Audiobook Review – The Rage of Dragons (The Burning, Book 1) by Evan Winter, Narrated by Prentice Onayemi (5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Length: 16 hours and 15 minutes
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Release Date: July 16, 2019
ASIN: B07Q25P8DZ
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in The Burning series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 5/5 stars
“The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable fight for almost 200 years. Their society has been built around war and only war. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every 2,000 women has the power to call down dragons. One in every 100 men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine. Everyone else is fodder, destined to fight and die in the endless war.
Young, giftless Tau knows all this, but he has a plan of escape. He’s going to get himself injured, get out early, and settle down to marriage, children, and land. Only, he doesn’t get the chance.
Those closest to him are brutally murdered, and his grief swiftly turns to anger. Fixated on revenge, Tau dedicates himself to an unthinkable path. He’ll become the greatest swordsman to ever live, a man willing to die 100,000 times for the chance to kill the three who betrayed him.”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in The Burning series. There are four books planned in this series. The second book “Fires of Vengeance” is already out and the third book “The Lord of Demons” is supposed to publish in 2022. I got a copy of this on audiobook from Audible.
Audiobook Quality (5/5): This audiobook was incredibly well done. The narrator does an amazing job with character voices, emotion, and accents. It was truly a pleasure to listen to and I strongly recommend listening to this on audiobook if you love audiobooks.
Thoughts: This was an amazing start to this epic fantasy series. There is excellent world-building, an imaginative magic system, and amazing action scenes. The characters (even side characters) are well built out and go through a lot of growth throughout the book. You can’t help but be drawn into their lives and engaged with them; I even enjoyed reading about characters I didn’t like much.
This story is focused on Tau who is a giftless, lower class citizen. We also spend some time with a young woman from his town Zuri (sp? sorry, I listened to this one). This is one of those more classic “boy gets put through bad stuff and takes extreme measures to become a bad-ass” type of epic fantasies. That being said, there is plenty here for everyone to love. The Omehi people (who are very Zulu-like) have a rich history and culture. The magic system is very intriguing and I love that there are dragons!!
The politics are complicated but easy to follow. The Omehi have both internal political issues as well as a broader war that is ongoing with the other original inhabitants of their current home island. It is interesting to watch the Omehi people try to balance these issues and survive with their culture intact.
The writing is very well done. I was sucked into the story right away. The descriptions were wonderful and the story was never confusing or hard to follow, despite a large cast of characters. I really loved this, it is one of the best epic fantasies I have read in some time.
My Summary (5/5): Overall this was absolutely amazing. This is complete epic fantasy perfection: amazing world-building, interesting magic, complex politics, engaging characters, and wonderful action scenes. If you love epic fantasy definitely check this out. This book was effortless to read and more than met all my expectations of what a great epic fantasy should be.
