Fireborne: 1 (Aurelian Cycle)

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These characters are essentially at war, and Munda does not hold back on showing you the brutality they endure and the trauma they suffer. I see the comparison and mention of Plato's Republic and the French Revolution, even Blitz and I personally saw some similarity with the Russian Revolution. Lee and Annie are dragonriders-in-training, and after seven years of effort, they’re now competing to be Firstrider, an important position in the dragon army.

This is only the first book of three and yet I already know this is going to be a series I will never forget. They serve in multiple roles: as animal companions, as loving friends/partners, and as weapons of war. But with unrest at home, enforcing the government’s rationing program risks turning her into public enemy number one.

Inspired by Plato’s Republic and told from a dual point of view, the story is pitched as Aegon Targaryen and Hermione Granger with dragons. Only children when they were orphaned during the revolution past, the two found friendship in the other. If you like political fantasy that's thought provoking and character driven, definitely pick this one up. There is always something actively occurring, even if it is a flashback to better inform the characters' present situations.

That was a real pleasure to read--she avoids the easy but overused LED lights in eyes for emotional conveyance (his eyes gleamed/smoldered/flashed/shot flames, fire, ice, and daggers, blah de blah). This reads like an amalgamation of several dragon books ( A Game of Thrones and Harry Potter among others), but without those books’ distinct voices and characters. But the rest, Hermione Granger (I suppose that was Annie, but I don't really see it), Game of Thrones.

But total annihilation is more difficult than it looks when it's hand to hand slaughter, and a few got away, or were spared--including one of our protagonists, Lee, who was born Leo, his father an important dragon lord.

Fireborne is everything I want in fantasy: deep world-building, fierce and vivid characters, heartbreaking choices, and dragons, dragons, dragons. And what made it more intense was how the characters' different motivations played into what was known.The "battles" we were told about do happen but they are rather anticlimatic as they are only really about Lee and Annie's relationship. But he’s a swing character, crafted to do the opposite of what you expect when the author needs something doing that doesn’t make sense. Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone–even the lowborn–a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders. Suspense that had me wondering what was going to happen, because I knew way more than all the characters, and the possible reveals had me on edge.