Quick Take
- Narration: Steven Crossley’s unhurried, formal delivery is an ideal match for Clement-Davies’s lyrical prose – he navigates the intertwined narratives without flattening them.
- Themes: Solitude and connection, the burden of vision, freedom from tyranny
- Mood: Dark, lyrical, bittersweet
- Verdict: The strongest of the Sight and Fell books, best listened to after The Sight, and one of the more literarily ambitious pieces of YA fantasy available in audio.
I tend to be skeptical of animal fantasy that aims for epic scale – the genre has a long tail of books that want to be Watership Down and end up being something considerably more modest. David Clement-Davies is the exception I keep returning to. I read The Sight in my twenties and remembered it as genuinely strange and ambitious; when I finally listened to Fell on audio with Steven Crossley narrating, I found the sequel had pushed even further into the territory that makes these books remarkable: the intersection of myth, ecology, and genuine moral weight that most genre fiction for young readers avoids entirely.
This is dark, lyrical fantasy that trusts its readers with complexity, which is increasingly rare in any fiction marketed as young adult – and increasingly rare in adult fantasy too, if we are being honest.
Our Take on Fell
The premise is elegant and melancholic. Fell, the dark-furred twin brother of Larka from The Sight, is now a lone wolf – what the book calls a “kerl,” an outcast – carrying a gift for seeing the future and the thoughts of others that his dead sister once shared. He is isolated in every sense, until he encounters Alina, a human girl accused of murder and fleeing through snow, who also carries the sight. Their connection and shared destiny – to free the land from a tyrant who would enslave both man and animal alike – gives the novel its structural spine. Clement-Davies is less interested in plot mechanics than in what it means to be utterly alone, carrying a capacity for vision that sets you permanently apart from your own kind. Reviewers consistently describe “nonstop action and suspense” alongside the “intertwined stories” and the bittersweet ending, which captures the book’s full tonal range accurately. This is a novel where the action and the grief are inseparable.
Why Listen to Fell
Steven Crossley’s narration is the central reason to choose the audio format here. He has the voice for Clement-Davies: unhurried, slightly archaic in cadence, capable of the lyrical passages the prose demands without tipping into self-parody. The intertwined narrative threads – Fell’s story and Alina’s, converging and diverging – are handled clearly in audio without the confusion that complex alternating POV can produce on the page. Multiple reviewers mentioned staying up late because the stories kept them engaged, and in audio that pull is fully preserved. The 15 hours and 30 minutes runtime is long for a YA title, and Crossley earns every chapter by maintaining emotional continuity across a narratively demanding structure.
What to Watch For in Fell
Read The Sight first. This is the consensus of virtually every reviewer, and it is sound advice. Fell is technically a companion novel that can be read as a standalone, but the emotional weight of the ending depends entirely on knowing what happened to Larka and what Fell lost. The backstory is dense with the mythology Clement-Davies established in The Sight, and listeners arriving without that context will frequently feel they are catching references to something important they have not experienced. One reviewer put it plainly: you could read it standalone, it just would not be as good. That is an understatement – start with The Sight, then come to this one ready for what it costs emotionally.
Who Should Listen to Fell
Young adult listeners who want fantasy with genuine literary ambition rather than genre formula will find this rewarding. Adult listeners who read Watership Down or The Sight as children and are looking for something in that register should consider this essential. Those who prefer fast-paced urban fantasy or need their YA to arrive at comfortable uplift should note that Fell is darker and more bittersweet than those expectations can accommodate. The series has a dedicated following among readers who prioritize lyrical prose and thematic depth over plot momentum, and Fell is the strongest argument for joining that readership – provided you have The Sight behind you first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Fell be read without reading The Sight first?
Technically yes, but most readers and reviewers strongly recommend starting with The Sight. Fell’s emotional impact – particularly its ending, which reviewers call bittersweet – depends on the relationships and mythology established in the first book. Reading out of order is possible but costs significant depth.
Is Steven Crossley’s narration appropriate for this kind of lyrical animal fantasy?
Very much so. His unhurried, slightly formal delivery suits Clement-Davies’s prose, which is lyrical and dense rather than plot-propulsive. Listeners who find his pace slow may want to adjust playback speed slightly, but his handling of the book’s more emotionally complex passages is excellent.
Is Fell more appropriate for younger or older YA readers?
Older. The book deals with death, grief, exile, and political tyranny with more seriousness than most middle-grade fiction, and the prose is more demanding than typical teen fare. Reviewers who describe it as legendary historical-fantasy are responding to its literary ambitions, which pitch it toward readers comfortable with complexity.
How does Fell compare to other animal fantasy series like Watership Down or Warriors?
Closer to Watership Down in tone and literary ambition, less accessible than the Warriors series. Clement-Davies shares Adams’s willingness to use animal perspective to explore serious themes rather than simply to create talking-animal adventure stories. The mythology and moral stakes are comparable in scale.
