REVIEW: VERMILLION FLAMES (MIDNIGHT WAR: BOOK 1)

The flames of rebellion...

I won an Audible code in a Discord giveaway. When a gap opened up in my audio lineup, this was the perfect fit to fill that time, so I decided to give this a go.  

HOW I RATED IT 

4/5 Part revolution story, part YA-style coming of age, part military drama, VERMILLION FLAMES, is an interesting mix of things that really resonated with me and things that did not. Some fascinating twists toward the end and an impeccable audio production ended up making this a much more memorable adventure than it would have been otherwise. 

CHARACTERS

The story follows two main POVs: Silas Becket, High Commander of the Pandora Fleet, and Kaya al Varden, daughter of the Duke of Mercury. Silas and his close allies within the fleet made for deeply compelling protagonists. I appreciated the subtle nuances of their interactions with one another as much as I did seeing them in action on the battlefield against the notorious, Hex, a top-ranking member of the infamous Vermillion Coalition. This conflict between the two of them was super engaging and I found the antagonistic relationship between Silas and Hex to be quite satisfying. I will say that Silas's interactions with his wife felt a little less on point though as she seems to be able to go from ornery to supportive at the flick of some internal switch without much of an external trigger. Kaya, was frankly a bit grating as well. This is especially unfortunate since it felt like the majority of the story is told from her perspective. She's young, spoiled, and a bit of an idealist with a rebellious spirit. She has her own layers of complexity to her, but I just generally found her to be a difficult hero to get behind sometimes. Members of her supporting cast were equally tough to like, though a character named Aaron grew on me in some predictable ways. There is another figure from her side of the story with a rather interesting name who wasn't so much likeable as he was intriguing. I think a lot of his true designs and motivations will be revealed in a later book, but for the purposes of this adventure, I enjoyed the intrigue he brought to the table. There's also a shady female character who I thought was kind of fun. I wouldn't say this is the most iconic cast of characters I've ever seen in sci-fi, but I think they each felt distinct from one another and all had enough going on to feel at least somewhat true to life. 

PLOT/TONE

Expectations can be a powerful thing when picking up a book and I expected this one to be sort of a military sci-fi with some elements of thriller/mystery to add intrigue. Both of those elements are present here, but a large amount of time is spent on Kaya's coming of age arc. This is largely what I would consider to be an adult piece of fiction (though it could be suitable for older teens / new adults), but there were some distinctly YA tropes in Kaya's side of things that really threw me off. There's the nerdy guy who ends up being a close companion, the handsome hunk who just "gets her," some mean authority figures, a ditsy best friend (quickly turned ex-best-friend in this case) and then a band of colorful characters who she finds something of a home with. There's even a couple of school bullies for good measure. It all just really kind of clashed with and took away from the more militaristic portions of the story for me. Now, with that said, Kaya's chapters are also where we learn the most about this world/universe, so I'm not suggesting they should have been cut, but I also don't think they fully worked for me in their current form. Thankfully, her narrative does get more interesting the deeper down the rabbit hole of conspiracies and plots she delves into as she seeks out the truth about why her mother really died. This all ends up connecting nicely with Silas's more action-focused story beats, which I appreciated. I also loved all the fun twists that are revealed toward the story's end, particularly because they were all hinted at in such a way where you're probably going to go, "OH, of course!" or "I knew it!" In either case, that's always such a rewarding feeling and such a tricky thing to pull off. I think these revelations at the end really boosted my appreciation for the events that had come before and even re-contextualized certain sections of the story. 

SETTING/WORLD

One of the most important aspects of any science fiction or fantasy novel is the world, or in this case, universe, in which it is set. Thankfully, the setting for this story is quite an interesting one. The Earth is no more and instead, humanity has settled across other planets within the solar system such as Mars and Mercury. While that may not sound like the most original setup, what kind of sets this universe apart from others is that technology is actually on the decline. Even though people move around in space ships and live on high tech planets, their societies are crumbling as their technology ages and the tools available to them become more primitive. It's a fascinating combination of medieval-style warfare and politics with space-opera style science fiction. Warriors wield plasma blades instead of laser rifles, people in poorer neighborhoods suffer from exposure to radiation, disease, and a lack of food. It's a grim and rather dire situation which seems like it is reaching a boiling point as a rebel faction known as The Vermillion Coalition threatens the powers that be. Those powers in this case seem to be largely controlled by a religious body. The religion itself isn't a one-to-one fit with one from our world, but there are lots of details that specifically point to it being a distinctly Judeo-Christian sort of situation. It's not really clear how this organization came into power in the first place which bothered me somewhat since the entire military just seems to do whatever they say. There's also a high degree of theophobia throughout the story which for me, is just such a boring and tiresome trope that is present in so much of science fiction and fantasy and always seems to be presented as though it is the most new and novel concept to grace the genre. I will say that the decisions made by certain characters toward the end of the book that were seemingly driven by their faith added a bit of nuance to the way that religion is portrayed in the book and made me second guess my perception of what the author was maybe going for. The rebel group also has it's own sort of spirituality to it, so things really aren't as simple as "religion bad, atheism good" which was kind of interesting to see and this dynamic gave almost more of a "holy war" type of vibe where different ideologies clash. 

AUDIOBOOK

My compliments to the narrator on this one. Not only was the prose expertly recited and all the character voices distinct and consistent, but the production of this audiobook really went the extra mile. There are some brilliant audio effects when it came to crowds of people shouting something in unison as well as a muffled sort of radio fuzz that's layered over character lines when they are speaking to each other through coms in their exo-suits. Maybe these aren't the most technically impressive flourishes, but I think the extra effort put into these moments made such a big difference. The attention to detail and level of care made for a listening experience that honestly elevated my enjoyment of the entire book. It wasn't too much or too little, it was just right and I'll need to keep an eye out for this narrator's other work, especially within the science fiction genre. 

CONCLUSION

This isn't a book that landed perfectly for me in some key ways, but I think the twists at the end and the lovingly crafted audio production ultimately made this an enjoyable read for me. I'm not entirely sure if I'll be continuing with the series or not, but I believe this is a fairly recent release, so I have a little time to let this one sit with me before book two arrives. If you're itching for a good science fiction book with lots of different narrative components, this might be a good pick for you. I'd recommend picking up the audio edition in particular. 

(+) An intriguing science fiction universe

(+) The more militaristic chapters with Silas and Hex were quite enjoyable

(+) Some really fun twists that made complete sense and re-contextualized portions of the story

(+) An incredible production with some really cool audio effects that elevated my experience

(-) Kaya is a somewhat grating protagonist

(-) The school segments, pseudo love triangle, and general teen angst didn't really engage me

(-) Theophobic overtones that didn't do much for me