Caveat Empator, I got this book for free from the publisher to review. Also, I’m a fan of the author’s other books.
DRAGONS!
Now that I have that out of my system, let’s talk about this book. This is a dragon rider fantasy, but not of the usual sort. This is more of a political fantasy novel, with 3+ factions dueling over the fate of an empire (if you’ve read Beaulieu’s other Epic Fantasy books, you know the sort).
The first faction is an oppressed group of druids, who psychically bond with their willing dragon mounts. The second faction is a Roman-inspired empire who enslave dragons to their will. Then there is a religious cult called the Chosen who are integrated into every level of society, who’s sole goal is to keep secrets safely hidden. These three groups, as well as a few free agents, fight over whether the Empire will fuse together stronger than ever, or begin breaking up.
The characters are caught in the middle of these factions, pulled hither and thither by divided loyalties. The POV Rylan, as an example, was born to the dragon-riding druids but was adopted into the Roman emperor’s household; he feels loyalty to both factions at different points in time. Lorelei is a Roman inquisitor whose task is to solve the mystery at the heart of the book, putting her at odds with the druids and the Chosen at different times. Rhiannon is a morally upstanding druid loyalist, but she’s torn whether or not she should break her druidic oaths and use black magic (read: UBER EVIL NECROMANCY) to free her people from slavery to the Romans. Sparks fly when these characters come into conflict with one another—and even better, when they come into conflict within themselves.
The pacing was good, but not great. As is the case for basically all Epic Fantasy books, it has a slow start. It is eminently forgivable.
I enjoyed the worldbuilding, it was a nice fusion of a ‘hard magic’ and ‘soft magic’ system. I liked the author’s previous books which went in a ‘soft magic system’ direction, and this book seemed like something similar but more formalized. The magic in this book had a flair for the dramatic.
I think the biggest problem I had was that there were too many POV characters. It had three main protagonists who got a ton of chapters and three minor protagonists who got one or two chapters. All the characters are memorable, well described, and are exciting to ‘inhabit’ as a reader. But six POVs is a lot for the first book in a series. I think part of the pacing problems I had with this book was because the author had to introduce six different POVs.
Overall, I’m glad I read it. I got a copy for free from the publisher, but I’m still pre-ordering the audiobook. It clocks in at just under 500 pages, so it’s a big book but not too big. This book didn’t blow my socks off, but I feel happy for having read it. This will be among the top books I read this year.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 