Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 9, 2024 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Sky on Fire is a stand alone epic fantasy/heist novel by author Jenn Lyons, who burst onto the SF/F novel scene with her 5 book epic fantasy series "A Chorus of Dragons". After a rough start in book 1 (The Ruin of Kings), A Chorus of Dragons soon became one of my favorite fantasy series of the last few years. In that series, Lyons built a phenomenal set of characters and relationships/romances (both in the present and through reincarnations) and used an incredibly pageturning prose (so so so many end of chapter cliffhangers) to keep readers on the edge of their seats and it worked so well. It was a very queer epic fantasy series that dealt with some serious themes and often was unforgiving of what might happen to its characters, and Lyons wrapped it up in an incredibly satisfying fashion. So even if I hadn't heard two authors/reviewers praise this new book of hers, I'd have been extremely eager to give it a try.
And well, The Sky on Fire is indeed as excellent as I'd hoped. The story is kind of a Heist novel, featuring protagonist Anahrod being recruited - not as willingly as she'd like - to help an oddball team rob Neveranimas, the present queen of the dragons who rule the human cities in the sky. But Anahrod was thrown off the sky cities - literally - on behalf of Neveranimas and, after barely surviving, has spent the last few years rebuilding her life in the deadly jungles of the deep with her animal controlling powers and has little interest in returning to the sky cities that once tried to kill her. Add in a pair of romantic interests - a handsome and way too smart but ruthless warlord of The Deep and a mysterious dragon-rider woman who is planning the heist for revenge - and well, you have an excellent mix of characters and developments to underpin this novel. It all works really well, even if early on some of the end of chapter cliffhangers can get maybe a little repetitive, and I would gladly welcome a second book in this world if Lyons ever wants to return to it.
Plot Summary:
Nearly 20 years ago, Anahrod Amnead was thrown off of the dragon-ruled sky cities of the Seven Crests on order of their ruler, the regent Neveranimas. She was supposed to die, as befits a traitor who plotted against the First Dragon and who stole from Neveranimas' vault. But Anahrod used her powers - to talk with and magically interact with animals - to save herself....barely and has spent the years since wandering on her own through the harsh jungles of the Deep. It's a dangerous life, with no one to count upon but the trained titan drake she keeps and can control by her side, but it beats dealing with dragons.
But that all changes when an odd group of adventurers - one a sorcerer from the deep, others from the Sky above including a damned dragonrider (Ris, who is way too attractive and alluring) as their leader - rescues Anahrod from the forces of a deadly warlord. The four adventurers - and the 15 year old boy with them - know somehow who she is and want Anahrod to come back to the skies with them, whether she wants it or not. For even if Anahrod didn't really break into Neveranimas' vault back in the day, Ris and her team have a plan to use her to ACTUALLY do so this time.
But it's a plan with a LOT of moving parts, one in which any wrong move could get them all killed - especially Anahrod, whom the whole populace now thinks of as the ultimate evil. But as Anahrod begins to actually care for the team....and other associates from her past re-emerge....she finds herself deeply invested in making the plan work....and making sure it doesn't end with her actual execution this time at Neveranimas' craws....
The Sky on Fire features a narrative that very much is in the same style as A Chorus of Dragons, despite it featuring a very different world. Yes the story is almost entirely from Anahrod's point of view (as opposed to A Chorus of Dragons, which splits its narrative POVs), but the story is told in very easy prose and features lots and lots of end of chapter cliffhangers to tease readers and to get them to read more. It's a style that may not work for all readers and can sometimes get a little repetitive - Lyons has a habit of having her characters black out at the end of a chapter from a kidnapping or similar attack and she even lampshades this by having characters note how maany times Anahrod gets kidnapped in the first third of the book. But it never feels like Lyons' cliffhangers are too contrived and they all payoff, so it all flowed really nicely and kept me constantly wanting to turn the page and was never annoying.
The book also features an excellent and really enjoyable set of characters. Anahrod is a really fun character, a bit sarcastic and witty like Lyons' past protagonists, incredibly flirty at times (with both men and women - this book is very queernorm and no one really cares about it) and her narrative makes her very easy to like. She's good at heart, but also deeply damaged from her betrayal as a teen by the family who threw her to her "death" and thus wants mainly to survive and to avoid having people around her to trust....and yet she can't help but trust and care for those she is forced to be around. She's willing to take some big risks to save her own skin and to save those she cares about, but also knows how important it is to have limits and to not fall into an "ends justify the means" outlook - as she's seen first with her parents throwing her to her doom and later with her lover taking revenge and becoming a deadly Deep warlord. And well, her libido and attraction to certain people (Ris, Sicaryon) can lead her to bad thoughts....but she still keeps largely her head and doesn't let those attractions crowd out reason too much.
And outside Anahrod you have a really fun side cast. Ris and Sicaryon are fun kind of mirrors of one another - the dragon-rider and Deep warlord who both are too willing to go as far as it takes to enact their revenges - and their dynamic around Anahrod and the scheme is really fun to read. The other members of the crew, like a magic-wielding man who only speaks in quotes from plays and has to have a bodyguard translate for him, are enjoyable even if they feel like smaller players. 15 year old boy Gwydinion almost steals the show with his charm, earnestness, and intelligence. Seriously he's the best and Lyons writes him and all of the other characters so so well with some seriously fun dialogue and character developments.
The heist parts of the book - this is a heist novel after all - are pretty solid, nothing super crazy or inventive, but it all works well enough. And the setting is super fascinating, with the dragon-ruled sky cities featuring humans with decent luxuries in living (at least except for the poorest humans) but forces the humans to live in fear of dragons who rule with a dictatorial fist...and who might go mad at any moment. And then the Deep features none of those luxuries...except its people are in theory free from dragon oppression (assuming they can survive the warlords and deadly as hell animal life forms). There's a fascinating queer and sexual-desire friendly type of signaling practiced in the sky cities, to go along with interesting dynamics between dragon-riders and their dragons (most of whom simply treat their humans a slaves, but Ris shows it could be different?). And there's some solid themes here of the power of stories and religions to manipulate things - who's evil, who's righteous, who was created to serve whom, etc.
It's all really great is what I'm saying and I'd love to read a second book set in this world, but the finale we get here is entirely satisfying in and of itself. Recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment