2026-03-14

Wings of Fire!

I thought I heard that book 15 was the last book. Apparently either I was wrong or the author wanted to cash back in on this series. But regardless, Wings of Fire is getting book 16!

To get ready for that, I've decided to reread all the previous 15 books. Three arcs, 5 each. Because oh let me tell you, these books are peak. And I'm reviewing them. Every single one. Including Legends and Winglets. Because every single one deserves them.

Spoilers ahead. I will not black anything out. Damn it's like, really hard to talk about books and stuff without spoiling content you know? But reviews with no spoilers are for people who haven't read these books and you want to introduce it to them. Which is not the purpose of this blog post.^[1]

Each of the three arcs contain 5 books that revolve around a prophecy. Each of the 5 books feature a different protagonist, and is solely told from their point of view save for the prologue and epilogue. It also features a guide to the different dragon tribes in the beginning. This looks a lot like the Warrior Cats allegiances thing, but it actually serves some really great plot purposes, especially in the first arc.

1. The Dragonet Prophecy (Clay)

I bought this book alone to see if I would like it. I read this, and immediately bought all of the rest (well, up to book 11 because the rest weren't published yet).

This book does a spectacular job of introducing the readers to the world. Because if you think about it more carefully, there is no reason that the dragonets believe what they believe in. If they're all literally raised under a rock, why would they even assume that they have parents and families? Sure, the guardians all came from tribes where families are a thing. But I can't see them teaching the dragonets that. They might as well tell them that their eggs just magically popped up in the world, waiting for the Talons of Peace to find them and hatch them. And for many of the dragon thing, like the MudWing sibling groups, normal dragons should be aware of it since birth. Because even for MudWings who hatched normally and not in a cave, who is going to teach the them that they're supposed to stick together and call each other their sibs?

Well! That's because the author needs to give the dragonets a human worldview. They share a worldview with the readers. That's why the dragonets assume they have families and parents, because we humans do and the human readers know that. That's why they don't know anything about dragon society. Anything that they know and we don't is given to us at the beginning — the NightWing's Guide to the Dragons of Pyrrhia, and the Pyrrhia map. We are exploring the dragon world with the dragonets. And that is what makes the introduction of the dragon world work so smoothly, and the reveals so well. We, as readers, start out knowing just as much as the dragonets. The little stretch in giving the dragonets human worldviews that they shouldn't have is worthwhile to make the introduction of this world so smooth.

Also, for the scavengers featured in Scarlet's palace… when I read Dragonslayer for the first time I thought the author was just really good at weaving stories together. But now, reading The Dragonet Prophecy again, the actions described were all too insanely detailed that I'm certain that the author had the scavengers' story in Scarlet's palace all planned out when writing this book. But there are 8 years between the publishing of these two books… she really just hold her breath for that long??

The setup for this book is also great. You make a premise, five dragonets ending the war. That is a story of what we're expecting. And you immediately break that by first having the SkyWing egg destroyed and replaced by a RainWing, and then it was broken again as the dragonets escape prematurely after the inciting incident. The story, then, rather than about the dragonets stopping the war like prophesized, has additional stakes of how they are gonna do that despite the odds.

Clay's personal arc is great. One good thing about all these books is that they always manage to develop characters alongside the plot. Characters actually drive the plot here, but there are still a significant amount of external events that they react to. It's like the perfect blend of character-driven and plot-driven. Clay goes through a general arc of thinking he needs to be violent and find the monster inside him that drove him to attack the other eggs at hatching. But in the end we learn from the MudWings that it was a normal thing for MudWings to do — Clay was helping his hatching get out. And the book ends on him learning to be kind — or rather embracing the kind side of him after being told for his whole life that he's a violent monster — in a world full of violence.

I loved the scene where he played the tune of The Dragonets Are Coming and all the prisoners sang with them. That was great.

2. The Lost Heir (Tsunami)

Tsunami was a bit of an ass in this book, but because that's what her character development is going against, and also can you blame her? In this book we see her going into the SeaWing Kingdom obsessed with her status as a princess and having dreams of queenhood. She grew from viewing her little sister as a competitor to viewing her as a friend, and even going to protect the egg — another future competitor, because at that point she had already abandoned the idea of becoming the queen, after seeing the shitfuckery of the Council and how royalty act or is supposed to act, and realizing she belongs with her friends and not the SeaWing Kingdom.

