The end times have come.
Relos Var's final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there's only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath.
As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the "pawn" category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he'd become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.
Kihrin's goals are complicated by the fact that not all of his "act" is one. His intentions may be sincere, but he's still being forced to grapple with the aftereffects of the corrupted magic ritual that twisted both him and the dragons. Worse, he's now tied to a body that is the literal avatar of a star - a form that is becoming increasingly, catastrophically unstable. All of which means he's running out of time.
After all, some stars fade - but others explode.
Title : The Discord of Gods
Author : Jenn Lyons
Series : A Chorus of Dragons (book five)
Format : eBook (overdrive)
Page Count : 512
Genre : fantasy
Publisher : Tor Books
Release Date : April 26, 2022
Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★ ★
Hollis' 2.75 (rounded up) star review
Finally. We have a straight-forward bit of storytelling. I'm not saying we don't jump around a bit, with some overlapping bits from different POVs, but it wasn't like what came before. And thank goodness for that.
Having said that, I knew the stakes wouldn't feel very high because they've never felt very high. And even though we finally introduced a way to keep from everyone coming back to life, forever and ever, we still had enough of it. And as a result of that new caveat, I knew we wouldn't lose a lot of characters. And we didn't. In fact I think we came out ontop in a way.
In that sense though I'll admit that everyone who has annoyed me the most.. annoyed me a little less. Maybe because we had less time (this is the shortest book of the series) for the story itself but we also had a tighter focus and a bigger ticking clock in a sense (though we still had time for repeated rehashing as certain players had to get caught up on things) as things were finally coming to a head.
And yes, the confrontation was finally here. How did that measure up? Welllll. I'll admit I solved the final "aha!" conflict well before the reveal but there was something to do with the remaining immortals I didn't see coming. And, of course, the whole truth behind the demons had interesting and horrible implications. But like so many of these big epic series, the final showdowns never really feel as big because they've been built up so long, that when it finally happens.. it's just a shrug.
I'm not mad I pushed on in this world despite the ups and downs (mostly downs? I think? maybe it's an even split) but I really feel this was just too convoluted for it's own good. Tried to be so many things, do so many things, chronicle so much history and drama, and it just got so tedious and, weirdly, lowkey overwrought sometimes. But that doesn't seem to be an opinion anyone else really shares so what do I even know. I obviously wouldn't recommend these but hey if you ever decide to give them a try, I wish you better luck than I had! And also that you have an all-around better time, too.
