Book Review: The Legion of Flame by Anthony Ryan

Pros: excellent world-building, great characters, well paced, exciting

Cons: cliffhanger ending 

Refugees flock to Feros, where Lizanne Lethridge, aka Miss Blood, is given the first of a new and even more dangerous series of missions to perform in the Corvantine Empire. Clay has convinced Hillmore to sail South, hoping to find something that will help them defeat the white dragon. Meanwhile, the white is gathering its army of spoiled, training them to overrun the world.

This book starts off with little reminder of the events of The Waking Fire (my review), so it’s worth rereading it. One of the characters thought dead returns as a point of view character, giving insight into the actions of the white dragon’s army.

The world-building continues to be excellent. You learn more about various governments and see how the drakes interact from a different point of view from the first book. Clay’s mission provides a lot of questions, which I’m hoping will be answered in the next book.

There are two appendices, one for dramatis personae, which is helpful as several names are similar and the cast is large, and a second with the rules for the card game Pastazch.

Lizanne is probably my favourite character, making difficult decisions and still being influenced more by her emotions than a good operative should. I was surprised by where her choices lead her. Clay seems to grow as the book progresses, which I appreciated. I was disappointed that Tekela wasn’t in this book much, considering how she’d grown in the previous book. I was hoping to see more of her development. Loriabeth gets a good amount of page time, which was nice. Her skills have improved a lot and she’s a solid supporting character.

The pacing was wonderful, with a lot of action and cliffhanger chapter endings, propelling you through the book at a rapid pace. There’s little wrap up here, with the final chapters leaving several characters in difficult positions. This is only a negative in that since the next book isn’t out yet, I can’t immediately find out what happens to them.

I’m really looking forward to book 3.