meets Maestro Astolfo, the most well known of all shadow dealers, who sees a great deal of potential in Falco and agrees to take him on as an apprentice.
Maestro Astolfo is a unique man. Secretive with a power of observation and intellect that would rival Sherlock Holmes himself. As Falco trains and learns more of the Maestro, he cannot help but wonder if the rumors he hears are true and just how far Astolfo’s knowledge goes.
Set in a pseudo 17th-18th Century Italy, A Shadow All of Light is told in a series of short stories. Each short story chronicles a time in Falco’s training and eventual partnership with Astolfo as he learns the art of shadows. Through the stories we see Falco grow and mature from a brash young man in the beginning to an older married man in the eventual end.
If I have one complaint about the book, it would be that the speaking style of the characters is rather stilted. Their speech is obviously based on speaking patterns of the time and can be rather odd to the modern ear. I found it to be very reminiscent of reading Shakespeare and there were several times I had to reread a sentence a few times to understand the meaning.
The action itself was well written and well paced. There were also numerous humorous moments that made me smile.
A Shadow All of Light was another of those books that came to me as a recommendation. Being a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I often find it interesting how authors will take his well known skills and fit them to another character. Maestro Astolfo is one such character in that he has taken a lifetime of study and applied it to become the most well known and richest of shadow dealers.
If it weren’t for the sometimes awkward speaking style of the characters, I would have gladly given A Shadow All of Light full marks. As it is, I do recommend this book to most readers. I just advise them to take their time and go slowly and enjoy.
July 1, 2016
A good stand alone fantasy novel. I liked the details of the "shadows" and how to capture them and use them. I enjoyed the hero's growth and learning about shadows.
Mutano and the whole cat sub plot where he had to steal his voice back from a cat was pretty interesting.
The focus is on the hero's learning to use shadows and fulfill commissions for his teacher, Astolfo.
I took 1 star off because the language was a bit difficult to follow at times, weird vocabulary words and made up words.
Mutano and the whole cat sub plot where he had to steal his voice back from a cat was pretty interesting.
The focus is on the hero's learning to use shadows and fulfill commissions for his teacher, Astolfo.
I took 1 star off because the language was a bit difficult to follow at times, weird vocabulary words and made up words.
December 12, 2018
Masterful but hard to characterize. In his low fantasy tale set in a not-Renaissance Venice, Chappell adopts a tone that is strongly reminiscent of Jack Vance: deep, even obscure vocabulary, formal-to-stilted dialogue, and so forth. Some may find this hard going, but I thought it fit the characters and setting well (and demonstrated Chappell's mastery of language). The story is of a country bumpkin named Falco who arrives in the big city seeking his fortune, and ends up as apprentice to the great Astolfo, master in the art of shadows. The fantasy part of the tale thus involves a well-developed treatment of the nature and uses of shadows; indeed, not only is this a pretty novel spin on magic (although it is not described as 'magic'), it lends itself to some pretty interesting general metaphysical speculation.
Much of the book is episodic, and indeed it appears that several of the early chapters were published first as short stories. Chappell is not primarily interested in action, so those seeking action fantasy will be disappointed; the genius of the stories lies instead in the careful unraveling of schemes, plots, and trickeries (again reminiscent of Vance's Dying Earth). For much of the first half of the book I feared it would not rise above the short-story origins of its chapters, yet the conclusion is satisfying in its ability to weave together numerous earlier plot threads. I should also note that there is a long-running secondary plot involving cats that is highly entertaining, even to a non-cat lover.
Much of the book is episodic, and indeed it appears that several of the early chapters were published first as short stories. Chappell is not primarily interested in action, so those seeking action fantasy will be disappointed; the genius of the stories lies instead in the careful unraveling of schemes, plots, and trickeries (again reminiscent of Vance's Dying Earth). For much of the first half of the book I feared it would not rise above the short-story origins of its chapters, yet the conclusion is satisfying in its ability to weave together numerous earlier plot threads. I should also note that there is a long-running secondary plot involving cats that is highly entertaining, even to a non-cat lover.
