Almost done with arc one! Let's dive right in. Spoilers ahead.
Now cast out and hunted by the dogs of Solum, Step must find a way to restore his position as alpha. He meets up with an unlikely team of allies who aid him in this quest. However, thing are not always what they seem, particularly surrounding a certain individual known as Guardian.
Another great installment in this great series. I like pretty much everything about it.
Starting with the plot and characters. I like how at this point in the story Step really has pretty much lost it all. His family, his friends, his alpha position, his entire pack. And it has so much impact on his character. In the last book he already did some morally questionable things, but here he really goes down the deep end (though he's still not as bad as Duke, luckily) in order to get what he wants sometimes. Heck, he even ends up killing a Spirit just because of his pure frustration of their lack of interfering with the mortal realm. I just think it's great to Step develop like this. He was a good protagonist in the first three books, but also a bit standard as far as hero characters go. Which makes me all the more glad to see that he does gain some flaws in later books.
It would've been so easy for the first trilogy to have ended in a similar fashion to the first Warriors arc, for example. The Big Bad (Duke/Scourge and Tigerclaw) is defeated by our main hero and he inherits the leadership position of his respective pack/Clan, being a legendary leader remembered for generations to come. This would've been a much more victorious ending for Step, but I instead love how things don't go as you'd think. Step first has to fight for the position of alpha with Jack/Dew and it's not handed to him on a silver platter, and later due to circumstances loses not only his rank but also his entire pack. Heck, he's even been demonized and is widely hated by most of them by now. So that's just a very fresh breath of air compared to how I thought things would go in books five and onward.
Now, for the other characters: they're pretty damn good, too. My favorite? Well, since Flare/Prophet and Salvo are (nearly) absent in this book, it'd have to be Delta, whom, yes, is alive and well, having lost a leg in her conflict with the Icesnatcher but ultimately pulling through. I don't know why, but I just really liked how she went from a major villain/antagonist in the first three books to a neutral and at times even helpful force to Step. She's kind of like the grumpy aunt-type to him at this point in the story and I'm here for it.
Misty also returns with a pretty major role, which I'm glad to see as I quite like her, plus her dynamic with the other renegade dogs helping Step. As for Ruth, the last member of their little squad... I still don't vibe with her. The book tries to paint her as sympathetic and I do kind of see why, she was in an abusive relationship with Duke after all, but I kind of get the impression that the only reason she's trying to help Step is because he's Duke's brother and loosely resembles him. I just don't connect to her character personally, not saying she's a bad one. Just not a fan of her.
Other characters such as Hope, Jack/Dew and Asher return, but their roles are very minor so I don't have that much to say about them. Though Jack/Dew proclaiming to be a Spirit and tormenting Marsh with visions of his worst nightmares was pretty insane and interesting.
As for the main villain, Guardian/Hawk. Not sure how I feel about him yet. He's definitely an interesting concept, but I don't have that much to say about him yet. He's pretty cool (so far), but doesn't hold a candle to Duke's villainy of the first three books. At least not yet.
What other elements are there to talk about? For one, the Spirits, or lack thereof. Both Guardian and Dew claim to have some sort of connection with them, but whether their power actually comes from them or is something different remains to be seen. There's only two Spirits that physically appear in this book, this being the deer-Spirit of Earth (whom Step fucks up and murders) and, interestingly, it turns out that the Spirit of Air, Step's father, took on a greathawk form in this book, being Delta's most loyal bird. I also think it is quite intriguing that Spirits can actually die. They're not immortal like their name might make one suspect.
The epilogue was also pretty cool, with a brief appearance of the dog, the myth, the legend Salvo and Guardian taking over the Tenebrum territory in search of the Heart. For those who don't remember/haven't read Ruins of Greatness, it's a particularly powerful doohickey that grants one pretty much power beyond imagining. And since Guardian is already pretty damn powerful this can only go so well.
Just a great book. It does still have some of the POV-switching I mentioned in my review of book four, but it was less prevalent. Can't wait for the conclusion of arc one!
Rating: 4.5/5
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