Ember and Riley have escaped from the Talon and are now
Rogue dragons on the run. In theory they should go into hiding, especially
since Riley’s network of freed dragons is under threat and needs his attention
But Garret is still imprisoned, the former St George soldier faces execution if they do not save him – and he did save their lives. But are they really going to risk everything to save someone who once slaughtered their kind?
Dante, Ember’s brother, is also desperately hunting them. If he finds Ember, bring her home maybe he can still save her – and maybe his own position in the Talon won’t be irretrievably damaged. But how far will he go against his sister for the sake of his position?
I think this book is better than
the first one as it has made an attempt to get some motivations in order
beyond “hot person is hot so I will happily throw away my loyalties and beliefs
even though I’ve only known them for a couple of days.”
So Ember is focused a little more on how the Talon was demanding
she kill, including killing her own kind since, as a Viper, she would be
required to hunt down rogues. There’s a lot of her reflection that she can’t bring
herself to do that, doesn’t want to become that and, even as she fights for her
own survival, is afraid of becoming someone who can kill without remorse. She’s
afraid that her own fight for survival will turn her into the creature that
Talon always wanted her to become. It’s a level of depth to her supremely
shallow story that works far better than her deciding Talon was evil before she
had any evidence, or deciding to be a rebel without any good reason or trust a
stranger with even less. If you forget the first book, Ember now makes
something approaching sense.
Similarly Riley/Cobalt had a wonderful back story that
explored a lot of his reasons for going Rogue in the first place. His
motivations are excellently explored and his history really does display
perfectly why he could no longer work for the Talon and why he was driven to
start working against them. Through his past we see a full reasoning for him
trying to get Ember and the other hatchlings out of Talon’s control and a
really strong reason for why he either wants to bring them down (along with Wes
who we can see has his own real motivations). This was excellently done
Which then crashes and burns with the huge chunk of this
book where Riley decides to risk himself and his entire network to rescue Garrett
for Ember. We spend so much of this book exploring his past, really bringing
out why he has such a beef against Talon and how important his work is – but he’s
willing to jeopardise all of that for Ember? Similarly, Ember is willing to
risk her life and freedom (which she just fought so hard for), Riley’s life and
his network (which she knows is so important) for the sake of Garrett who she
still doesn’t know all that well? This book is trying to get away from the
generic and dubious romance that clumsily dominated the first book but still
badly undermines that progress.
The same applies to Garrett – now Garrett realising that
Ember and other dragons are actually beings with feelings rather than monsters
and demons should have been an excellent character moment. And I liked that he
made this point before his tribunal rather than call on his love for Ember. His
realisation that it is wrong to kill dragon-kind simply for being dragons
should have been a powerful one and a character defining moment. It also should
have been a moment of soul-shattering revelation and a whole lot of
introspection because he has been hunting and slaughtering dragons for so long
and so successfully his fellow hunters called him the “Perfect Soldier”. But we
don’t get that – most of his storyline far more focuses on his attraction and
love for Ember than the revelation that he has been involved in an unjust
genocide – it doesn’t even make the character feel evil because it’s just so
badly executed. Again, there’s an attempt to move on, but the romance that started
this series is dragged out even when it’s grossly inappropriate.
There’s still a lack of nuance to the story. There’s lots
on the evil of Talon but little acknowledgement that Talon was created to
protect dragons from extinction or that Talon – or a Talon-like organisation –
may be necessary for that reason. There’s so little exploration of issues like
this – the need for Talon, the importance of Riley’s network, what he actually
intends to do with this network… it’s all lacking.
There’s also a real lack of development of dragons as
dragons. Starting with the romance where, for reasons unknown, a giant
reptilian is even attracted to a bald ape in the first place. But there is just
no real difference in the thought processes of Ember and Cobalt than there are
any human – there’s no real development of them AS supernatural beings and
certainly not as dragons. It’s generic supernatural creature with generic evil
organisation and generic hunter group all of which can be switched with little
real change to the story.
Thankfully we do have less of the rather ludicrous “my
dragon thinks…” but it’s still there and it still makes no sense. Though a couple
of times Garrett thinks “my inner soldier thinks” which makes me wonder if this
is going to be a thing and later I’ll read things like “My inner pizza-chef
thinks this needs more mozzarella.”
And can we talk about the name “Ember”? It seems like a
minor thing to snark about but it continually made me laugh. I mean we have
this society of dragons desperate to hide who they are among humans and they
call her EMBER? Why Ember and her friend, Scaly McFlamylizard and Fang
Notadragonski were shocked that their perfect cover was blown! Another snarky
moment – Wes’s English
accent is a pretty terrible Dick Van Spike
rendition.
As far as marginalised people go, Ember is developing
motives above and beyond the romance but still making terrible decisions – but then,
so is everyone else. We also have several cunning, capable and lethal female
characters on team!bad guy but they are certainly good at what they do and no
overly troped (even relying on other people’s underestimation of them).
There are a few POC in vanishingly minor roles that I
remember – bit part humans who were barely involved in the plot. There were no
LGBT characters at all.
In all this book is marginally better than the first one.
It still feels painfully generic, it’s still lacking in world building and
development and, above all, it is really failing to live up to the potential of
its concept. But it is better and it is dropping hints that the series is on
the way to becoming much more than what it is. It still fell short of being
anything close to a compelling or exciting read.