August 27, 2016
It was just overly wordy for me. I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I don't really like feeling like I should look up a word a minute. I don't care for the writing style at all. There was one passage where he took at least 5 or 6 words, which was about half of sentence to describe castrati. Just using that word would have been sufficient. I slogged through about 1/3 of the book and I felt like there was no plot, other than "let's follow Falco around". Falco and his master weren't interesting enough for me to keep going with the book.
January 27, 2019
Chappell has a poet’s facility with language, and I was happy to see him turn it to a fantasy tale. I love his Appalachian stories, and here he portrays an Italianate setting with vivid character, from its sly bravos and petulant artists to its society of cats, pirates and even unusual and deadly flora. With a touch of adventure and light use of the fantastic, there are echoes of Vance and Leiber here, but its very much its own thing. Sciomancy, the art of shadow mastery, is an imaginative and clever idea, and had me thinking more than once of the shadow I take for granted that follows me.
May 6, 2019
I picked up the book randomly whilst perusing the library shelves. I was intrigued that it was a Southern writer and that he was compared to Earl Penn Warren.
The story was great and really reminded me of the Fritz Lieber (Fard and the Gray Mouser).
Writing/phrasing is beautiful but have your dictionary handy. You will learn some new words, I promise.
Looked up and learned that Fred Chappell is a well known (oops) poet and writer from North Carolina. I plan to give some of his other fiction a try even though this was his only fantasy book.
The story was great and really reminded me of the Fritz Lieber (Fard and the Gray Mouser).
Writing/phrasing is beautiful but have your dictionary handy. You will learn some new words, I promise.
Looked up and learned that Fred Chappell is a well known (oops) poet and writer from North Carolina. I plan to give some of his other fiction a try even though this was his only fantasy book.
June 18, 2016
I went in expecting something a little more put together -- something like Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora series. Instead, this essentially was an anthology of short stories stitched into a full book, in which a young student is taught by a master shadowthief ( literally dealing with the properties of shadow). Each that I read was pretty good and evocative on its own, but the stitching together failed to work for me.
November 11, 2016
While visiting Seattle I toured their new fabulous public library & received a live demo of their book recommendations service. I was initially fairly well knocked out by the reading knowledge of the library employee who conducted the seance. In this case, I told him of my great admiration for the novels of Wendell Berry & he in turn suggested that I should become familiar with Fred Chappell. So I expected & wanted to like this book. In fact, nothing but positive expectations fueled me thru 130 pages given that I felt like this book was clearly not my cuppa from the first paragraphs. I think the recommendation must have been based on the author's rural sourthern background & his writing in multiple genres. In no way whatsoever could I discover any other similarities to the works of Wendell Berry. This is sort of pretentious vocabularied adult version of J. K, Rowling kind of stuff. Some might find some amusement in it. I couldn't.
March 22, 2026
7/10
This novel comprises of a series of adventures/short stories undertaken by Falco, during his years from apprentice and then companion/aide to Astolfo, a Master Shadow thief. Whilst the stories could be read on their own (& i think some have appeared in anthologies) there is an obvious sense of continuity to this book
The taking of shadows was an intriguing type of "magic" and skill and with it comes veritable problems and puzzles to be solved.
Chapell is a great wordsmith and I can see why he has won literary awards for his writing, an added bonus was discovering words I'd never heard of and had to find out their meaning.
This novel comprises of a series of adventures/short stories undertaken by Falco, during his years from apprentice and then companion/aide to Astolfo, a Master Shadow thief. Whilst the stories could be read on their own (& i think some have appeared in anthologies) there is an obvious sense of continuity to this book
The taking of shadows was an intriguing type of "magic" and skill and with it comes veritable problems and puzzles to be solved.
Chapell is a great wordsmith and I can see why he has won literary awards for his writing, an added bonus was discovering words I'd never heard of and had to find out their meaning.
Did Not Finish
October 6, 2025Seeing as I didn’t finish this one, I won’t give it a starred review. Let me start by saying the premise of the story is super cool: an apprentice learning to be a shadow thief, that different types of shadows exist & the cunningness needed to master their capture & return.
