Book Review: Waking the Fire (The Draconis Memoria #1) by Anthony Ryan
Four Stars
“Overreliance on your ingrained gifts can be deadly.”
Steampunk with dragons! What fun. Excellent world and character building. Enough double-crossing (of the reader) to keep our attention. Literary, musical, costume and historical references gives depth to various cultures. Excellent storytelling.
“… like all choices it involves consequences.”
Quibbles: The principal river of the focus continent has two outlets and seems to flow uphill. Glorifying smoking? How quaint. (Odd that this culture had not developed blood-augments flying/floating machines.)
“The great commander is nothing more than a pig fat on the blood of wasted youth.”
Even though the climax was what the reader comes to expect, it seems contrived. Too obviously a setup for the next book, rather than the logical end to this one.
“Overconfidence is frequently fatal.”
As a Matter of Fancy 
I started his Tower Lord trilogy but while I enjoyed the first book, I didn’t enjoy it enough to make the leap to the over books. I had them on my tbr, but just never “wanted” to read them.
How does this stack up to that series?
The way he ended the first book makes me disinclined to pursue the second.
Thanks. That sounds exactly like how I felt then…