Ever read a series that you really loved, but feel like you can’t recommend it without an essay? A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons both deserves and requires this essay (and I’m using the term essay in the very loosest of ways – it’s going to be fun, I promise). So rarely has a series gripped me so hard after almost losing me. Here’s some reasons to give it a chance:

It’s a Twisted Family Saga

Straight from the offset, we get some complex family dynamics, made even more so by body-swapping, immortals, reincarnation and literal gods and god-queens walking the earth and making mortal babies. One god puts the soul of an immortal’s sworn enemy into the body of a child that the god and the immortal made together (the usual way). Talk about awkward family gatherings. And that only begins to scratch the surface.

But It’s Also About Found Family

As the series progresses, a core cast of misfits emerges, as does a major theme – that together they can help heal each other, and find people just as messed up as they are, trying to do their best in a less than kind world. When they try to go off on their own, things always get worse, but together, they might just stave off the apocalypse. While the protagonist, Kihrin is sometimes a bit of a weak link, the way his relationships build with the surrounding cast is excellent, and this multi-POV story gives pretty much every major side character their due.

Oh Yeah, It’s Really an Epic Fantasy Though

A Chorus of Dragons is epic in many senses of the word. While there aren’t dozens of big military battle scenes, when things get big, they get really big. The world is slowly being destroyed, demons assault the populace whenever they can get an opening, the sun is dying and an all powerful threat is going to wake up soon and wipe out everything. The person most likely to fix everything is a raging narcissistic genius with a chip on his shoulder, willing to make the people of the world pay any cost so long as he comes out on top at the end, and there’s a ruthlessly evil demon manipulating events for their own means too.

Add to that eight insane dragons, incredibly powerful magical items called cornerstones (one of which can answer almost any question) giant murderous octopi, an undead necromancer, numerous god-queens and god-kings, rituals that affect entire species, and a history spaning thousands of years and more than one universe. Yeah, it does feel like a lot, but everything slots into the setting and the story incredibly well.

It’s Super Gay Too

A pretty wide swath of the LGBTQ+ spectrum is captured in the main POV cast alone, and if not by a POV, then by someone close to one or more of them. There are species in the world that can choose to transition at any time, and humans in the know can perform a ritual to the goddess of nature to transition as well. Some characters are out and proud, while others take time to come to a realisation about their sexuality. There’s a poly love triangle, a sweet ace couple, to name only two of the less commonly represented situations that get a good showing in this series.

And don’t get me started on how gender works in Jorat – the main setting of the second book. I loved seeing this rep and different takes on gender and sexuality in an action packed epic fantasy.

Now The Caveats

So. If you’ve read, or tried to read, The Ruin of Kings (book 1 in this series)  you might be reading all this with some bafflement. And I understand. The Ruin of Kings is slow and has a weird narrative structure that splits up Kihrin’s entry into the story into two alternating timelines. Along with that there’s a lot of mystery up front, a protagonist that gets dragged along by events beyond his knowledge, and it’s mostly set in a somewhat generic (and outwardly misogynistic/homophobic) region of the world. The last quarter, however, really does explode things outwards with revelation upon twist upon revelation, paying off the observant reader quite a bit. And that part of book 1 is much more indicative of the rest of the series. Things rarely calm down much after that.

Book 2, The Name of All Things, is strange in that it does reel back the narrative to the same point in time as the start of The Ruin of Kings, introducing a new cast of characters, but this time with a much more compelling arc, in a much cooler location (the aforementioned Jorat) made especially better now that there’s more background. Some characters even weave back and forth between the plots of the first two books. By the time we get to book 3, The Memory of Souls, the stage is set for an intense, heartfelt and exciting high magic epic.

A Final Note

In A Chorus of Dragons, Lyons plays heavily with the narrative structure in a way that you don’t see very often. In the first book, I was sceptical, but by the end of the second I was sold on it. Each book has at least two narrative layers, often with alternating narratives and timelines, always with footnotes (for context, flavour, and occasionally, snark) Each book mixes things up in different ways, depending on the needs of the story.

This narrative style may be off-putting to those who prefer something more linear, but honestly overall I loved it, especially in the fourth book, which does something really cool with flashbacks.

Conclusion

I hate to be that person. The person that tells you to read through a more laborious first book to get to the good stuff. But the good stuff is really good. 

It’s an epic fantasy for the modern generation. Full to the brim of magic, dragons and epic fights, but also complex characters with diverse identities. It’s got twists galore, mysteries and plots to unpeel, and one heck of an ending. One of the books has a setup so bold and unique that not only could only be in an epic fantasy series, but could only be in this epic fantasy series (even if I could explain it succinctly, it would be a colossal spoiler). 

I think audacity defines this series for me, the audacity to build something both epic and personal, with twists that build upon twists, complex family dynamics and character relationships that need several diagrams to explain, and a narrative structure that refuses to take the easy path.

The most audacious thing about it all? In the end, it all just works.