Book Review | The Fires of Vengeance
Introduction
Hey there! Thanks for taking the time to check out this post. My previous review was for Evan Winter’s book The Rage of Dragons, which I have recommended to many friends and am even loaning to my father right now, so you’ll notice it missing from my shelf in a couple of videos that I’m recording around this time. I hope that’s not too distressing for anyone. If it is… I guess just tell me, and I’ll apologize for hurting you. This review is for the sequel to that book, which is entitled The Fires of Vengeance.
Immediately after finishing The Rage of Dragons, I grabbed The Fires of Vengeance and started reading. I’ve been pretty busy with work and a few personal things, so my reading of this book was a little slower than Rage, but I’m grateful for that because we won’t get book three, The Lord of Demons, for a couple more months. The book’s release in 2022 can’t come soon enough. While I wait, though, I’ll divulge my thought on the second book of this series.
As a note, I keep my reviews spoiler-free of the content of what I am reviewing. However, I can’t guarantee that the prior work in a series won’t be spoiled by my review of a later work, though I’ll do my best to ensure that I keep any potential spoilers to a minimum. If you haven’t read The Rage of Dragons yet, you may want to finish that before checking out my review of the second book.
As always, you can check out a video version of this post below:
Summary
The Fires of Vengeance picks up right where we left off in the first book. Considerably little time has passed since then, and we are still feeling the effects of Rage’s aftermath. In this, Tau’s quest for vengeance is ongoing; he has not yet exacted vengeance on all of his targets but is fully intent on doing so. With a new title and swords under his belt, Tau is assisting the queen with eliminating her enemies and ensuring that her seat on the throne is secured.
The Review
Presentation
The Fires of Vengeance is once again a beautiful book inside and out. The cover is gorgeous, and I love it, as you’ve noticed since it’s always displayed in the background of my videos (I’m going to be a lot more hesitant to loan this one out). The interior layout is thankfully the same as it was in book one. Like the first book, I’ll note that this book doesn’t have a pronunciation guide. However, I actually listened to the audiobook while I was reading it, so that wasn’t a problem for me this time around. I’d still like to see one included in future editions.
My comments on the presentation for The Fires of Vengeance are pretty much the same as it is for The Rage of Dragons, so I don’t have a lot new to say here. I like the cover a little more than I do the first one just because the colors are gorgeous and stand out more than the first one, but they’re both beautiful covers in general. The presentation for The Fires of Vengeance is going to be another four-star one for me. It’s great, beautiful; I love the covers and the general layout. Include a pronunciation guide, and this will easily be a five-star presentation.
As a reminder, before we move on, I rate presentation in all of my reviews, but it’s not something that contributes to the final score for books. It only contributes to the final score for visual media like television shows and video games.
The Plot
Unlike The Rage of Dragons, this book felt less plot-driven and more character-driven. This isn’t to say that the plot is bad--the plot continues to be excellent in this book--but it does take a noticeable backseat to the characters… which is exactly what I asked for in my last book. We’ll talk more about what this means in my review of the characters in the book later on.
Tau is still driven by vengeance, but he’s also feeling conflicted throughout the book due to his new, prestigious title. The ramifications for Tau’s recklessness in this book are far more staggering than they were in the first one. He has to learn to curtail his wrath in order to progress not only the queen’s aims but also his own. If he wants to enact vengeance, he needs to play along be part of a team rather than working as a rogue or solo operative whose aims are all that matters, as he did in the first book.
I do think that the plot in this book does take too much of a backseat. I feel like we could have gotten more content in this book, yet it is still a bit longer than the first one. There is a lot that alludes to what will take place in the next two books that he’s writing in this series, which has definitely gotten me excited, but this was definitely a book that was less focused on progressing the plot and more focused on developing the characters, which was certainly needed.
We do also get a recap from one of the character’s perspectives as someone else is relaying the events of the last book. It was a necessary scene that gave us some insight into one of the characters, but it did still feel a little odd. I’m not particularly a fan of the As you know Bob style of exposition or summarizing, but I also understand why this scene was necessary. I think others will have less of a problem with it than I do, and I don’t even think it’s that big of a deal. I just wanted to point out that I noticed the scene and felt it was a little clunky.
