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Onyx Storm

Review

Onyx Storm

Whether or not you like what Rebecca Yarros is doing with her Empyrean series, she is putting a lot on the page and taking more than the usual bit of care in doing so.

The base layer is the sort of neo-medieval world of kingdoms and dragons and constant, grinding war popularized (but not finished) by George R. R. Martin. Some Harry Potter is thrown in with the educational setting, and it's all delivered with page after page of earth-shaking sexual congress. That in and of itself might have earned Yarros her BookTok audience, but there is a good deal more going on here than the heroine slipping out of her dragonscale armor, followed closely by her underwear.

"[ONYX STORM] is a complex and satisfying creation, finely calculated to stoke enthusiasm for the next volume in the series."

There is a thick streak of progressive politics in ONYX STORM and its predecessors, FOURTH WING and IRON FLAME, that is obvious, even though most of it is unstated. Of course, Violet Sorrengail is (to put it mildly) sex-positive, but her fellow cadets aren’t in any way prudish either. Their varying sexual orientations are mentioned in a matter-of-fact way, without the least bit of fuss raised by anyone. Both the superhuman abilities and various disabilities of the dragon riders are accepted as a matter of course. (I do admire Yarros’ focus on assistive technology --- such as it is in her medieval fantasy kingdom --- related to innovative harnesses for dragon riders with mobility limitations.)

The political side of things comes primarily into play in ONYX STORM with the ruling regime’s refusal to allow refugees from the large country to the south to stream into the northern country of Navarre. The politics of the issue aren’t that quite on-the-nose, as the refugees are running from murderous energy vampires, but you can’t have everything.

Having started a revolution against their leadership in IRON FLAME, the disaffected cadets are largely back at school in this installment, trying to maintain the magical barriers that screen out the marauding energy vampires. (They're actually called “venin” in the books, so that's how I'll refer to them going forward.) The difficulty is that Navarre’s favorite bad boy, shadow wielder Xaden Riorson, started to turn venin at the close of the last book, so the chore of gathering all the items to rebuild and extend the magical barriers include finding some way to cure Xaden before he manifests the tell-tale red circles around his gorgeous, golden-flecked eyes.

I hope all of this is clear. If it's not, you'll never be able to understand anything that's going on here. Our plucky characters have to engage in high and low diplomacy on a tour of the unaffiliated tropical islands, stopping only to rest the dragons and engage in toe-curling sex.

No matter how much progressive politics impact the world of ONYX STORM, it is still the case (to quote Margaret Thatcher) that the facts of life are conservative. Xaden’s condition can be hidden but not effectively countered. Yarros uses the metaphor of drug addiction to highlight his physical and moral impairment. Here, the addiction is to power, which is at least as powerful as the hunger for opioids might be. Violet is committed to sticking with Xaden, no matter what, and looking for a magical cure to heal her alluring, gorgeous boyfriend --- which means that his weakness complements hers in dangerous ways. And the enemy gets a vote, too, with the relentless nature of the evil venin pushing them forward against the barriers that hold them back.

IRON FLAME ended on a clarion note, with a shocking act of betrayal countered by heroic self-sacrifice. ONYX STORM is not nearly as neat-and-clean, with a violent, climactic battle followed by a puzzling, ambiguous ending that rearranges the various plot strands into a messy heap. Yarros pits the values of the venin --- dissembling, deceit, and an overweening hunger for power, death and destruction --- in the balance against the conservative values of fellowship, valor, determination and self-sacrifice. The result is a complex and satisfying creation, finely calculated to stoke enthusiasm for the next volume in the series.

Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds on February 7, 2025

Onyx Storm
by Rebecca Yarros

  • Publication Date: January 21, 2025
  • Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Romance
  • Hardcover: 544 pages
  • Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
  • ISBN-10: 1649374186
  • ISBN-13: 9781649374189