Eventually, though, you've pieced everything together and the drama ratchets up now that you understand the caste and magic systems.Įven though it starts out confusing, the worldbuilding is uniformly great. It creates a whirlwind opening to the novel, trying to grasp at what things are and why they're important and how they connect to each other, which is a bit disorienting. The one nitpick I'd make is that Winter throws a ton of terms at the reader right off the back, sometimes with very little context. Nothing about his arc rang false, and his story was one of the most captivating, heartbreaking stories I've read this year. But with Winter's writing, it was a truly seamless arc-every development and shift in Tau's inner character was totally believable, to the point where when I was reading all I could think was "Yeah, this is what Tau's like" and I had completely forgotten he wasn't always this way. It wasn't until the final 10% of the novel when I remembered Tau's personality and beliefs at the beginning of the story, and I realized precisely how drastic his change was. The fulcrum of the story is main character Tau's emotional and physical journey, and this is where Winter excels.
It took me several days to get through the first 20% or so of the book, but after that point it was only a matter of days before finishing the rest of it because I had to keep reading with every free moment I got. I won't get into particulars since there was so much joy in the discovery of this book's actual storyline, but suffice to say there were numerous surprises throughout that kept the pacing fast, exciting, and always engaging. The set-up felt somewhat typical to me, and I was thinking it might end up being another overhyped book, but once the first big moment in the story hit I was hooked-and the book never let up from there, proving my preconceived notions wrong over and over again. That being said, one thing that was working against me not knowing the general premise was how slow I found the beginning of the book.
I believe that highly improved the book's story for me, especially now reading the synopsis after finishing the book, so I'll refrain from spoiling too much. I went into The Rage of Dragons knowing nothing about it aside from the fact that it was inspired by African culture, was getting rave reviews, and that author Evan Winter was a nice guy on twitter.
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