All in all, the plot was pretty good, but nothing to write home about. I’m stoked for the broader plot that is being explored in this series, but the actual plot of the second book lacked for me. I’m going to give it three stars because it was just an average plotline in general. This isn’t saying that I don’t like the plot; I’m only pointing out that the plot of this one was largely just set up for the next couple of books while the main story of book two was fairly simple and quickly resolved.
The World
The world opens up a bit more to us here, as we see Tau traveling to multiple locations when the queen is ensuring the loyalty of her subjects as she prepares for the coming battle to reclaim her throne and oust the impostor queen. This does help us get a better feel for the world, but the real growth and understanding we get of the world in this book comes from the world’s history.
We get a lot of insight into the history of this world. This book really fleshes out the history of Evan Winter’s world, and we learn a lot about the past and present of this world, as well as the future. The magic system is also further explored, as is the demonic dimension Isihogo. So much is unveiled in this book now that Tau isn’t quite as focused on himself and I… loved it. All of it.
Seeing Evan Winter’s vision explored with more depth and being given so much information about it was remarkable. I mentioned in my review of Rage that I was a little unsatisfied with how little information we got about the world and its systems and histories. Well, this book absolutely recovered from that--and then some. I am so incredibly excited to see more of this world.
The world is easily getting five stars from me this time around.
The World-Building
We got a lot of information about the world in The Fires of Vengeance, but was it done in a non-expository way? In the last book, there was a scene I mentioned in my review that I didn’t particularly like because it felt exposition-heavy and unnatural. Well, that definitely improves in this book.
We do still get some exposition in this book, but it doesn’t feel as unnatural. The information is presented to us gracefully, and it’s also only a couple of scenes. Additionally, the information presented by way of exposition is all information that our main character doesn’t know, rather than the individual presenting the information repeating things that our character already knows immediately after he states he already knows it. The delivery of this information--which was important for us to know--felt a lot more natural and less forced.
However, the vast majority of the world-building done in this story isn’t done in scenes like that. Most of it is shown to us as the story progresses. We learn a lot more about the demons and the magic system in particular, which was certainly needed. This also helped us understand the stakes of the magic-focused combat that begins to appear more frequently in this book than it did in the first one.
All-in-all, Evan Winter did a great job with the world-building in this. All of the information that I needed was presented in an easily digestible fashion. I was able to easily recall everything that was pertinent to the story. I don’t have any complaints about the presentation of the world in this book, so I’m going to give it five stars, a fine improvement to the four stars I gave this facet of the first entry in the series.
The Characters
My prayers were heard and answered! One of the significant gripes I had with The Rage of Dragons is that the characters don’t seem to exist outside of the relationship to Tau, and we got little to no insight into them. They were all interesting people I really wanted to explore, but we got very little of them, and there weren’t many moments for personalities and purposes to truly shine.
Enter The Fires of Vengeance to save the day.
We get so much character insight and development in this book. It is wonderful. These characters are all memorable, they all stand out, and it is hard to find one that I like more than the others. They are unique, they have their own personalities, and they’re not all there to serve the plot or our main character. I loved the development that we see here with Tau and his sword brothers. Tau’s relationships with his sword brothers, the queen, and the others around them all feel very natural, as do their relationships with one another.
We also get more scenes from the perspectives of people who are not Tau in this book than we did in the previous one, at least as best I can tell--I haven’t actually counted them, but it certainly seemed like we got more of them. These scenes actually helped to ground Tau, as we often forget to think of him the way that others will think of him. By reading from his perspective, we naturally develop a considerable amount of empathy for Tau. Those who are looking on, though, are quite a bit less empathetic and tend to see him in a darker sense.
I don’t want to rant for too long about how much I love each of the characters in this story, but I do want to talk about character motivation for a moment. It is remarkably clear right from the start of the first book in this series that, above all, Evan Winter is a master of character motivation. In The Rage of Dragons, this shines primarily with Tau, but we see his mastery throughout this second book. So many characters had unique and powerful motivations, including the enemies of Tau and the queen. These motivations were so well written and established that it was possible to predict many of the actions that characters would likely take, which only furthered my enjoyment of the story. I often knew what was to come and felt tense as a result of it.