Also, I love how they showed the consequences of the dragonets' actions in Scarlet's arena. Even though they're forced to compete, they did still kill dragons, and that thing was not just tossed away in future books. Like in this one… well if you read it you would know what I'm talking about, but a spoiler just in case: Tsunami killed her own father. But still, it had not been brought up later. It could've been more impactful on Tsunami as a whole is all I'm saying.

Whirlpool and Moray's ass-kissing is pretty funny though, if only reality weren't more exaggerated than fiction. But Moray my dear do they not have janitors in the palaces? Why are you stealing their jobs?

Also, not to dick-ride Whirlpool, but his teaching method legit works better than Riptide's. It's really hard to learn a language with Riptide's Duolingo-style teaching; it takes a ton of time and dedication. But Whirlpool immerses Tsunami in the language by reading her the entire book (Coral's writing may not be the best in the world but she must have great editors). The best option is to stick Tsunami in the Deep Palace and not allow her to surface. In a couple years, she'd be speaking Aquatic like a native. But well evidently she doesn't have time for that, but maybe one day she will.

Speaking of Aquatic, why didn't Webs teach her that? Surely she cannot communicate with other dragons under the cave since there are none, and another language is a handy tool to have, especially as it's essential for underwater communication. This is one of the minor plot points sacrificed for the plot, but honestly I'm fine with that. And maybe a lot of people who speaks English better than their family's language can relate a lot.

3. The Hidden Kingdom (Glory)

Really good. Great.

I've seen some people complain how Glory becoming the queen of the RainWings is too Mary-Sue-y or whatever,^[2] but I don't think that's the case at all. Quite the opposite, in fact; Glory's queenhood isn't just natural progression; it's also everything the book and her arc thus far was building towards.

You see, Glory grew up being told RainWings are lazy and useless and good-for-nothing. When they went to the rainforest, she was eager in meeting them, hoping that they would not be everything she was told — only to find that they were kind of true. The RainWings were indeed so lazy they don't even notice their villagers going missing.^[3] This gave Glory a lot of conflict over her feelings towards her tribe. She wants to be proud of them, as evident in her getting her hopes up every time a RainWing displays a positive trait. She needs to, because they are her tribe and her dragons, and if she cannot be proud of them then no one can. But how could she, when they act like this?

This is why she challenged Magnificent to be queen. If the ones in power isn't willing to do anything, the only way she can enact change is to take the power. Glory challenging Magnificent for the throne is easily one of the best scenes in this arc, as well as the highlight of Glory's arc.

Glory being related to Grandeur, though, was definitely a deux ex machina and it even washes down the weight of her crown, because she doesn't need royal heritage for her rule to be legitimate, and making her royalty erases that message. But the same message is presented in Oasis and Thorn so fine I guess. Also, I don't like how the book frames Grandeur as some nice, upright queen or whatever, even if it's just for a little, because like you're the one who started this rotating queen mess ma'am! Stop blaming it all on your daughters!

Also Scarlet's arena is still haunting them in the scene where Glory disguised herself as an IceWing.

4. The Dark Secret (Starflight)

Had I ever mentioned that the POV arrangement is perfect for each character to get their own spotlight while at the same time progressing the main overarching plot? One of my favorite things about this series is how the character development ties into the main plot and both progress and develop each other. Or maybe I just read too many horrible books (and shows (looking at you Hazbin Hotel)) where the characters act completely stupid and out-of-character in service of the plot. But anyways now we get on the NightWing island with Starflight.

Though we do get a lot of crucial main plot info from this book, I don't think the character development was that good. Starflight spends half the book whining over Sunny, which is horrible enough on its own without whatever the fuck is going on with him and Fatespeaker. The "highlight" for him would probably only be near the end where he made a decision to let Glory go back while he went on gathering the NightWings.

The peak here was how queen Battlewinner died crouching in front of Glory, as if she was bowing to her. That was easily the peakest moment in the arc. Glory becoming queen of the NightWings is also some really warranted plot point, regardless of how "overpowered" Glory might seem, especially since she just became the RainWing queen last book. It's more about the NightWings, how they always reinforced their image of superiority to both other tribes and themselves, now being forced to bow to a dragon they considered inferior to them in every way. And I'm not sugarcoating Glory just because I like her; I don't even like her that much (Sunny > Clay > Glory > Tsunami > Starflight since no one asked), but her path to power is paved so naturally and meaningfully that you can all but root for her.

This book is also the most we get out of the alternate dragonets. And well, I do have a problem here. Why were they horrible to each other while the real dragonets were super good friends? What made them different? Was it just because Clay was a bigwings? I don't think that's enough of a reason, plus we don't know if Ochre was a bigwings or not. I know the alternates were pretty much just foils but they're a little too one-dimensional. If they just hate each other for no reason, then the real dragonets love each other for no reason as well.