I can usually push through books that end up lulling, but this dragggggged. Characters weren’t enticing nor relatable, the verbiage was an all around strange combo between modern & old that just didn’t do it for me. Plain & simple: story didn’t hold up to the title.🤷🏻♂️
I can usually push through books that end up lulling, but this dragggggged. Characters weren’t enticing nor relatable, the verbiage was an all around strange combo between modern & old that just didn’t do it for me. Plain & simple: story didn’t hold up to the title.🤷🏻♂️
June 20, 2020
Almost everything is filler. I made it to page 85 and had to stop. So boring and the author makes it seem like it’s only for people who are pretentious. I’m all for learning new words and I think I have a pretty good handle on vocabulary but it seems so over the top to use the type of words he was using to describe simple things (a few examples: hirsute, celerity, venality, occlusive, ancillary, inutile). I don’t usually DNF books so that’s saying something for how dry this one is.
June 23, 2021
In a pseudo-Italian city where shadows can be removed from their owners, a shadow broker's apprentice learns the trade. Written in a 1950's sword-and-sorcery style, this book moves slowly but pleasantly through a series of loosely connected stories. Dialogue is good, but sparse. There are fights, but most obstacles are overcome with cleverness. Cats have an outsize role. Diverting, but I prefer books with more emotional weight.
March 19, 2020
It was an interesting and different style of writing, but it was a little difficult to get through. The plot seemed to be a bit over the place although it seemed to come together in the end, but I feel like a bit of it was just filler.
February 3, 2021
Well. That was most excellent.
Of course, I’m not surprised by this author any longer, not for many years now. .
A highest praise I can give any book - I wish it had not ended.
“Are you, at last, the King o’ the Cats?”
Tell the truth. As you must!
Of course, I’m not surprised by this author any longer, not for many years now. .
A highest praise I can give any book - I wish it had not ended.
“Are you, at last, the King o’ the Cats?”
Tell the truth. As you must!
November 9, 2024
Fun, clever little stories about the apprentice of a shadow master - you just have to get used to the Shakespearean language first. I definitely appreciated Chappell's imagination, if not his ability to wrap everything up satisfactorily.
April 7, 2020
Highly entertaining, fantastic prose. Really liked it.
June 7, 2021
The story was a journey of Falco to become a shadow thief in the end it was a journey to become a good man.
May 6, 2024
Differently not my sort of read but I must say the only thing I liked in the book, was the way Falco was educated.
April 8, 2026
These stories of Falco the apprentice shadow thief first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction, and I loved them. So when I discovered they had been combined into a novel, I couldn’t get it soon enough. Or is it a novel that was sold in bits to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction? Hard to tell. It reads like a novel, to be fair, with the disparate elements coming together nicely at the end, and as people are more likely to buy novels than story collections, we shall call it a novel.
Falco is a farmer’s son who wants to better himself, so he comes to the port city of Tardocco in the province of Tlemia with the aim of apprenticing himself to Maestro Astolfo of the shadow trade. When we meet Falco, he is in Astolfo’s mansion with Astolfo’s blade at his throat. Fortunately, the master decides to admit him to his household. Falco the farmer is soon engaged in intensive training. He will learn to separate shadows from their casters with the quasilune knife, but must also undergo intense instruction in unarmed combat and swordplay from the voiceless servant Mutano, a great hulk of a man who thrashes him easily. His first real job comes up when a merchant named Pecunio contacts Maestro Astolfo with a shadow for sale. The names, city-states, and level of culture are all similar to those of Italy during the Renaissance.
Pecunio asks Astolfo to identify a shadow purporting to be that of the infamous pirate Morbruzzo. Falco is not much help here as he is still learning the trade. In his next adventure, a noble lady has a great jewel which appears to have a shadow in it, and her mental health seems to be affected. On page 40, we learn some of the uses of shadows in this world. They may be used to furnish a pleasant background to a room. Winemakers steep lesser vintages in shadow to add subtlety and depth, and they may be used to darken silks and linens slightly. As the novel progresses, there is more about shadows, and it becomes clear that Chappell’s fantastical conceit has been well thought out.
By chapter three, some years have passed, and Falco has learned enough to take on an assignment of his own. A wealthy rope merchant has twin children, a brother and sister born an hour apart, but has lately noticed that they have only one shadow between them. Sometimes it attaches to one, sometimes to the other. Meanwhile, Mutano, the mute who trains Falco in swordplay, has a scheme to get his voice back from the villain who stole it years before.