Without a doubt, I can say that the characters in The Fires of Vengeance will be getting five stars this time around. It pained me to only give four stars in my review of the first book because I could tell that there were great characters there; they just needed more depth. I’m so glad that we got that depth in this book, and I’m excited to reunite with these characters in the third book.
As for favorites, I’m going to say Hadith, with Uduak being second. Hadith is clever, snarky, and sensible. He is, in my opinion, almost as well-written and thought out as Tau is.
The Writing
Once again, Evan Winter absolutely killed it in the writing department. I’d even say he’s improved with this book. His writing is superb throughout the book, but it is at its best in his combat scenes. Whenever there is a fight, Evan Winter delivers with remarkable prose. His battles--be they duels or a clash of forces--are unparalleled. I always have an understanding of the stakes and current condition of the battle. He brings life to these moments in ways that make me excited for every subsequent fight.
It’s not just about the combat, though--the rest of the writing is incredible, too. Evan Winter has honed his skills as a writer, and I am astonished by how well-written this book is. From dialogue to descriptions to relationships and plot threads… I love it all. I don’t have a single complaint about Evan Winter’s writing. The writing, like the characters, earns its five-star rating, hands-down.
The Pacing
So, now we come to the pacing of the book, which was, once again, an improvement on this part of the first book. The Fires of Vengeance takes off right from the beginning and maintains a steady pace throughout, speeding up in some key areas and slowing down to let the reader--and the characters--breathe every once in a while. This is especially true for nearly the first half of the book, in which it is strongly emphasized that the characters are not even taking time to sleep. They are exhausted and still trying to push themselves until, finally, they just start falling asleep on the floor because they cannot stay awake any longer.
The characters don’t get to breathe for a while, and neither do you, so when you do finally have a brief moment of peace and quiet, it is rightly earned, meaningful, and all the more appreciated. Evan Winter knew when to give the reader a break, and he executed this perfectly, slipping in small moments of much-needed respite here and there so that you can catch your breath.
In the end, The Fires of Vengeance maintains the pacing that we saw at the end of The Rage of Dragons and slows down every now and then when it’s needed. This book was a ride from start to finish, and I have a feeling this ride is only going to become more forceful and fast-paced when we get to the third book. The pacing is going to be another five-star rating for me.
Overall
I fully expected to love The Fires of Vengeance because I loved The Rage of Dragons. However, I was also concerned that we would see what is commonly referred to as Second Book Slump, in which the book that follows the first in a series is not quite as good and fails to meet the expectations set by the first book. The Fires of Vengeance doesn’t just meet the expectations set by its predecessor, however; it far exceeds them.
This book eliminated every minor complaint that I had about the first one—all of them. I even said throughout the first review that I was hoping to see these things improved in the second, and they all were. The only part of this book that falls short of the first for me is the plot, which is perfectly understandable--this book was focused on resolving some things from the first book while setting the stage for books three and four, which it accomplished. If you were to put books one and two together, the plot is definitely five stars as it’s fully cohesive. The issue with the plot of book two is just that it isn’t as thorough and impactful as the plot of the first, so it doesn’t stand as well outside of the series as the first book does. This is not a huge deal, and I still loved the story; it just wasn’t quite as good as the first in that regard.
Yet, despite this singular shortcoming of The Fires of Vengeance, it is getting an overall five-star rating from me. My second book review, and it’s five stars! I truly expected this to get another four stars from me, but here we are—five stars to the second book in The Burning. I’m stoked to see what’s in store for the third one, let alone the fourth.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it, my thoughts on Evan Winter’s The Fires of Vengeance! I was confident I would like it but didn’t realize I would like it quite this much. It absolutely blew away my expectations and is rich with meaningful characters and a tremendous world, both of which I can’t wait to get more of next year when The Lord of Demons is released. The Fires of Vengeance astonished me and is the first book I’ve given five stars to in a long time. This one was amazing, and I can’t wait to see where Evan Winter takes this story and these characters.
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