The Talon has prepared for a long time to finally bring
down the Order of St George and remove all of their competition to become
dominant in the world. They have a Legion
Cloned dragons, without souls or personalities, just
automata of dragons designed to fight and die. Finally Talon has numbers: and
Dante is the conflicted master of them to unleash them
But behind that the Elder Wyrm continues to have another sinister
plan – which directly involves Ember.
Ember is faced with being directly in opposition with her
brother, having to protect an organisation bent on her destruction and dodge
the machinations of a dragon who has lived for a millennium.
Broken record moment? I really really do feel that this
series has really missed a lot of opportunity to properly develop the character
of the dragons. We still have Ember and Riley referring to their dragons as if
they were separate entity. Again, these characters aren’t weredragons – they are
dragons who shift to human form to hide, but their natural form, their real
form, is that of a dragon. So Ember struggling with her inner dragon or being
conflicted about what her dragon wants, or struggling between her human side
and dragon side feels wrong – like a narrative has been cribbed from an
entirely different story. What human side? Why does she even have a human side?
Why is she even attracted to a human? Why does she even want to do things like
kiss? Why is a dragon distracted and pole-axed by the presence of a naked
human? Why is a male dragon not looking at a naked woman and not thinking “mammary
glands, which my egg laying species has no real concept of. Also, no cloaca”.
Yes, I am making you imagine sexy cloacas. My mind went
there, so you have to suffer as well.
It’s like the concept hasn’t been fully realised and we
get a simplistic depiction that mirrors a lot with other were-animal narratives
out there but doesn’t really fit with the world as it’s presented/
I feel this reflected again with the world building –
this sense of not quite seeing things through. Like Talon has been designated
as The Evil and so it is The Evil. This is the antagonist, so be it.
But, again, there’s so little examination of the reason
behind Talon. It didn’t happen because Dragons decided they wanted to be The
Most Evil – it happened because the Order of St George was literally driving
dragonkind to extinction: and is still trying to achieve this. They’re just the
bad guys who need to be stopped
And Talon comes up with a plot to wipe out the Order of
St George and there’s so little actual examination of the fact this is an
organisation that wants to make dragons extinct. An organisation that wants to
kill every character here. But killing the Order is presented as a terrible
difficult conflict without any acknowledgement that Talon has a point. I feel
like because Talon has been designate as The Evil then no-one’s allowed to
acknowledge the grey and the complexity that is built into the very world
building of this world.
They go on to even decide to work with Talon to try and
save some of them – and again we have a grossly simplified meeting. This is an
organisation that exists to murder dragons. The members are recruited from
childhood (Gerret has is an experienced solder with them at the age of 17 – and
that’s not YA’s love of improbably young people in dubious situations); they
have an almost religious loathing of dragons. This is quite literally their
reason for being. But actually forming an alliance between the Order and
dragons happened ridiculously quickly and easily.
Or the fact that, because of Improbably YA youth, pretty
much all the dragons Riley works with are hatchlings and there’s no real
discussion of these being children they’re pressing into this war. We want
young protagonists so there’s little real questioning of the ethics of this.
This is the problem with the series- the concept is so
incredibly creative and original, but the actual execution is so simplistic. Conflicts
are resolved without a lot of questioning, the complexity is approached from a
very very simplistic fashion but it somehow works out. It all feels very convoluted
and that there are large amount of issues and potential plot lines that are
being very glossed over while the characters themselves just feel so very flat.
They’re basically such cookie-cutter clichés of what they are: from our three
main characters (there’s also a side Dick Van Spike who, again, is simple in
terms of characterisation) who are more consumed by their love triangle than
the greater complexities of their world.
Speaking off – I think the simplicity and general lack of
thinking closely about this world and the concept is a moment when Garret needs
blood: but the other human there can’t donate because he’s the wrong blood
type! So step up Riley – I mean you have a world that openly acknowledges that transfusing
the wrong blood type is a bad idea, but you’re ok with GIANT FIERY REPTILE
BLOOD. And the same people who were, 10 seconds ago, saying hey, no he’s the
wrong blood type” don’t even blink at the idea of dragon blood.
I appreciate some elements – I do like the idea that when
presented with a mystical/draconic mating bond which is always dubious from a
consent element, that Ember turns round and says, no, actually she refuses to
be dragged into a relationship because the woo-woo says so. I do appreciate
that – at least if it weren’t presented as another conflict between her
dragonic half and bizarre human half.
I really like the action and the pacing- the writing in
terms of pacing and theme is excellent. The characters are torn and afraid and worried
and outraged and it really comes across well. The fight scenes are really well
written, action packed and exciting and extremely fun. Julie Kagawa always
writes a great fight scene.
The over all sinisterness and creepiness of the Talon is
also on display – but, again, with Dante’s characterisation we have a level of
shallowness. Sure Talon is awesomely evil – but Dante as the conflicted Talon
drone with ambition just didn’t quite work for me – we needed to see more. But
at the same time he probably had the best depiction of any character in this
book. His past, his constantly following orders, constantly being the perfect
one, always striving to climb the ladder so he doesn’t have to be a minion all
the time. It certainly looks a lot better than the insights into Ember’s past
where, to be honest, she’s just an utter entitled brat her whole childhood. As
I mentioned in the first book, there’s a definite “rebel without a clue” to
Ember’s personality. My issue is that it’s kind of presented as a justification
for why he’s working for Talon which would be easily explained if we’d develop
Talon as something beyond a corporate sinister laugh.
And the head of
Talon, the Elder Wyrm, may as well have had a moustache to twirl for all the
nuance involved: same with the evil scientists she had working for her.
I also liked the presence of Jade again and continuing
the idea that Asian dragons have a very different society and organisation and
context that differs a lot from western dragons. It has a lot of potential for
future books and involvement. Unfortunately, despite being the only adult
dragon, she doesn’t really take the lead or have a great role – only popping up
and then disappearing when she’s needed which makes her feel like a convenient
plot device more than an actual character. Which is a shame because she’s only
real prominent POC that I can remember as well. There are no LGBTQ characters.
The conflict, the world setting, the pacing are all
excellent. It’s a very fun book to read with some very tense scenes, some
awesome fight scenes and a great sense of portentous terror and bad things
about to happen, very much a whole “the world rests on my shoulders” feel. But
the potential of this series isn’t being really realised. The complexity of the
world coupled with the simplicity of the plot lines and conflict resolution
coupled with a flat romance is just kind of disappointing. It’s an
Adele – we could have had it all.