Also, I think at one point either Starflight or Fatespeaker was saying how despite having horrible living conditions, the NightWings chose to be cruel to the RainWings they kidnapped and stuff like that so they don't feel that bad for them. I think for a middle grade book this is a good message to send out to the actual target audience teaching them to be kind, but eventually they would have to grow out of this mindset because although the individual does make a choice to either be kind and welcoming or be evil and xenophobic, they don't make choices in a vacuum. Their choices are always influenced by material and societal conditions. Putting all responsibility on the individual lifts attention away from the material conditions that produce such individuals and reward such behavior.

The NightWings' lived under conditions that rewarded cruelty and violence over cooperation with other tribes. Centuries of isolation solidified their image of their own supremacy and their lack of knowledge about other tribes, as well as the perceived inferiority of RainWings, which is then further reinforced by education where the ideology cannot be challenged by NightWing dragonets alone. The last volcano eruption was the immediate trigger of their desperation of a new home, and this, compounded with the aforementioned supremacy ideology, gave them the notion that they have to obtain this new land by force. Their lack of knowledge about RainWings and the aversion to communicating and collaborating with them (that would undermine their supremacy ideology) led to the unethical experimentation. NightWing society produces dragons like Morrowseer and Mastermind. If you went back in time and convinced Mastermind to realize the kindness in his heart and don't do the experiments, someone else would just take up his slack. Instead of putting it up to the individual NightWing to realize torturing RainWings is a bad thing (which, should it take place in the real world, Mastermind would definitely know he's doing wrong things and not "for science" but rather for a new home), the solution is to instead solve the root issue and make a NightWing society that doesn't require any Morrowseers or Masterminds to function. Leave the volcanic island, give them a home on the mainland, which can help facilitate reintegration into mainland society to help dismantle the supremacy ideology; appropriate judicial actions against the direct perpetrators of the torturing; and most importantly power redistribution. That is exactly what they ended up doing, with Glory as the queen of both tribes in the rainforest and sticking Mastermind in quicksand. But putting all that messaging in a middle grade book for children is too much of an expectation, and I'm content with the book telling kids to be a nice person, though thank fuck the rainforest has enough resources for both village-sized tribes (material condition affecting them again, this time positively). This shit would not have happened in real life.

Although, there's more problems with the NightWings. How have they been reinforcing their image of superiority to the other tribes in all the years they've been gone? There's no reason to believe they are powerful when you probably don't get to see one your entire life and they don't influence your tribe in any meaningful way. There isn't even any reason to believe the prophecy in the first place, but I guess dragons get desperate. Also how was the prophecy even communicated to the rest of Pyrrhia? The later two were both spoken by Moonwatcher and was heard by everyone around her. But here, you'd think most queens have a vested interest in not letting the general public know. But well, in messy wartime, stuff spread.

Also, maybe I'm really just aroace, but every single instance of romance in this series is downright horrible. Clay and Peril was just Peril being a yandere; Tsunami and Riptide was just because everyone else was so wacko that Riptide seemed like the most reasonable option; Glory and Deathbringer was… was some sort of love-on-first-sight-on-the-opposite-ends-of-the-battlefield or some shit;^[4] Starflight and Sunny was also just stupid stupid; and I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Fatespeaker. Also the first three are all adult-child in this arc. I won't comment further because well, if other people liked them then other people were probably more normal than I am. (I'm not done though! There is more romance in future books to shit on!)

5. The Brightest Night (Sunny)

I didn't like this book nearly as much, especially since the first bit was quite boring. And it feels like the author is being tug-of-war'ed between having Sunny do extraordinary things to advance the plot and having her stay in character. But I loved Sunny as a character so okay.

Maybe some would argue that some random SandWing that just appeared in the last book becoming queen is too much of a stretch, just as how Glory becoming the queen of both RainWings and NightWings is a stretch. But well, even if Thorn only appeared in the last book, she appeared quite early into the book itself. Also, starting from the moment we met Blaze in book 3 (or from the very very start if you Know Your Tropes) it is extremely obvious that none of the three princesses would be queen. So who else, if not the one SandWing who has proven herself to be a good leader before we even saw her face?

Anyways, solid conclusion of an amazing arc, and Clay saved everyone again.

I was going to do a ranking but I found that too hard. There are things I loved and disliked in every one. But I think The Dragonet Prophecy had the least disliked elements, and it was the one that made me purchase the rest after all.

