The Rage of Dragons
The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable fight for almost two hundred years. Their society has been built around war and only war. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine.
Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war. Young, gift-less Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He’s going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn’t get the chance. Those closest to him are brutally murdered, and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He’ll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die a hundred thousand times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him.
The Fires of Vengeance
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
My Take
These were painful — but good — books to read. Tau can be endlessly annoying with his hyperfocus on his own vengeance, especially when it counters the greater good. But then other characters do that too. (I think my favorite is the woman who sends in her sons as assassins and then calls their intended victims murderers when they kill her sons in self-defense.)
But the books are all about class and caste, oppression, colonialism, and fighting. Lots of fighting. I actually thought the fight scenes were well done. Usually I skim those because (a) I’m not that interested and (b) I can’t follow what’s going on anyway. Here I could. What there isn’t a lot of is dragons, oddly. They appear briefly, but they’re portrayed more as tools to be used than as intelligent beings. Another layer of oppression?
I also highlighted a passage, which I rarely do, but I liked this one:
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’m hoping the author carries on with the series because there is more to tell and to learn.