Defiant
Series: Songs of Chaos, #3
Author: Michael R. Miller
Genre: Fantasy
Book Description:
The great powers are stirring, and Holt and Ash are ready to return to the fight.
A summons from the Life Elder sets them on a perilous mission, leading to steaming jungles and blistering islands where ancient secrets will challenge everything they know of magic and dragons.
Talia, the Red Queen, is beset on all sides by pirate raiders and marauding mercenaries. Empress Skadi has abandoned her, battling uprisings in her own lands. As the noose tightens on Feorlen, Talia faces a difficult choice: let her people suffer or turn her powers against moral foes?
Osric Agravain has found hope with his newly bonded black dragon, but some wounds run deeper than flesh and bone. Along the Fallow Frontier, he seeks the inner peace that has long eluded him.
And within the sanctum at Falcaer, Paragon Adaskar is struggling to unite the fracturing riders. If he fails, ruinous chaos will break across the world.
For when Elders and Paragons quarrel, kingdoms fall.
Review:
There were things I really enjoyed about Defiant, but there were also times I wanted to throw the book at the wall.
I really liked Osric’s new black dragon, who gets called Soot for a while. She’s very sweet, and kind, and timid, and cute. I could really feel the love and tenderness between her and Osric. Osric’s journey throughout the book felt genuine and complex and touching, and I liked the way it continues to touch on his personal responsibility, and his need to find the places where his soul went wrong, and find the healing for those wounds, whether for actions he committed, or ones that were done to him. Their journey throughout the story was very much a personal one, with relationships and personal choices at its heart, regardless of the wider epic stakes, and it felt very real.
I also enjoyed Rake’s journey. Rake is a much bigger character in this book, and I can’t say I always agree with him – in fact, it’s long been established that I have some very major disagreements with Rake about important things – but we get to delve deeper into who he is, and how he has got where he is. Rake’s flaws come to the surface, as well as some of his virtues, and in the end Osric tells him to take his own advice, stop blaming everyone except himself for his problems, and look within himself to find his mistakes.
And when he does that, he can feel Elya again.
So I’m really, really enjoying the very balanced, but continued emphasis on personal responsibility. It’s reasonable and balanced, as one definitely sees the way that the things people’ve suffered, and the things others do to them, has had an effect on them – but at the same time, there’s always choice that lies with them.
However, other things really didn’t add up. The ability of dragons to form soul oaths and soul agreements, things like binding spiritual yields that allow them to settle conflicts and battles without killing each other, seems like it just came out of the blue. It’s suddenly all over the place in this book, where there wasn’t even a whisper of it before.
I also felt that what we were told about the characters often didn’t really add up to what I saw of them. Vald and Raiden’ra are supposed to have a very “pure” bond, kind of like Holt and Ash, and now Osric and Soot – for while Osric is scarred in his soul, the love between him and Soot is very pure, and not stained with other motives. Meanwhile, Adaskar and Azarin weren’t supposed to be quite so pure in their bond. Yet I saw no love between Vald and Raiden’ra. Both of them seem to be after power, and to be using the other. I don’t necessarily like Adaskar. He has a lot of problems, makes a lot of mistakes, and does some bad things. But I could really feel the love between him and Azarin. It felt real, and fundamental to both of them, even if it was obscured at times by other things. In fact, I found the bond between Azarin and Adaskar heart-touching.
Another neat touch was the way riders have to discover who they are and be true to themselves in order to continue advancing. This causes many of the rogue riders to advance far more quickly than they could while they were in the Order, and constantly betraying and going against their deepest convictions and natures by obeying the laws of the Order. Now, outside the Order, they can be true to themselves, and it explains some of why Holt and Ash have advanced so quickly, and continue to advance. It also comes into conflict with Talia’s role as Queen, since she is constantly doing things and making choices that go against her truths. This hinders her ability to advance.
I continue to really enjoy Talia and Pyra. Talia makes a very beautiful speech, and she and Pyra are just awesome. I love their fire. But one really does see in this one how their bond isn’t as pure as Holt and Ash’s. They truly, truly love each other, and I’m not sure they could love each other more. But they’re not as vulnerable with each other. There’s more insecurity between them.
This one also has a bit of a very tender and compelling, but heart-breaking love story, involving someone Talia gets to know and some of her own actions. I don’t know what to make about some of the things Talia says about duty. It seems to me the author may be exploring this conflict between perceived duty, consequences, and following your nature, which is something I enjoyed. Because Talia certainly can’t advance as a rider if she embraces duty against her nature – and isn’t that an extension of the old order she wishes to overturn, one in which a man must continue in the profession he was born to?
As for Holt and Ash’s journey, it felt a little forced and coerced at times. However, I still very much like them, and I enjoy where they’ve come to. From where they were at the end of Unbound, under Rake’s challenge to think and not just ask out of their hearts, they’ve come to the decision they make their own choices, and they only do what they’re absolutely convinced of. No more blind missions for others. I love the choice they make after that, where they go off with their friend and try to prove themselves to people who mean little to the rest of the world.
I’ll finally get to what really made me want to throw the book at the wall, though the stuff with Vald and Raiden’ra contributed, along with some things I find it harder to describe. I really hate it when the villains are excessively, unreasonably powerful, just as much as I hate protagonists who are unreasonably powerful and have too many unreasonable successes. This book did it for the villains, as if the very world works differently for them. A notable example – without spoiling too much of the book – is how powerful Thrall’s new hatchlings are. How Thrall gets so powerful is kind of explained, since he gets coerced riders to Forge his core for him. However, his hatchlings, so much younger than Ash, shouldn’t already be so much more powerful than Ash is, especially when Holt and Ash’s own progress is phenomenal. Yet they seem almost invincible in their power. Like how is it even possible for them to mature that quickly and grow their cores to that height? And that’s not the only thing. It’s just too much.
Thrall succeeds when he really shouldn’t, as if the world works differently for him, and it’s not just small things. It’s big things, and sometimes it really felt as if the author is killing off characters for the effect of it. I won’t say that all the deaths had that feel, but some of them really did.
PS. It’s not a big deal, but I am finding it annoying how Ash is WAY too big on the covers. He’s huge on this one, and a description in the book implies that he might finally be close to the size he’s shown to be on the covers of Ascendant and Unbound, but nothing close to what he appears here.
Enthralled By Love 