The Desert Talon (The Crowns of Ishia, #2) by Karin Lowachee Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: dragons, epic fantasy, fantasy
Series: Crowns of Ishia #2
Pages: 124
Published by Solaris on February 11, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
The exciting sequel to the gunslinging, dragon-riding world of The Mountain Crown
Sephihalé ele Janan sits in a prison cell in the southern island of Mazemoor, dreaming of escape. After months in a provisional prison for fighting for the imperial Kattakans, Janan is sponsored by another refugee who was once a part of his scattered family. Yearning to build a life on his sister’s land with the dragons their people revere, the peace Janan seeks is threatened by a ruthless dragon baron who covets both Janan’s connection to the earth and the battle dragon to which he is covenanted.
The conflict may drive Janan to acts of violence he hoped to leave behind in the war, and bring more death to the land Janan now calls home.
THE DESERT TALON is a story of two groups of people who, despite a common ancestry, have diverged so far in their beliefs that there appears to be little mutual ground—and the conflict may well start to unravel the burgeoning hopes of a country, and a man, still recovering from the ravages of war.
My Review:
I picked this up because I enjoyed the first book in the Crowns of Ishia novella trilogy, The Mountain Crown. Which is not, at all, about the sort of crown that one wears on one’s head. In this case, ‘crown’ is the collective noun for a group of suon, who are what we would call dragons.
What the enemies of the land where the suon thrive call them as well. Because dragons are animals, but suon are people – for large and winged and deadly definitions of ‘people’. And the Ba’Suon, the people who live in harmony with the dragons, fully acknowledge that fact.
Their enemies, conquerors and exploiters do not. Because it doesn’t suit their narrative of events. And conquest. And exploitation.
In the first novella in this trilogy, Meka received diplomatic immunity to come to the heart of their enemy to ‘gather’, meaning bond with, one and only one suon. Of course, their enemies have other plans, which enmesh Meka with others of her people, Raka and Lilley and by extension Janan, all currently imprisoned or enslaved along with Janan’s suon Tourmaline. But Janan is imprisoned elsewhere and Raka seems destined for the ‘dark side’.
This second book takes place partly simultaneously and partly in the wake of the events at the end of The Mountain Crown. This is Janan’s half of the story, imprisoned in a neighboring country because he deserted. He does not know the fate of his partner and lover, Lilley, all he knows is that he left Lilley in grave danger.
That first story was more than a bit of a tease, in that it clearly started in the midst of the long-running feud/war/conquest between the Ba’Suon lands and their enemies. I left that first book wanting more and now I have it. And I still want more, because this middle story asks as many questions as it answers.
But I was absolutely glad to continue down this path with Janan and his suon Tourmaline, in spite of the danger, heartbreak and tragedy he faces along the way.
Escape Rating B: That first book was very much an ‘in medias res’ story in that it started in the middle, both of Janan’s and Lilley’s stories and in the middle of the long running conflict/conquest of their land by the enemies that surround them. The Desert Talon is even more so, as its still in the middle of that mess plus we’re now in the midst of Janan’s story as well.
But in the hours after I turned the last page on The Desert Talon, I realized that this book, in addition to being part of ITS series, was also in dialogue with my two previous books this very week, The River Has Roots and One Message Remains. Because all three stories are wrapped around the axle of war and conquest, especially around the greed and concupiscence that fuel those desires and disrupt the natural forces and powers of the world in terrible ways with horrifying long term consequences.
In The River Has Roots the overarching conflict wrapped itself around the endless debate between science and logic on the one hand, and nature and magic on the other, embodied, literally in Esther’s choice to marry the fae Rin instead of the greedy human villain Pollard. He dismissed magic as a force but it was magic, in the end, that brought him down.
The overall theme of One Message Remains is about the blind logic of conquest that begins with presuming that everyone is your lesser and they have nothing to teach you. That in the end the land has power of its own and it is greater than yours – at least for now.
In The Desert Talon the desire to capture and subject the dragons, the suon, out of greed for both money and power results in a loss of life and agency so frightening that even the conqueror’s own people are terrified. Some gifts really do come at just too high a price.
But in all of these cases, while the current conflict resolves on the side of conservation and preservation, the terrible handwriting is clearly on the wall. And that’s the saddest part of all three books.
Howsomever, Janan’s and Lilley’s adventures with their suons has one more chapter to be revealed in A Covenant of Ice, arriving just as ironically at the height of summer as this story set in the heat of the desert came out in the depths of winter.
The Mountain Crown (The Crowns of Ishia, #1) by 
In the end, what brought the story together was the way that it reflected on colonialism and empire, shone a light on cultures whose fundamental principles are greed and acquisition and then explored the possibilities of another way – a way of stewardship and community.