A sequel that trips over its own first book
Iron Flame more or less confirms my assumption that the lack of forethought on the magic system would come to haunt the series. It also surprised me by losing track of what did work in the first book. Given the excessive amount of set up in Fourth Wing, the hours spent on building up Basgiath, it seems sacrilege that the author chose to abandon the magic dragon riding school setting roughly halfway through book 2 out of a planned 5. The books seem to be selling well regardless, but if Basgiath is set up to cover three school years, why not have book 1 to 3 cover the years to their ultimate conclusion and THEN start on your world shattering revolution plot? This way, there's so much going on that it again reveals Yarros' main problem, which is to me still scale and focus. Everything Is Always Happening And It Is Always The Most. The only reason this book is 800 pages long is because there's about two books worth of plot crammed into one. This again accounts for a lack of time spent on developing the many secondary characters we're supposed to care about. The only secondary character who's begun to emerge as noteworthy enough for me to recall her name easily is Imogen, and that's largely because her mildly antagonistic banter with Violet is fun and engaging. Everyone else is either a yes-man or another darwinian psychopath who hates Violet because if people don't irrationally froth at the mouth to torture and kill Violet, we might forget she's an underdog. I almost laughed out loud when they introduced Cat, a mildly misogynistic antagonist who only exists to be the franchise's Regina George. Jack Barlowe is quietly adjusted to have been one of the evil ones all along so that his irrational hatred for Violet is a little less irrational. Then another psychopath complete with psychopath dragon gets introduced, because got forbid an antagonist have understandable motivations. General Melgren's near unbeatable superpower gets even more caveats so it's not so unbeatable anymore. Additional magic systems that are no better thought out than the first magic system are introduced to make the world a little less empty. These are the natural growing pains of an ongoing series. No author really knows if they'll have a chance to write book 2 or 3. It's normal and expected for an author to have to patch holes on the ship while you're already out on the ocean. But by the time you are working on book 2, when book 1 sold as much as it did, when you KNOW you have 5 more of these puppies to bang out, you have the opportunity to think ahead this time and I dont feel like Iron Flame used that opportunity to its advantage at all. The first one was an easy read despite its 700 or so pages. Iron Flame is almost 800 pages that felt like 1.000 pages. If I wasn't off sick and trying to shrink my TBR, I can see how it would have taken me a month to muddle through. Obligatory two stars for Tairn, who is still the main reason I'll end up reading Onyx Storm. If he's ever removed, I don't think I'll bother with the rest. Half a star for some fun banter with Imogen and an attempt at expanding the world of the continent.





























































