Fun and clever, but decidedly sloppier than it should be.
In the final installment of a trilogy, a guard captain turned hero plots the final confrontation with an evil sorcerer seeking divinity.
The Witch-king of Hakkia gathers an army of soldiers, mercenaries, vampires, and beasts brutally altered by magic, intending to bring the rebellious kingdoms of the destroyed Silver Empire to heel. He also prepares for an elaborate, painful ritual that will transform him into a demigod and bring his patron, Hastur the Shepherd God, into the physical world. Meanwhile, the former imperial guard captain Kagen the Damned helps rally a response and stop the ritual, while his brothers, Jheklan and Faulker, go on a dangerous journey into the Winterwilds to free the world’s last dragon, Fabeldyr, the imprisoned and tortured source of all the world’s magic. The ending, as armies clash, the ritual advances, and divine and monstrous beings enter our reality, goes pretty much as anyone who reads or watches fantasy would expect, although the clarification of the Witch-king’s identity is a nice twist. But, like the previous books, this one could have used a more rigorous editor. Characters behave inconsistently. It's not entirely clear whether the Witch-king’s ultimate goal is to reestablish an empire, conquer all of reality, or shatter all of reality—he says different things at different times. Several plot threads prove to be dead ends; the magic books won at such great cost in the last volume, Son of the Poison Rose (2023), end up being of little utility. Other aspects are never completely explained, possibly by design? We never learn if Kagen is truly damned; it’s heavily suggested that there might be another meaning to his gods turning their backs to him in Book 1, Kagen the Damned (2022), plus his interactions with other beings seem to convey blessing, not damnation, but it’s not fully explained. The book, and the series as a whole, offers an intriguing mashup of epic fantasy and cosmic horror lore and tropes, exciting action sequences, and interesting, sympathetic characters. But the potential to be a tighter work is clearly there, if only the time and the effort had been put in.
Fun and clever, but decidedly sloppier than it should be.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781250892638
Page Count: 592
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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