#Shining Rags? Shining Talon of Vengeance Drawn in Westward Rags?

[chaotic-tired-bastard]

This is how that scene went, right?

Bonus Panel:

[tometalk]

Read 1/8-1/9

Three Stars

Writing a review for this book is going to be incredibly hard. On the one hand, there is so much I absolutely loved about this book. There are some amazing characters, unique mechanical creatures, and intriguing magic. On the other hand, it took nearly 200 pages for a female character to show up on the page for more than a quick paragraph. This is definitely not written as a standalone though it seems like it sold that way and the authors are not under contract to write more, even if it seems they wish to. The ending of this is very much the ending of any first book in a series. The main crew has come together, some feelings are confessed towards the end, and the major evil is still out there lurking. It's not even that it's an open-ended book, there are too many loose threads still hanging and questions unanswered for me to be satisfied. Now if this were being marketed as the first in a series that would be something entirely different.

Though the book is told from multiple points of view I would call Rags, the thief, the main character of the novel. I hesitated on this judgment because <spoiler>Rags is not as the title suggests, the master of One but Cabhan really doesn't feel like the main character.</spoiler> I didn't do any math but it felt like Rags had the most point of view chapters and also I just like him best so maybe my judgment is a little skewed. Rags spent his life on the streets and learned how to be a thief to survive. He's spent years honing his craft and now can confidently say he's one of the best thieves in the city. Everything's going great until he walks into a sorcerer's trap and is forced to choose between death and a dangerous quest in search of fae relics. Rags is street smart but a little short-tempered and often lets his mouth get him in trouble. The rest of the cast was great as well. There's Cabhan an ex-Queensguard who ran from his duty and is now in hiding. Inis, a disgraced Noble now living in exile sustaining herself on her anger. Somhairle, the youngest Prince, hidden away by the Queen because of his poor health and birth defects. Einan, a trans actress who's POV chapter has one of my most favorite lines in the book, "For a time, Cathair Remington thought he had a son who'd inherit his name--and the centuries-old family trade of barrel making. Until, shortly after her tenth birthday, Einan told him different. She was no son but his daughter. This he could understand and accept. What he couldn't bear was that she loved the theater and not barrels." There's also, of course, our fae prince himself, Shining Talon of Vengeance Drawn in Westward Strike or Shining Talon for something slightly shorter. I could go on for ages how interested I am in this race of fae Jones and Bennett have created. They have black bones (!) and get heavily decorated in tattoos (this isn't super discussed but it seems to be based on their vocation, warriors get bones, enchanters get stars, and so on). They also seem to have the usual sort of nature connection you find with most fae is stories. Most importantly when trying to make peace with the humans they created an ultimate weapon known as the Great Paragon.

The Great Paragon is an item split into six fragments that have a connection with five humans reborn each generation with the sixth for Shining Talon himself. Rags quest becomes finding the humans and awakening the fragments once he realizes finding Shining Talon was just step one. I don't want to get too spoilery so I'll only talk a little about the fragments but they are so cool! Fae silver masquerading as ordinary objects they come together into great mechanical creatures once their human has been found and recognized as the next master. I also found the sorcerer's magic extraordinarily interesting and I wish we'd gotten to learn more about mirror magic. This really deserves to be turned into a full series because it's such an interesting world. It just wasn't possible to fit everything the authors wanted to do into one book.