The Fires of Vengeance: The Burning, Book Two

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Special thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing! But the craft is the real strength of the book, its pacing, its design, not just the descriptive prose, but how it is executed. One thing I have loved about this series so far is that the character development is very believable and this continued to build throughout Fires of Vengeance. The plot also continued to expand while the pace slowed slightly, making me enjoy this one significantly more as I prefer my fantasy on the slow-side usually. Thank you so much to Orbit Books for giving me this eArc. Receiving this advanced copy did not affect my review in any way. This, in every one of these aspects, was a very dense book. I can only applaud its author for the clever construction of each and how seamlessly they slotted together to deliver a thrilling story with such an unguessable trajectory.

Before you were a writer, one of the many hats you wore was director and cinematographer. Has that skillset been beneficial to you in your writing? And on top of all that? Ancient history, long forgotten by most of his people, but still very real and very dangerous, is waiting in the shadows. Watching for weakness, readying itself to strike. Even for those readers who like or require a refresher, I feel as though it would have been smoother and easier for Winter to write one prior to the prologue, rather than attempting to incorporate it into the story using the voice of a character. Maybe this is just me though, it just read jarringly and I couldn't help but think that nobody would ever do that realistically. The powerful, in Tau’s experience, kept seeing the loss of their desires as being world ending without ever once stopping to realize that for people like him, every day held that potential already.”him to do it.” “We do not care what Odili will or won’t do. We have agents in Palm City. They’ll open the gates when we come.” Tau’s grip tightened on his hilts when she said it. The queen had a way into the city and that meant they were going to take the fight to Odili. Otobong shook his head, and the general began to speak even more slowly, enunciating each word as if Empiric wasn’t the queen’s first language. “My queen, I must take you at your word about these agents, but even so, you’re asking us to take too great a risk. What we have are a smattering of Ihagu, some Ihashe, a few initiates from the citadel, and several loyal Indlovu who survived the invasion. Together they’re a military dragon, but they just came out of a bitter battle. We can’t expect to mobilize them, march to Palm, and win that fight, even if the gates are opened.” “You began this boasting of your capabilities,” Tsiora said. “We’ve told you the gates will be open. Where is your faith, General?” “They weren’t boasts and I do have faith, my queen. I have faith that if we do the right thing, we can reunite our people and survive, but it isn’t right to face Odili in combat, not as we are,” he said. “He has too many Indlovu and Ingonyama. He has at least as many Gifted as we do, and Goddess knows, the Ihashe and Ihagu in Palm City won’t understand our conflict and are likely to keep fighting for him too.” Otobong turned his body to include Mirembe and the other councilwomen in the discussion. “To win this fight we need more soldiers but don’t have the time to gather them. I’m telling you, if we wish to see another season, we have days to end this rebellion. Days.” Mirembe clapped her hands together, drawing the room’s attention. “What can we do, then, General?” she asked. “What can we do to survive?” “It’s as I’ve said. We must compromise with Odili and … uh … and Princess Esi.” “This is your decision?” Mirembe asked. “The decision of the Guardian Council?” “It is,” Otobong said. “No. Abasi Odili betrayed us,” Queen Tsiora said. “He tried to kill us.” Mirembe nodded, put a hand to her chest, and closed her eyes as if in prayer. “His actions hurt us all. They are a stain on his honor and a blight on the history of our people.” She opened her eyes, fixing them on Tsiora. “But

Evan Winter proves that he is here to stay. The Rage of Dragons was my favorite debut novel of all time, not an easy act to follow up. But damm Evan Winter did it. Hah! Great question, and sometimes I do feel the story trying to grow beyond the constraints of its intended structure. However, I’m a hardcore structuralist and the story was always intended to be told in four parts. So, though it would be possible to go beyond four, I’m determined to maintain the balance I found and loved in my initial four-part outline. As with book one we experience this story mainly through Tau’s POV with little glimpses into a few other peoples minds and each one brings out such an emotional response from the reader. You feel their determinations, steel, heart and so much more. Every action shows you a little more of these characters and what drives them.If the city can be taken, if Tsiora can reclaim her throne and reunite her people, then the Omehi might have a chance to survive the coming onslaught. I said it in the first review and ill say it again. i love the way Tau's story is told. it's so focused on him that the pacing is never bogged down with worldbuilding. He is doing impossible feats and never really takes time to think about them. their is so much happening around him. the worldbuilding is placed around him seamlessly. Winter's does not harp on every detail. It is told to Tau and the reader discovers the rest. I read many books where the author is so enamored with their worldbuilding or magic system they won't shut up about it and what makes the story unique is it's downfall. the side character, politic, and war are all thing happening around Tau. but not the focus, still intrigues the reader. I'll give an example to those who have read this. there is a POV change to the queen's sister and i found it interesting her focus was mostly on Tau but really made me wonder what was her deal. there is a great story there! there are a few POV changes and i found them all good albeit short and they left me wanting to know more. certainly gave me something other than Tau's spectacular storyline to sink my teeth in! I could see why the author did this since it seems like he has a larger than originally expected story to tell. The next minor grievances I have are with certain characters and how they were treated. I didn’t like the introduction of Tau’s mother at all. I feel like the character to be introduced should have been his sister as it could open different avenues of character development. Kana’s complete 180 as a character just felt wrong with how deep it went, where any sympathy I had disappeared. Winter also does a truly eloquent job of creating the perfect allegory in his works for the racial inequality we have permeating our own world, particularly nowadays, using the caste system of Nobles and Lessers. The socio-political elements at play here are very well crafted, and Winter knows well how to write a rousing speech of defiance and strength in the face of this kind of adversity. It is extremely powerful and moving.

