The Wyvern's Cry

One of my most anticipated reads of the year delivered. There's something very familiar and warm about Lisa Cassidy's novels. They are nothing literary or experimental - they are Sanderson-style, plot-driven action fantasy - but with a slightly different take from the norm. Perhaps, reductively, the fresh appeal of Cassidy is reading this very traditionally male style of fantasy written by a woman and with a single-POV female voice, with great male and female characters both. But it's probably just that Cassidy can write a world and central group of friends that makes you never want to leave, and yet create stakes and anxiety on a scale that's not matched by many authors out there.

The Inkweaver Archive doesn't benefit from the more privileged upbringing of Cassidy's first two series. Those introduced a likable (ATOSAS) or easy-to-relate-to (Mage Chronicles) protagonist, and then thrust them into a story that featured instant stakes and consequences for the characters. The first two books of this series took time to develop, featured rougher, less archetypal characters and a much darker world, and had much less of a plot framework to drive them along.

Many fantasy authors struggle with when to employ timeskips because they find themselves afraid to leave out information. When Lisa Cassidy writes a timeskip, as she does at the beginning of this book, it's almost as if we get more information than if she didn't, because she's so good at showing the character development on each side. Much like the timeskip in the Mage Chronicles, which I loved, the timeskip in this one somehow makes the slow pace of the first two books make sense and consolidates a lot of the character work.

Despite my complaining about the premise of the series, the execution is among the best in the business. In The Wyvern's Cry, Lisa Cassidy has written a perfect dragon rider novel; written one of the best-executed time skips of all time; and slowly developed one of the best cadres (caidre? We'll see) of friends on the market. Where did all of this come from? This is a genuinely excellent series at this point, and even more impressive if you consider that it started with very little to offer.

There will one more book in this series, and I'm very excited to see what happens - and possibly even more to see what Cassidy can do in this form with a new idea. What will she write next?