Falco, Mutano, and Maestro Astolfo are developed as characters over the course of the novel, and all of them change. The climax is a huge event with the entire city in danger from an enemy without and traitors within. Characters introduced in earlier sections are brought into play, and it all ties up very neatly.
If you’re the kind of reader who demands fast-paced stories with lots of action, this might not be for you. The chapters are quite long and demand an attention span greater than that of a gnat. The prose is beautiful but takes its time to tell the story. Fred Chappell has a poet's vocabulary and love of words, but his style is also clear. Previous poets who have written fantasy are sometimes hard work, though the sounds are lovely, the meaning is not always clear. I am thinking of Clark Ashton Smith. There are other authors of fantasy who use a low-key, understated literary style who can be so boring that one's eyelids tend to droop. Gene Wolfe, alas, has this effect on me. Two who strike the right balance between style and readability are Peter S. Beagle and Fred Chappell. I would put Chappell ahead by a nose, if that much. If I were reading Beagle this week, I might put him ahead. Either one is a joy.
Readers of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction familiar with the parts printed therein will surely snap up this fine novel, but I’d recommend it to any fan of sophisticated fantasy.
Falco is a farmer’s son who wants to better himself, so he comes to the port city of Tardocco in the province of Tlemia with the aim of apprenticing himself to Maestro Astolfo of the shadow trade. When we meet Falco, he is in Astolfo’s mansion with Astolfo’s blade at his throat. Fortunately, the master decides to admit him to his household. Falco the farmer is soon engaged in intensive training. He will learn to separate shadows from their casters with the quasilune knife, but must also undergo intense instruction in unarmed combat and swordplay from the voiceless servant Mutano, a great hulk of a man who thrashes him easily. His first real job comes up when a merchant named Pecunio contacts Maestro Astolfo with a shadow for sale. The names, city-states, and level of culture are all similar to those of Italy during the Renaissance.
Pecunio asks Astolfo to identify a shadow purporting to be that of the infamous pirate Morbruzzo. Falco is not much help here as he is still learning the trade. In his next adventure, a noble lady has a great jewel which appears to have a shadow in it, and her mental health seems to be affected. On page 40, we learn some of the uses of shadows in this world. They may be used to furnish a pleasant background to a room. Winemakers steep lesser vintages in shadow to add subtlety and depth, and they may be used to darken silks and linens slightly. As the novel progresses, there is more about shadows, and it becomes clear that Chappell’s fantastical conceit has been well thought out.
By chapter three, some years have passed, and Falco has learned enough to take on an assignment of his own. A wealthy rope merchant has twin children, a brother and sister born an hour apart, but has lately noticed that they have only one shadow between them. Sometimes it attaches to one, sometimes to the other. Meanwhile, Mutano, the mute who trains Falco in swordplay, has a scheme to get his voice back from the villain who stole it years before.
Falco, Mutano, and Maestro Astolfo are developed as characters over the course of the novel, and all of them change. The climax is a huge event with the entire city in danger from an enemy without and traitors within. Characters introduced in earlier sections are brought into play, and it all ties up very neatly.
If you’re the kind of reader who demands fast-paced stories with lots of action, this might not be for you. The chapters are quite long and demand an attention span greater than that of a gnat. The prose is beautiful but takes its time to tell the story. Fred Chappell has a poet's vocabulary and love of words, but his style is also clear. Previous poets who have written fantasy are sometimes hard work, though the sounds are lovely, the meaning is not always clear. I am thinking of Clark Ashton Smith. There are other authors of fantasy who use a low-key, understated literary style who can be so boring that one's eyelids tend to droop. Gene Wolfe, alas, has this effect on me. Two who strike the right balance between style and readability are Peter S. Beagle and Fred Chappell. I would put Chappell ahead by a nose, if that much. If I were reading Beagle this week, I might put him ahead. Either one is a joy.
Readers of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction familiar with the parts printed therein will surely snap up this fine novel, but I’d recommend it to any fan of sophisticated fantasy.
May 3, 2016
A Shadow All Of Light by Fred Chappell
Conceptually this should be an interesting book. It has a unique perspective that shadows embody human characteristics. It suggests that shadows can be captured and thusly impact the caster.
