Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Animox #5: Der Flug des Adlers.
Finally I am tackling the last book of arc one! Spoilers ahead!
Simon, Winter and Simon's uncle Malcolm travel to Orion's kingdom known as Hawk Mountain in hopes of stealing the two pieces of the scepter from him. However, Orion seems to be somewhat onto them, and is seemingly always two steps ahead of them. Will they be able to stop Orion before it's too late?
Solid final installment. I don't have much else to say about it, so this will be a short review. I genuinely liked reading this one and I thought it had some interesting and well-written characters (particularly Winter I really enjoyed here), Orion is a genuinely threatening villain, Hawk Mountain is a neat location for the book to take place in and we get some enjoyable new characters from the bird kingdom as well to join our team.
I do have a few minor gripes though. For one, Orion is still a pretty standard villain. I do think he's genuinely threatening and that he's at his best in this book, but he just doesn't feel that unique or deep. I'd have liked it if Carter did just a little bit more with him.
Also, I'm not sure if I like that Simon is genuinely willing to let Orion win not once but twice by giving him the pieces of the scepter when Orion threatens the life of someone he loves. Yes, I get it, it sucks that he's threatening your family, but surely the fate of the entire world is more important that one life? And Simon does this not once but twice.
I don't know, it just doesn't feel like a very smart move of him especially when Orion proves time and again to be unreliable and not keep his word to release the threatened family member. I guess these actions do make sense from Simon's POV as he already lost a few relatives and clearly doesn't want it to happen again, but I don't know. It doesn't feel very noble of our hero to be willing to let the entire world suffer under Orion's reign for the fate of one or a few people.
I will compliment the climax, though, it was was pretty intense and seeing Orion win even if just briefly was rightfully terrifying. Luckily it had a good ending.
So yeah, overall I consider this a good conclusion to the first arc. I do think that Orion had a bit more potential and Simon sometimes makes frustrating choices, but aside from that this is a solid final installment of the arc.
Rating: 4/5
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