Wings of Fire, for those not in the know, is a series of best-seller novels written by Tui T Sutherland that are well-known for two things. One, DRAGONS. Lots and lots of dragons. As in, every character in the series is some kind of dragon. The heroes are dragons. The villains are dragons. The supporting cast are dragons. And two, despite the fact this is a children's novel series, is recommended for ages 8-12, and finds itself in the children's section at public libraries quite often, this series is surprisingly violent (ESPECIALLY in book 1). It's nowhere near DOOM or Mortal Kombat in terms of gore, but this series loves killing off supporting characters in startlingly brutal fashion (a case in point, a friendly IceWing dragon is stabbed to death with a toxic stinger tail. This happens in the prologue). Anyway, the dragons have formed various Tribes, with each having a set of unique abilities (SandWings have poisonous stingers, MudWings have regeneration, SeaWings can breathe underwater, NightWings have magic, SkyWings have advanced flight, RainWings have invisibility and IceWings have frost breath). The tribes are all at war with each other (of course) because of a three-way Sandwing civil war spiraling out of control thanks to the previous ruler of the Sandwings dying before she could choose an heir to the throne, and the result is what can best be described as World War II... But with DRAGONS!!!
Book 1, titled The Dragonet Prophecy stars Clay the MudWing, who thanks to his naivete and sheltered upbringing, is pretty much the perfect audience self-insert, as Clay needs important bits of lore and backstory explained to him time and time again. But Clay as a character is not so one-dimensional as that, as throughout the book he struggles to come to terms that as a dragon he must be a cold-hearted killer, but Clay literally can't bring himself to hurt other dragons. Out of the first five books, Dragonet Prophecy is the slowest-paced, partly because almost the entire first part is devoted to establishing lore, world-building, and characters, but the slow pace doesn't hurt that much. That said, once the second part begins, it picks up the pace almost as if to compensate for the slow start, with Clay and friends being thrust into action heavy situations, including a truly PERILous (ayy) encounter with Peril, who serves as a kind "Sixth Power Ranger" to the Dragonets of Destiny. When she's not trying to kill something. Seriously, Peril is like a female, dragon version of Henry from Fire Emblem. Both are lovable, half-insane, have sad backstories and really like killing things. But overall, it's a solid entry and kicks the series off to a great start.
Book 2, The Lost Heir is the book that first demonstrates the series' best strength. The ability to switch narratives and perspectives between books. While Dragonet Prophecy focused on Clay and his inner struggle between savage beast and gentle soul, The Lost Heir stars Tsunami the SeaWing, who is confident, boisterous, and more than a little trigger-happy (Talon-happy?). So what kind of hidden depths does Tsunami have? At the end of book 1 it's revealed that Tsunami is in fact of royal blood, and throughout this book she fantasizes about how great life as a princess/queen must be, only to be disappointed by the overwhelming responsibility. Oh, and she has to solve a murder mystery before she and her sisters are snuffed out without a trace.
This book is one of my favorites, due to it introducing the concept of animus magic (something off-handedly glossed over in Book 1), and explores even more of the dragon world. That said, Tsunami as a character... For some reason, she came across as being a little bit too arrogant and whiny for my liking. She grows out of it by the end of the book, though, so there's that. An interesting dynamic in this book is how despite the fact that all SeaWings can breathe underwater, they can't speak underwater, so they invented a language utilizing the bioluminescent markings covering their body. Said language comprises a lot of the dialogue, and leads to one of the funniest moments in the series, when Tsunami, not knowing that the SeaWings have their own language, flashes her markings haphazardly at the first proper SeaWing she meets, who later reveals that Tsunami was unintentionally flirting with him. To go into specifics would ruin the whole scene. It truly has to be seen (read?) to be believed.
Book 3, The Hidden Kingdom, stars Glory the RainWing, one of my personal favorite characters, due to her being a walking hurricane of sarcasm and witty banter. Hidden Kingdom is by far the most mellow of the series, as the action scenes are few and far between. Considering that Glory's "thing" is she is the mellow, calm counterpart to Tsunami's hot-blooded "fight first, ask questions later" attitude, that may be intentional. While writing this review I was genuinely surprised by how much of a divide there is between Glory fans and Glory haters. But anyway, Glory's character development mostly revolves around her coming to terms with the negative stereotypes that her tribe, the RainWings, have faced for eons. Seriously, the harsh treatment these guys get from everybody is astounding.
If I was to critique Hidden Kingdom, the only real flaw is the pacing here is a little bit TOO mellow. It isn't until Act 3 that the story feels like it has any real urgency. But I can't get too upset at the pacing issues because Glory is one of my favorite characters. Another criticism I have of Hidden Kingdom revolves around Glory becoming queen of the RainWings, which is fine in concept, and considering the whole "RainWings don't keep track of their genealogy and as such literally any dragon can take the throne" it makes perfect sense for Glory to become queen. The execution kind of underscored that, by revealing that just like Tsunami, Glory is also of royal blood (she's the great-granddaughter of the last legit queen, rather than just some random commoner). And before anyone asks, "Wait, isn't Glory a 6-year-old kid? How can she be old enough to run a Tribe?" keep in mind that dragons in this universe age faster than humans, so even though Glory is six years old chronologically, biologically she is closer in age to a late teenager or young adult (same applies to the other four dragonets). So by dragon standards she's totally old enough for the responsibility.