Legend 2: Dragonslayer

I put this here because it's related to the first arc despite being the second Legend. It's about the humans who killed Queen Oasis. And boy do I have problems with it.

This was published in 2020, after book 13 and before 14, and you can clearly see the style difference when coming straight from book 5, published in 2014. First of all, why is there so much capitalization? I get it, Wren is screamy and loud, but you were capable of writing Tsunami without this much capitalization. I would say that the author is capable of portraying screamy and loud dialog without overusing capitalization; the current dialog is loud enough if the capitals were switched to italics or just simply normal lowercases. But she insisted on using a ton of them anyways.

If I'm quite honest, it was a little boring. Or maybe I'm just burnt out from bingeing the first five, but this book hadn't managed to hook my attention as much. The characters feel uninteresting, and the human settlements are also just kinda weird.

So Talisman is some sort of theocratic dictatorship of the dragonmancers… I can stand that, but if their apprentices keep dying, then why do people still think a dragonmancer apprentice is an honorable job? You know, when most of them die, you'd think people would stop sending their kids over. Does your kid becoming an apprentice even get you on any good standing with the dragonmancers? I have to assume so, otherwise the people would appear way too stupid.

And Heath is somehow the lord of Valor? The guy who led a bunch of dragons home and got it burned down? You'd think they'd have grabbed the tail barb and stabbed him with it! In no way would a normal-ass person think Heath is a hero. I know the reasoning is that as someone who killed a dragon (at least they think he did), he is strong and powerful, and also he has treasure; but y'know the association is always because killing a dragon protects your home from them. They did the exact opposite of that. He doesn't even spend the treasure. I don't think power is a treasure leaderboard and people automatically respect you if you have a stash of it, you know. Honestly I think the crime started when none of the three burglars died in the encounter with Queen Oasis.

In addition, what is the general perception of treasure smugglers in this world? Why is Heath regarded as a super rich hero with his stolen treasure, but the dragonmancers smuggling treasure is supposed to make us think badly of them?

The characters… Wren, dear, I know you're mad at your village and you're right to do so, but in a world where dragons eat humans, I don't think siding with dragons is the best choice. You literally only really met one dragon, a lone dragonet without a mother; that's not enough for you to decide that dragons are just better than humans! Where's the Glory energy? Would Glory have sided with the NightWings because she was mad at the RainWings and also she grew up with Starflight?

And speaking of, how did Sky even know how to speak Dragon? He grew up alongside Wren!

Leaf was quite stupid but I'm more interested in Rowan. If she could train Leaf into such a strong warrior… where did she learn her fighting from? Just from practicing with her friends and figuring shit out?

Violet and Daffodil's bickering is boring to sludge through. Their arguments don't even have any meaning behind them like the prophecy dragonets'; it's just them going "nuh-uh" and "yeah-huh" back and forth constantly.

The really good thing about this book though, was how it all lined up with the dragons' arc. The scavenger Scarlet ate when Clay and Tsunami first encountered her was Mushroom. The ones Tsunami and Starflight fought were Rowan, Raspberry, and the two other guys there. The scavenger Clay helped up the cliff was Leaf. (The chapter ending there was annoying though, since we already know Clay was merely helping the scavenger. Same with the chapter ending when Stonemover told Sunny the prophecy wasn't real, because we already know that. It would've way better ended when he told her NightWings don't have powers anymore, because we don't technically know that at that point.^[5]) And we get the scavengers' perspective from the encounter with Sunny.

I think ultimately my biggest gripe is… the author should not have involved humans. Just keep them as scavengers; the dragon world is good enough. This also comes up double-fold in the third arc. The message the author gives out is how humans and dragons should understand and communicate with each other, rather than hating and wanting to kill each other, yet ironically the book ends on Sky terrorizing not one, not three, but two human settlements. I see, so the way to facilitate connection between humans and dragons is to prove the humans right that dragons are dangerous and scary.

This is just the "these two groups of creatures (one group genocided the other group by the way) just need to understand each other more" flavor of fantasy racism, because last time I checked humans weren't biting dragons' heads off. Or maybe from the dragons' perspective it's an advocacy for vegetarianism, which I don't like either because I don't like vegetarianism. But from the humans' perspective, no excuses. Don't make friends with giant dragons who literally eat you. Ultimately the main purpose of this book was to pave the grounds for Wren and Sky's appearance in Arc 3, where they should not have appeared at all. The only thing enjoyable about it was seeing the same scenes we saw in Arc 1 play out in the humans' perspective.