Review: Defiant by Michael R. Miller
Blurb:
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 mortal 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 will fall.
Review:
Defiant is Miller’s third entry into his epic dragon rider series: Songs of Chaos. Defiant expands the world, introducing tons of new characters while staying faithful to our core team, focusing the majority of its time on developing their arcs. Holt and Ash continue to have a wonderful, heart-felt bond and I enjoyed watching Osric nurture his bond with the shadow dragon.
While I didn’t get much of a sense that this was going to be progression fantasy from Ascendant, it was clear by Unbound that this series was firmly categorizing itself within the progression fantasy subgenre. I’ve never read a progression fantasy series, and it has taken me a little while to really embrace it. I DO really enjoy what Miller has done with the Songs of Chaos so far and am eagerly anticipating having the opportunity to read his next book, Reckoning. However, it did take me a little while to really settle into Defiant, and for me, I think it was that background feeling of progression fantasy, moving our characters from one challenge to the next with a goal of “leveling them up.” That being said, Miller’s expert story telling and expansive vision for this world and this series eventually took over and I really enjoyed myself throughout this book.
Defiant finally delves deep into The Pact and how the Paragons of The Order and the Elder’s interact or, historically, how they have actively avoided each other to preserve the peace. We get to journey with the Paragons and Elders as they begin pushing at the edges of The Pact and sometimes outright breaking it in an attempt to gain an advantage over Thrall. Personally, I really enjoyed these interactions and getting to learn more about this complex lore that dates back to before the Scourge was created. Paragons and Elders are both terrible forces to reckon with, as we see throughout the book. Chaos reigns.
The book is filled with action, shocks, and twists. Miller went harder than I had expected him to with some of the deaths in this book. I should have known that he wasn’t scared to kill off main characters from Ascendant and Unbound, but he still shocked me with his lack of plot armor for multiple characters and I loved it.
Defiant does suffer some from middle book syndrome. This is book 3 in a planned 5 book series, and it does feel a little like Miller had to move some players around and set up a few things in order to position everyone where they needed to be for the big finale in the next two books. That being said, at no time during this book did I feel like it was slow or meandering. Miller is just still holding back on answering questions and still giving us new questions to gnaw at our souls as we wait for him to finish the series.
Along that same vein, as the story has expanded and more and more characters are taking center stage, Miller has done a fantastic job of having very strong arcs for each of them. I’ve certainly read long series where characters feel like they’re just walking around in circles because the author didn’t really know what to do with them for a while (I love you Wheel of Time, but yes, I’m looking at you). I felt like everyone’s arcs progressed and expanded throughout Defiant. There was never a chapter or character POV that I started and was disappointed to have to read.
It's always hard to write a spoiler-free review for a book this deep into a series, but if you’re still reading this and haven’t started Songs of Chaos, definitely do yourself a favor and try it out, especially if you like epic, dragon rider fantasy or progression fantasy. Defiant is a fantastic entry in this essential dragon rider series, weaving epic worldbuilding with the development of bonds powerful enough to reminds us why we love fantasy.
