Servant of a Dark God by John Brown

Talen lives in a world of magic- but a world where that magic is strictly controlled. The magic, fuelled by the days and years of a person's life, is known as "Fire", and only a precious few, known as Divines, can safely harvest the power and use it to make Weaves- items of woven gold or willow that can be used to give men seemingly limitless power.

Those who harvest and use fire but are not Divines are called Sleths, and they are greatly feared- for they steal power rather than being given it, and all men hate and fear them. Worse, these sleths forcibly steal the fire from others, making them killers of men.

At least, that is the commonly accepted wisdom. But unbeknownst to Talen, his father Hogan- known as "Horse" for the time when he used himself as a beast of burden to plow his land, is a hidden user of Fire. But he's not a Sleth, instead he is a member of a secretive group known as the Order.

The Order believes that all the powers that users get from using fire and weave are the province of everyone- not just the Divines and their servants, the Deadmen. And Hogan is one of them, along with Purity, the wife of the Smith known as Sparrow.

So when the county goes on a massive Sleth hunt, Talen and his family, who are Koramite, come under suspicion from the rest of the people, who are Mokkadians. At the beginning of the day, Talen is beaten, and when his father takes him to town to answer to the village headmen, he finds himself also exhibiting strange powers he never seemed to have before.

Sparrow and Purity's children managed to flee before their father was killed, but their mother is a prisoner, securely guarded so as to contain her sleth powers, while she is tortured to learn who is also a sleth. Meanwhile, her daughter, Sugar, and her blind son, Legs, are considered to be no better than sleth themselves, even if they never knew what their mother was.

They take shelter at Hogan's farm, but as they wait for Hogan to return, Talen is the only one who shows Sugar and Legs any enmity. And when he comes back from his own visit to town with strange new powers, he is sure that Sugar and Legs have somehow infected him with their evil.

But while some Sleth are evil, these are not, and Hogan's brother-in-law Argoth is a Mokkadian who has been secretly using his fire to gain powers like a Deadman for years. But when a Master Divine shows up from the people's original homeland, the Order's presence in this new world is jeopardized by those who would keep those sorts of powers for themselves alone- and who are willing to kill members of the Order and call them "Sleths" to Prevent anyone else from following their path.

But even as Talen fights for his life, everyone has much, much more to worry about. For an alien being calling itself "Mother" has emerged from the hinterlands, and she commands a servant named Hunger who was once human. Hunger is made to eat human souls and fire, the bring them back to Mother. But when he actually consumed a human life, he started to remember who and what he was. But even with the new knowledge, he can't fight Mother. And if he can't fight Mother, what hope do the rest of them have?

But Talen has always been special, and his mother gave up her life to give him a chance to live and fulfill a glorious destiny. But is Fighting Hunger and the mother his destiny? If it isn't, what is? And can he fulfill it without getting his famiy- and Sugar and Legs- killed?

I found this an interesting book. The worldbuilding was good and the characterizations excellent. My only problem was with Talen, who is young, and acts younger. In truth, he's more than a bit of an ass. He's so certain that he's right that he acts rather nastily to Sugar and Legs, and I wanted a haul off and smack him more than once. He gets beaten up at the beginning of the book for being smart-mouthed, and while it may have been meant to make us more sympathetic to his character, in a large part, he got what he deserved.

And for a character who ends up being the hero of the book, its a bit uncomfortable to read about someone acting so much of an ass. It's only towards the end of the book that his promise as a hero is fulfilled, but he never seems to apologize to anyone for his asinine behavior. Perhaps its the prerogative of a young man to act like an ass, but it didn't make me like the character much. Nor does he really have to work to master the technique by which he defeats the villain. For him, it's a lucky accident of birth.

There may be a sequel to this book, but if so, I hope Talen is not the star or hero of it. Reading this book, while interesting, was painful due to Talen's lack of heroic qualities for me. Yes, he defeats the big bad, but I found him unlikeable- a mass of youthful testosterone with a smart mouth and arrogant attitude that made me NOT want to cheer him on. The only thing I liked about him was that he did like his family and he treated his friends well. That's not enough good things to hang "heroism" on for me. I'd recommend it for the story, but with cautions that you may not like the hero very much, even by the end of the book.