The author created a scenario of mentor and apprentice. The apprentice earns a fair number of lumps as an apprentice. The mentor is widely regarded as having been the consummate shadow thief although he, Astolfo, denies this. Falco is the hapless apprentice that hopes to learn enough to fend for himself.
I struggled with this book and I really can't put my finger on the reason. It never really captured my interest. Aware that I might incite another reader pummeling for my strong feelings regarding likeability, I really didn't find any of the characters likeable. Not for their blackness of heart or lightness of soul, none incited likeability for me which, I confess, is what drags me into a book. I want to see what happens to the characters that i like.
A well written book that didn't grab me but it might grab you.
www. http://us.macmillan.com/ashadowallofl...
Conceptually this should be an interesting book. It has a unique perspective that shadows embody human characteristics. It suggests that shadows can be captured and thusly impact the caster.
The author created a scenario of mentor and apprentice. The apprentice earns a fair number of lumps as an apprentice. The mentor is widely regarded as having been the consummate shadow thief although he, Astolfo, denies this. Falco is the hapless apprentice that hopes to learn enough to fend for himself.
I struggled with this book and I really can't put my finger on the reason. It never really captured my interest. Aware that I might incite another reader pummeling for my strong feelings regarding likeability, I really didn't find any of the characters likeable. Not for their blackness of heart or lightness of soul, none incited likeability for me which, I confess, is what drags me into a book. I want to see what happens to the characters that i like.
A well written book that didn't grab me but it might grab you.
www. http://us.macmillan.com/ashadowallofl...
September 14, 2025
Great fantasy story telling ! But needs a map and stronger sense of place . And a sequel would have been nice . I really wanted to know the answer to the question Falco asks Mutano on page 383 . Nevertheless Mr Chappell and his story of , Falco , the underexposed hayseed does his genre proud . Like LORE by Alexandra Bracken , some readers might be flummoxed by the repeated change in scenery and details if this is their first time reading a narrative in eliptical form .
This was not the case for me and I enjoyed tale very much .
The only story I've read where a person could separate from their shadow and lose it is PETER PAN . Idea makes sense in a children's book .
This adult version of shadow separation is weird . Just what is a shadow of ALL light anyway ? And I wonder if Quasilune knives are sold on Amazon.com
A definite read again .
This was not the case for me and I enjoyed tale very much .
The only story I've read where a person could separate from their shadow and lose it is PETER PAN . Idea makes sense in a children's book .
This adult version of shadow separation is weird . Just what is a shadow of ALL light anyway ? And I wonder if Quasilune knives are sold on Amazon.com
A definite read again .
August 18, 2016
Fantasy novel with the intriguing idea that a person's shadow is a part of him / her and provides value, can be stolen and / or can have some type of problem that may be correctable. The beginning of the book seems like a series of related short stories or episodes. Later, a larger plot reveals itself and then comprises the remainder of the novel. The focus on shadows reminded me of summer days long ago, when I stood in the sun and pivoted around to try to make my shadow look as attractive as possible. I enjoyed pointing my feet to give my shadow a pointed toe shoe that I would not be wearing myself.
September 7, 2016
While Chappell has the language of Jack Vance down cold, his protagonist has none of the faults of a typical Vancian hero. I found that this made the story rather flat and I had to force myself to finish it. Matthew Hughes does a far better job with Vance's style as have some others.
Did Not Finish
April 11, 2016I was excited about the idea of shadows having magic properties and that element is clearly going to be cool. However, the writing style is quite stilted with older and convoluted sentence structure that will be a slog for readers accustomed to modern structure. Cool magic wasn't enough for me to keep going.
July 30, 2016
As I stepped out of my car last night, my elongated shadow fell across the driveway. The setting sun gave it a solid edge which I never noticed before. I will never look at shadows in quite the same manner after reading this novel. Amazingly set. Amazingly thorough. Amazing is the best word I can use.
Read
June 8, 2016Fred Chappell was a professor of English for over forty years, and it shows in his writing. This is an extremely well-written fantasy novel for adults. I learned a lot of new words reading it. I just wish he had written more books.
Did Not Finish
May 9, 2016Well, you can tell it was written by a poet.
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