REVIEW: ASHEN DAWN (MIDNIGHT WAR: BOOK 2)

Empires, immortals, and God...

After the author kindly offered me an Audible code for this new release, I was excited to immediately work it into my listening schedule. Even though I really appreciate receiving a free copy of this book, my gratitude does not impact the honesty of my review.

HOW I RATED IT 

4/5 Though this sequel to VERMILLION FLAMES initially seems like it will be a fairly predictable yet chaotic, space adventure, it ultimately culminates into something far more layered and engaging with elements of military space fantasy, holy wars, space opera, and rebellion.

NOTE: While I will aim to avoid spoilers for ASHEN DAWN, I will be mentioning characters and events from the prior book that could be considered spoilers for that story. 

CHARACTERS

The prior book ended with Kaya and Silas's stories converging and many of the major side characters from each perspective coming together to form one big party of rebels. Things pick up pretty much where they left off, but our main heroes quickly split apart after a chaotic opening act. This time around, we not only follow the perspectives of Silas and Kaya, but Henry and Aaron as well. This expansion in the number of main characters results in an equally expanded view of the universe and scope of the story, but more on those later. Kaya, for her part, is still an annoying character, but she also grows up a little bit over the course of her arc. I continue to dislike the heavy-handed use of the petulant teenager trope when it comes to her, but I also found some of her interactions with the side characters in her chapters to be thoroughly entertaining. We find that there are even more twists to be revealed when it comes to her family history and how it is involved in a somewhat alarming conspiracy of sorts. I found it quite fun that she is in the center of it all and yet the broader plot doesn't really revolve around her. I'm very curious to see where her character and her story go from here, especially since she disappears rather abruptly after about two thirds of the book. Silas has some extremely interesting developments unfold on his side. Through his portion of the story, it is much clearer to see what Fernandez is aiming to do in terms of how the theme of religion comes into play for this universe. There's a degree of mysticism involved with his personal journey, but I liked that a lot of it is left up to the reader's interpretation to decide how much of it is real and how much might be imagined. The more militaristic elements of his character are also expanded upon as he becomes an even more powerful leader who is pivotal to the revolution that he and his fleet have joined. His relationship with Marcus also took some interesting turns and I just continue to appreciate what a complex and layered character he is. 

Aaron end up going his own way and I think this was largely to the benefit of his character development. He's a rather nuanced individual as well, being simultaneously focused on his own agenda while still wanting to do what's right for those around him. I think this duality between balancing the one's own priorities with a desire to do right by others is something I found quite relatable in him and he had some of the strongest interactions with the other members of the cast. His relationship with Jimmy in particular was fascinating. I also appreciate that his skillset puts him squarely in the center of a lot of the action even though he's not really an accomplished fighter. Rounding out the main cast is Henry, who got a bit of a raw deal at the end of the last book. I wasn't really sure where his character was going or if I really even liked him at all in VERMILLION FLAMES, but he gets a shot at redemption in this story. The conflict between his upbringing, his duty to the chain of command, and his inherent sense for what's right made for a rather tense concoction of inner turmoil. Seeing how he dealt with one nasty situation after another had me fully hooked and I found myself quite pleased whenever one of his chapters rolled around. He gets comparatively less page time than our other main characters, but I think he might be getting set up to play an important role in things to come. 

PLOT/TONE

I think I need to call out upfront that I ended up quite enjoying the story told here even though I was really not sure about where it was going at the end of the first book. With that said, it does take a little while to see the direction that the author is taking things. For probably about the first twenty to thirty percent of the book, I felt as though this was a fairly predictable military space action romp that was roughly on par with what I'd expected the first book to be like. Things get hectic pretty fast and I honestly found things a bit hard to follow when the fleet first arrives at Luna and violence ensues. Then things sort of branch out a bit as different characters end up in different places and I realized that this is actually a rather intricately crafted space opera that is on par with something like THE EXPANSE (the TV show at least, I haven't read the books). The secrets that Kaya discovers open up a whole host of burning questions and gives some new perspective to some of the prior book's twists. The more militaristic elements remained present throughout the book as well and I found that all quite fun. I'm not sure if some of the action in the latter three quarters of the book was more clearly written than in the earlier chapters or if I just followed it better because I was more invested in the goings-on, but I found it all quite easy to visualize for the vast majority of the book past a certain point. Aaron's side of the story sheds a little more light upon the different underworld factions while Silas's brings to light some of the politics of this universe which had remained somewhat ambiguous before, save for how much power the church and its ministers hold across the galaxy. The political intrigue that's present here is fairly light, but it's all reasonably compelling and I got the sense that this aspect of the story will continue to solidify and expand as the series goes on. I for one am quite curious to see where things will go from here. I do hope though that future books will strike a better balance across the different perspective characters though. I actually quite like it when we follow one character for multiple chapters at a time, but the way things were done made the plot feel kind of like it was being told in seemingly disconnected chunks where Silas, Kaya, or Aaron had their own little book within a book while Henry almost served as an interlude character. The way that Silas, Aaron, and Henry's plot threads all tied together at the end felt rather brilliant, but it was also a little awkward that Kaya is just completely absent during the entire final act. A lot of this comes down to preference, certainly, but I think in a multi-POV storyline, having a good flow across the different main characters is key. 

