Review Summary

What I Liked:

Exciting and well written action sequences
Fast pace
Unique world-building based on Bronze Age Africa
Complex and interesting main character
Great character development
Interesting magic system

What I Didn't Like:

Perhaps too many action sequences
Slightly underdeveloped world building
Lack of female characters
Much of the book felt like a prologue

Review

This is not the typical book that I would find myself loving, but I absolutely raced through this book. I am a huge fan of epic fantasy, but I am usually more interested in either stories that are intimately character based (like Robin Hobb's work) or deal with the intricacies and messiness of political machinations (think ASOIF as a classic example). This book is really neither of those things (and the cover blurb of "Game of Thrones meets Gladiator) is SO wrong. This is not to say that this book does not have great characters or that there are no politics, but neither is really the emphasis of the story.

The main thrust for this book are the battles. I'm one to usually skip over battle scenes. When I read I like to direct the "movie in my mind" and battles can be a bit overwhelming and hard to visualize. But Evan Winters writes battles and physical combat so well that I was consistently drawn in. Now, having said that, if you absolutely hate battle scenes when you read, this book is probably not for you. As most of the book is set at what is essentially a military academy, most of the book is made up of one-on-one fights or larger battles. And these battles are GORY. If you like blood and death in your military fantasy, this one has it in spades!

Because the book is set at a military academy, there are a ton of training sequences/montages. A lot of the really great character development (which I talk about more in a minute) occurs through these montages. This leads to some great character work, but it also makes most of the novel feel like a prologue to the rest of the series. Knowing that there are suppossed to ulitimately be four books in the "Burning Quartet", it kind of feels like the the trilogy won't begin in earnest until Book 2. There are some really interesting hints as world-building, particularly at the very beginning and end of Rage of Dragons, but I would have liked for the world to have been a bit more "fleshed out". While I don't want info-dumps, I was sometimes confused about the geography, population levels, and overall flow of time. Maybe my expectations are a bit too high because I am currently working myself through the Wheel of Time books for the first time right now, but the world felt a bit shallow and didn't quite take advantage of this really cool Bronze Age African setting. However, Evan Winters does an absolutely amazing job of dealing with class/status issues, as well as issues relating to colonialism. I'm excited to see how these develop in future books.

Outside of class/colonialism, I really enjoyed the "magic system". I often think that fantasy readers put too much stock in the magic systems, but Evan Winters has developed a really cool one here. Winters straddles the line between too hard of a magic system that feels like a video game (like in Mistborn) and one that feels too soft (in an anything goes kind of way). I have never really read a book with a magic system quite like this one! AND THE DRAGONS. Dragons are intimately tangled up in the magic system. Just be forewarned - while there are definitely dragons in the books they are not the major focus (despite the name of the book). Fans of dragon-fantasy will find a lot to like here, but might be dissapointed if you were looking for a book just filled to the brim with dragons (we will see if this changes in future books!). Overall - would cool magic that plays a significant role but doesn't overwhelm the plot.

Having said that, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the characters. In general, there is a large cast of characters and they all have their own unique personalities (even if it takes a while for some of them to develop). This makes the trials, tribulations, and, yes, even deaths of many of these characters that much more emotinally traumatizing as the books goes on. The main character is Tau, who I really developed an attachment for as the book goes on. Tau is a character intent on revenge (I won't state why, although those events happen very early in the book) and so he isn't always the most happy-go-lucky of main characters. He also makes some...questionable moral decisions. However, the book does avoid many of the nihilistic trappings of "grimdark" because Tau grapples with these decisions. He is a chracter to come to symphathize with and root for - and also react with dissapointment and shock when he makes a decision you disagree with! Most of the book is told through Tau's perspective, and so Winters really develops his character - even if this at times means that many of the other characers can feel a bit cardboard until well into the book.

I also have to mention that this book lacks women, which is suprising since the fictional world is a matriarchal society. Honestly, it didn't bother me too much because I understood why. The setting of the book is a "men's only" institution and so there weren't many oppurtunities to bring in women without rapidly expanding the scope of the narrative. Winters also does a great job of investigating and tearing apart masculinity as a gender category. While most of the characters are men (there is really only one significant female character), these are not all stereotypical "manly men". They are given the chance to be emotional/complex, and to grow. The end of the book also hints at the larger presence of a couple more women in Book 2.

Overall, this is a unique story with a Bronze Age African inspired setting that we don't get to see too much of. The fight scenes are well "choreographed", the violence is visceral without going too over the top, and the emotional connections to Tau and several of the side characters are strong. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys epic fantasy and military fantasy. And hey, if you aren't the big fans of fights (like me!) and anything about the book intrigues you, give it a shot! If nothing else you get a high octane super paced read!

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