Book 4, The Dark Secret is easily my favorite out of the original five novels. This book focuses on the nerdy NightWing Starflight, who goes through more character development and growth than any other character in the series (yes, even the characters from Books 6-10 don't grow as much as Starflight,). Before The Dark Secret, Starflight was a joke. No one took him seriously because of his cowardice and blindly idolizing the Nightwing tribe despite knowing next to nothing about Nightwing culture (before anyone asks how Starflight doesn't know anything about his own tribe, keep in mind the main dragonets were raised in isolation and are learning about their tribes along with the readers). This book reveals Starflight is more that just a wimpy know-it-all. He is in love with a lady dragon who doesn't return his feelings (and never will), he feels outclassed by Tsunami's strength, Glory's street-smarts, and Clay's optimism, the people he grew up idolizing turn out to be amoral monsters who manufactured a three-decade long war just to build a new kingdom, and he learns that despite what the prophecy said, Starflight is (as far as the Nightwing Tribe is concerned) completely expendable in the grand scheme of things. Basically, Starflight's life sucks. But by the end, he has grown to be braver (in his own way), wiser, and less willing to preach about "NightWing Pride" now that he has witnessed the sins of his people first-hand.
Here we are. Wings of Fire: The Brightest Night. Originally intended to be the big finale of series. But then Wings of Fire started to spread like, well, fire, and the series is still going on strong to this day. Anyway, The Brightest Night focuses on Sunny, the cheerful Sandwing as well as the heart of the dragonets. She spends the first four books serving as moral compass, encouraging the other dragonets to do good and trying her best to steer them away from evil. She even finds the way rulership of a kingdom is passed down (the current ruler and the challenger duel to the death) amoral and appalling, whereas Tsunami, Clay, Glory, and even Starflight all don't seem to think anything of it. So I was curious if Sunny, who seems to work best as a supporting character, could be made into an interesting and likable protagonist.
The answer is yes. Yes she is. Her character development is super spoiler-y, so the only thing I will say is that a plot twist back in Dark Secret was enough to shake her to the core of her being, and she spends the bulk of Brightest Night having a crisis of faith. No, not religious faith. Faith as in destiny, and more importantly, Sunny's role in a massive universe of infinite possibilities. Oh, and she also tries to prove to the other dragonets that she isn't just a naive little girl. It's actually funny, looking back on books 1-4 there are plenty of moments where Sunny tries to be helpful but is ignored by almost everybody (the lone exception being Starflight). So seeing her finally get acknowledged by everyone for her achievements rather than just being "the cutesy starry eyed girl with the big heart" is especially cathartic. Also the reveal concerning Sunny's deformities was both really simple and really surprising, and actually makes sense in the setting. But most importantly, Peril comes back, so yay!
As for the ending of this arc, while I won't spoil it, I will say it was a satisfying conclusion. The final act was action packed, but it left the door open for more adventures in this universe. Which is good, because the Wings of Fire 'verse has officially graduated into my personal Top 10 Fictional universes I want to Live in. It also foreshadows a lot of stuff for the second story arc, though some foreshadowing was more obvious than others (the dragonets casually name-dropping the protagonist of Book 6 during the epilogue was particularly on the nose). The only thing I can say negative about the ending was the way the main antagonists (Blister and Burn) were defeated was so over-the-top it felt a little comical. But then, the entire moral of the series is that inflicting wanton violence is just going to lead to a cycle of hatred and that society will never progress positively because of our obsession with revengeance, so they couldn't really have the dragonets kill the antagonists because that would make them hypocrites. And Sutherland could have gone that route easily, and when Deathbringer (Glory's love interest as well as an expert assassin) was introduced my first thought was "they're going to have Deathbringer kill the two evil SandWing leaders". But thankfully, Tui Sutherland managed to find a way to kill off both of them without breaking the moral of the story. The way they died though, was pretty out of left field.
And that was the first arc of Wings of Fire! Honestly one of the best books I've ever read, managing to capture the essence of a good character-driven story, create a distinct world that feels real and alive, characters with lovable dynamics and interactions with one another, and of course, DRAGONS. If you like DRAGONS, or fantasy in general, this arc is definitely worth a read. So I give the first story arc of Wings of Fire 9 fire-breathing death-lizards of 10. Also, talking about books for once is actually really fun and I need to do this kind of review more often.
P.S. There's also a graphic novel adaptation of the first two books, so if you're too lazy to read proper narration describing stuff you can just look at some nice artwork done by the same dude who did the promotional art for Dungeons & Dragons! Fair warning, the graphic novels are somehow MORE violent than the main books, which were already surprisingly violent to begin with, so keep that in mind.
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