The Waking Fire

Executive Summary: A great start to a new series. It blends a lot of different things together in an interesting way to feel original. I'm really looking forward to see where he takes things from here.Audiobook: Steven Brand is a great narrator. He reads with good inflection, and does a few voices. In the past my main complaint about him has been he speaks too quietly. He's either fixed that, or the people making the books are adjusting his volume up to make him a lot easier to hear than past books I've listened to.Full ReviewI absolutely loved both [b:Blood Song 13569581 Blood Song (Raven's Shadow, #1) Anthony Ryan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1421573407s/13569581.jpg 19148922] and [b:Tower Lord 18138189 Tower Lord (Raven's Shadow, #2) Anthony Ryan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1382486392s/18138189.jpg 25481154]. It's possible that it made it impossible for me to love [b:Queen of Fire 18405221 Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow, #3) Anthony Ryan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1417350958s/18405221.jpg 26039753]. Either way, I was disappointed enough in that book, that I was reluctant to pick this one up. I had planned to wait on reviews from people I trusted to come out before getting it. Then a review copy fell into my lap.This book is kind of a hodge podge of several things I love: Mistborn, Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Dragons. And if that's not enough there is also high sea adventure, and pirates! That may sound like a mess, but Mr. Ryan does a great job in blending those elements together. I also can't guarantee all of those things were influences on this book, but they are things I thought about as I was reading.Mistborn has one of my all time favorite magic systems. This one feels similar, only a little less structured, and with only 4 known types of abilities. The main similarity is the idea of imbibing something in order to do magic, and that only a small number of people are born with the ability. Beyond that they are quite different.My favorite character is Lizanne, who is basically Jane Bond. Her story line was always my favorite, and I really want to know more about the training she went through. I hope we get some flashbacks or possibly her training new recruits in future books, but then I'm a sucker for the magic school trope.Clay was also a great character, and a more reluctant protagonist then Lizanne. His story was reminiscent of an Indiana Jones story, with him being basically nothing like him. If anyone is Jones it's maybe his uncle.The final protagonist, Lt. Hilemore was enjoyable enough, but I spent much of the book wondering how his story fit in with the other two. Rest assured it's made clear by the end of the story, but it takes awhile. That doesn't mean his story wasn't interesting, it just felt disconnected from the rest of the book for me. With him you get high seas battles and pirates!None of that even scratches the surface of the great supporting cast. Each subplot has it's own supply of interesting characters. And if 3 interesting protagonists influenced by different elements, and a great supporting cast isn't enough. There are Dragons. And really, isn't that enough?Overall, I'm glad I got this is a review copy because I really enjoyed this book. I just hope he can take his time on the sequels because I felt like his last book suffered from rushing to completion to meet a deadline. I love getting new books in a series once a year, but I'm willing to wait longer if the author needs more time. I'm hoping he'll be able to bring this to a more satisfying conclusion than his previous series.

3.75 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Combine the magic system of Mistborn, the gunplay of Red Dead Redemption, the steampunk aesthetic of Bioshock Infinite, the dragons of Skyrim, a fun cast, a unique culture, and an intriguing Macguffin and you have The Waking Fire. I was expecting a traditional dragon-centric Epic Fantasy story and this was that and so much more.

The story follows three character POVs who are each integral to the hunt for the mythical White drake, whose blood grants unimaginable power to those who can ingest/wield it. Along the way, the characters are thrown into bar brawls, naval battles, dragon fights, zombie horde skirmishes, and so on – frankly, the steady barrage of action sequences was a bit dizzying. I would have happily sacrificed a few of these scenes for some additional character development. With that in mind, the book feels overlong, but luckily never loses its sense of excitement. Author Anthony Ryan has built a thrilling and fascinating world that I plan on revisiting soon in the forthcoming sequel, The Legion of Flame (2017).

More from stuff like this on Tome Raider.Seems like I am in a steampunk kind of a mood and it seems to work out great. As it is increasingly more common, this story is centred around three different POV characters; petty criminal Clay, spy Lizanne and navy officer Hilemore. They live in a world where certain people have special ability to drink dragon blood and do superhuman things. Because yeah, this one has dragons. Wouldn't have guessed looking at the cover at all. On top of that, they have different kinds (black, red, green, red and supposedly, according to myths even white), all giving a different power. Sounds peachy, eh? Think again. War is brewing between different countries and even the one we follow is having issues with bureaucracy and technical stagnation. In this situation an expedition is started to find the white dragon and a lost young woman, supposedly still alive out in the jungle, decades after the failed, previous trip. There is a lot going on, yes. It's complex, hard to explain without giving away too much or sounding like a rambling crazy person. My previous read, [b:The Clockwork Dynasty 32670125 The Clockwork Dynasty Daniel H. Wilson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1527606594l/32670125.SX50.jpg 53238815] was the same genre and extremely lovely, but much smaller in scope, so I enjoyed how it really managed to show the extent of a world you can do with steampunk. Somehow it always makes me... I guess limit my ideas, which is probably just coming from not having read much from the kind. Still, there is room for even more, the concepts are really creative and can be used in all kinds of crazy ways. A lot of the war and the internal problems of the place are involving politics, but what I loved about that part was how neither side had all their shit together. Often times authors go peachy the moment things are political; they can't be critical of all sides, they just have their loyalties one way and somehow they don't go far enough to take risks. Which is sad, I would love risk taking fantasy. Sure, in today's word it feels like everyone is offended by something, something is always taboo and off limits and you HAVE to give straight answers, but there should be room for this. For a book so long, it actually had enough substance, though. The alternating POV chapters help with that for sure (one of the benefits of it, in my opinion is that even boring chapters can be made better if the other characters are having an interesting time). Mr. Ryan didn't stretch things out too much with world building and nothing else, action was mixed in with it all. Plot twists are not a must for me. Many people disagree, but here they were done well. We discover interesting things about characters and lore, history and the science of the world. I appreciated how the twists really had all that variety, it showed some thought put into it all. I would say there is something for everyone on this front. So about the characters. So far the three POVs were a bit weird. Lizanne and Clay meet early on and are in touch, they have to work together, while Hilemore is separate from the other two, having his own story that connects to the war aspect, but doesn't cross over to the others. Up until the veeeeeeery end. That made me pumped. I mean not sure how much of it is a spoiler, I had a feeling Hilemore wasn't just there for the lulz, but to connect with the other two, but hey. They are sufficiently separate entities. They do sound like separate people, influenced by their circumstances, which is essential for different POVs, as one of the potential pitfalls is all of them sounding the same and becoming a mass of the same.You can't pull this off by just coming up with an interesting cast, you really have to KNOW them, their ways, their typical figures of speech. Everything. At this point I would say it's not going to go too too dark. For a books about trying to save the world and all, it has a good amount of discovering things, adventures, things that break up the fact that certain places are lawless enough for people to drop like flies. It's not trying to have too much pathos, never goes over the top, never feels like this is too much of a rigid, lecturing dark story. It's actually well-balanced as far as tone goes. I'm definitely picking up the next book. I need to know what happens, it keeps my attention, it is definitely worth your time. It is “normal” fantasy enough for people not familiar enough with steampunk, but it was different enough. Good stuff, one of my favourites of the year so far. Good night and let out some steam with this!