SETTING/WORLD

Whereas the first book was primarily concerned with establishing how things are in this universe, ASHEN DAWN seeks to explore how they could be. We knew at the end of BOOK 1 that this is a setting that's on the verge of an upheaval. The defection of the Pandora Fleet serves as an appropriately impactful event to the landscape (or maybe spacescape) and I enjoyed how the theme of stepping away from what's established and known in search of a better way is explored for each of the main perspectives. In combination with these new ideas comes a bunch of new physical locations that the story explores as well. Luna was perhaps one of the most interesting because we get an early glimpse into the straightforward brutality of it early on, then get to see how Silas and his allies attempt to mold it into something better. The concept of change plays out in real time here which I think made it the strongest locale in terms of its thematic relevance. With that said, Earth is also explored. While that may not sound all that exciting, it is worth a reminder that Earth is supposed to be a barren and lifeless wasteland, but Kaya discovers that may not be entirely true. It was also interesting to get a different look at the military from Henry's point of view and also see the inherent tension between high ranking officers and the nobles that get privileged positions beneath them. In the end, it's clear that this is a universe with a lot more to be explored as it continues to evolve alongside these characters. I like that Fernandez doesn't dump all the answers upon us or break from the action to explain every little detail. I think there's a lot of potential here and so far these books have clocked in at a pretty manageable size, which will help this be a more approachable universe to enter into even as the number of books within the series expands. 

AUDIOBOOK

My review of the audio rendition of this book can really be summed up by simply saying, "WOW!" I was extremely impressed with the handling of the first book in the series as well, even going so far as to say that I felt that the high quality of the narration elevated the entire story being told. Somehow, this performance is even better than the first. All of the prior audio effects like what's done for dialogue delivered over an intercom and high-quality voicework are still present here, but there are some new tricks that the narrator busts out for this story as well. I also found myself impressed with how effortlessly he is able to deliver lines in a broad range of accents and convincingly perform lines for characters that are in pain, laugh-talking, or have their mouth full of food without the dialogue coming through as muddled or unnatural. Honestly it's rare to have voice acting this good even in a videogame or animated show, so to get it in an audiobook was absolutely wild to me. There are additional flourishes mixed in as well such as the use of music at certain points to add an additional layer of drama and a more cinematic feel to some of the more pivotal chapter transitions as well as at the start and end of the story. I really don't think it's possible to have an audio performance that's better than this. I think I'd have enjoyed the story just as much if I read it visually this time, but the audio edition is truly something special. 

CONCLUSION

If you enjoyed Fernandez's prior book or were even a little on the fence about it like I was, then I think you should absolutely give this sequel a shot. I found it markedly more enjoyable than its predecessor once it got going. The author is cooking up something really epic here which I think is only just beginning of what's to come. 

(+) I enjoyed the broader scope and additional perspectives.

(+) Kaya, Silas, Aaron, and Marcus all served as compelling protagonists.

(+) There are a ton of important revelations interspersed throughout the story.

(+) The theme of forging a new path against the odds was executed quite well.

(+) Light political intrigue and military drama kept things feeling exciting.

(+) The role of faith and religion in the story was far more interesting to me this time around.

(+) We get to see some intriguing new corners of this world while also seeing how the broader universe might be changing.

(+) A spectacular audio production that is essentially flawless.

(-) I think the perspectives could probably have been shuffled up in a slightly more balanced way.

(-) The first act of the plot seemed somewhat straightforward and the action was a little hard to follow.