The Cascade is coming, ominous portents rock the world
and Archangels are gifted with new powers – and like in previous Cascades, they’re
ready to use them in war
In New York, angels fall from the sky, their population
decimated by the wounded, the river runs red and it starts raining blood. A new
plague impossibly targets vampires and just when Raphael and Elena need their
forces to be at their strongest, they are being devastated.
War is coming – and they are not ready.
One of the things this series does well is pacing over
the arc of the whole story. In the early books we began with a lot of epic –
Uram and Elena becoming an angel and Lijuan destroying Beijing, it was a lot to
suddenly be in the middle of it. Then we had a few books that were less epic –
introducing some of Raphael’s 7 and their partners in a more low key level
while still slowly developing the idea of the Cascade and how everything was
brewing – and now we’re getting back into the epic, world-destroying action
again. I think that makes the overall arc work really well, keeping things personal
as well as epic and avoiding the presentation that this is a world in which the
extreme happens all the time and leaving the series in a situation where it
constantly has to out-epic itself each book.
This continues with this book – a lot of it is spent on
budding ominous action. The Cascade means lots of ominous portents coupled with
the Archangels finally marshalling their forces and preparing for war –
starting with lots of ominous sneak attacks with their newly gained powers. In
response, Raphael is not only preparing his own defences, but martialling whatever
alliances he can muster. The book does have some major action moments, but that’s
not the core – the core is the preparation, the growing, looming, ominous
feeling of menace and the general sense that everything is going to fall apart
very soon. It’s a really well maintained theme as Elena runs among all these
dramatic actions and preparations while also maintaining her relationships and
continuing her character growth.
Of course, when we get to the end of the book we have an awesome epic battle that is, indeed, awesome and epic
There’s also some excellent world building that comes
from this – just lots of little indications as to how this world differs from
ours – like actual heavy weapons are much less common than in our world because
they’re useless against Archangels and wars in their world is pretty much all
about the Archangels. Their rules and disdain dictate what military technology
is actually useful.
Elena is a really wonderful character and excellently
balanced, especially her representation of strength. She’s clearly very brave,
very skilled and, yes, very dangerous. At the same time as the youngest angel
in the world, she is weak compared to all but relatively new born angels. She’s
definitely weak compared to the might Seven, Raphael’s lieutenants, and
insignificantly weak compared to Raphael and the other Archangels. But despite
not being close to the powers of those around her, she’s still strong, she’s
still effective, she still has a meaningful role to play. It’s interesting in a
world where some of the characters have such amazingly impossible powers, we
see this excellent display of strength, skill and effectiveness from a
character so lacking in it – it shows that a strong character is not dependent
on them having the shiniest super powers of them all.
She also has some excellent relationships – with Raphael
she has a constant conflict over his strength and his inhumanity; this works will
with another excellent and nuanced conflict on that humanity both reducing
Raphael’s power (at a time when all the other Archangels are getting huge power
boosts) but also preserving his conscience and humanity. She also draws strong
lines against him treating her like a soldier, servant or lesser – she demands
to be listened to and respected no matter how much younger and less powerful
she is.
Elena also has relationships beyond Raphael (and it’s a
sad statement of so many of the books I’ve read that “having a relationship
beyond their love interest is noteworthy). Her friendship with Sara is
extremely strong and feels mutual as well (not just a friend who acts in
support of Elena). She is forming her own bonds with Raphael’s seven that are
independent of him as well as growing and continuing friendships with the
protagonists of the previous two books. Then there’s her family – her respect
for her father’s second wife, the close bond she has with two of her sisters
even as they are overshadowed by past tragedy and ongoing family drama. There’s
a lot of women in Elena’s life who she respects. There’s also her relationship with
her father which is certainly fraught – but is more complex than the simplistic
“my dad is evil, woe!” This works well with the series ongoing excellent
treatment of Elena’s grief and childhood trauma – and it is ongoing; there has
been no magical healing nor true love conquering all trauma – she is hurt and
it will take time for her to work through it.
There continue to be a large number of excellent POC in
this series – Elena, of course. The Archangels are predominantly POC from
different parts of the world, Raphael’s 7 have several POC, several of the
Guildhunters, especially some of the most prominent ones like Ashwini and Ra
are also POC. Along with these characters, we have a number of POC making up
many of the characters they come across – like the Asian vampire in charge of
the blood café (and Elena’s future business partner).
There are no LGBT characters in this book but there’s a
continued use of the Gay Maris trope – we have no gay characters but some of
the murdered corpses they find were probably gay. This is not the first time
this season has relied on LGBT characters who are already dead or only
mentioned without being present
I do have an minor iffiness about the way the book ended
– in that I’m not entirely sure what happened. I get a vague idea and I also
love how it expanded the angel lore of the world and explained so many things,
including the existence of vampires and their creation process – but I was
vague on exactly what was going on with Raphael, his power and the force related
to it. But I think that’s part intent of the book – Raphael and Elena are also
supposed to be somewhat in the dark and a little frustrated by the vagueness.
This is excellent for the book and promises a lot for the next book since we
have a definite mystery and clearly epicness to come – but there is just a
teeny tiny element of the big epic ending of this battle seeming to be solved
by Unknown Mystery Power.
This was an excellent book in the series that has set up
a whole lot of epicness to continue – I was sorely tempted to reach for the
next book the very second I finished this one; I can’t wait to see what happens
next.
