Abstract: A fiber reinforced ceramic composite material exhibiting high tensile strength, high fracture toughness and high-temperature oxidation resistance is produced by simultaneously depositing a thin coating layer of refractory metal carbide with fugitive carbon onto the fiber reinforcement prior to the subsequent densification with the ceramic matrix. The energy behind propagating matrix cracks in the resulting composite material are effectively dissipated by crack deflection/branching, fiber debonding and frictional slip through the relatively weak and compliant fiber coating layer. These energy release and arrest mechanisms sufficiently impede the driving force behind unstable crack propagation and render the cracks non-critical, thereby serving to blunt and/or divert propagating matrix cracks at or around the reinforcing fiber.