Middle of the series. Humans v dragons v other dragons. Humans and dragons team up to defeat other evil dragons. Human v good deagon love story. ( )

3.5

This series is still pretty flawed, but it gets a lot better. There was so much potential though. Dragons are such an interesting concept that no one does enough with. ( )

This one started a little slow for me. It was a lot more talking and it seemed to rehash things we already knew. But I will say, the last third of the novel moved at a much better pace and kept my full attention. I'm curious to see how this will all wrap up in the grand finale because I still have some unanswered questions! ( )

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.

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This is book four and I thought it was the conclusion but apparently there is a fifth book coming called Inferno which IS the conclusion. In the meantime, book four is fabulous. However, you need to know that I LOVE the Talon series so it's not surprising that I enjoyed book four.
Ember, Garrett and Riley get captured, then get away but then almost die. Ember confronts her brother and finds out some shocking news. There's an unlikely collaboration but lots of casualties. If you like the series, you'll love this. ( )