Another thing I really liked about this book is how the author experimented with POVs of characters. Tau was still our main POV, but Evan Winter sprinkled in a few chapters with different POVs that were short and effective here and there instead of having numerous POV changes. Each of these POVs enhanced the story and character development by letting you see certain characters through the eyes of people of different social classes and different roles. I also really liked the reveal at the end. My 100th review on Goodreads. And what a book to fill that position. I have loved writing each one, and hope to create many more.Exciting? Undoubtedly! And the quality of the fight choreography is very high, but all of this also leads me onto my next point... The world-building is as good as book 1, we get to explore the demon realm Isihigo much more than we did in book 1. Does the book have Dragons? It does a bit more than book 1 but it focuses on demons more which I thought was a bit bizarre but it was still cool in its own way! There is also a scene in this book that we have been building toward since the very beginning of The Rage Of Dragons. Its been a goal of Tau's for so long. We've heard him think, talk and dream about this... His Vengeance! It's in the title! Yet for some reason, the moment just before this happens, we cut away to the perspective of a character we barely know. We miss out on the catharsis, we don't see or hear what is going through Tau's head, we don't feel what he feels, we experience the event through the eyes of a naive and bias bystander. This wouldn't be so bad if we had time to process it afterwards when we rejoin Tau, but no, he is almost immediately torn away to another task - another thing that HE specifically has to do, with very little time to reflect or contemplate what he has done/achieved. As a director/cinematographer, I also came to deeply value the pre-work that went into a good shot list. After the first two dozen projects, I could see that the more effort I put into my shot list, the better the finished product. So, I adopted a similar approach for The Rage of Dragons and I outlined the book extensively. Rage is love … twisted in on itself. Rage reaches into the world when we can no longer contain the hurt of being treated as if our life and loves do not matter. Rage, and its consequences, are what we get when the world refuses to change for anything less.”

I really hope to see Tau sleep at least once, have a drink occasionally and be a little less of a Mary Sue next time around. He is a fantastic character, but adrenaline and rage can only keep someone pushing forward so far. Tau is written really well in that he makes me so angry and frustrated. Sometimes I like him, other times I hate him. I didn't get much sense of the character growth in him or really any of the characters. It's very repetitive in that Tau gets angry. Tau fights and kills demons to deal with said anger. And the cycle continues and we never really see him learn or grow aside from learning how to kill better. Which is cool, but gets redundant.We’ve had the chance to read The Fires of Vengeance, and can safely declare that theanswer is a resounding yes. (Before some spoilers for The Rage of Dragonsbeyond this point.) Image courtesy of Orbit Books The book started with a clumsily implemented recap of The Rage Of Dragons, in which our protagonist, Tau, tells his " unconscious" friend, Jabari, everything that transpired in that time. Evan Winter really dived into the themes of power, privilege and prejudice set in this world and I found it a wonderful study. We get to learn more of their history before they travelled across the Roar and the exploration of the history and culture of the Omehi showed how one decision made several years ago has still impacted their lives to this day. But I wouldn’t be doing right by you, reader, if I failed to mention the battles.Evan Winter has a penchant for writing brutal and exhilaratingly well-executed action scenes — perhaps some of the best of any fantasy writer working in the field at the moment. The climax of The Fires of Vengeanceis the sort of battle that’s a fantasy nerd’s dream. It achieves a perfect balance between utterly epic and deeply personal, with the push and pull providing a ton of tension. It almost feels like the sort of battle that George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Firewas always leading up to, but had yet to arrive at. It’s that big and crazy, and the fact that Winter was able to deliver it in only his second book is a testament to his skill and the series’ heart. I really do like these books. I loved the first one. Winter writes fight scenes really well, I could just use a little less of it personally.