Cast in Flight (The Chronicles of Elantra)

Very enjoyable new entry to the series which continues to find new characters and cultures to explore. Advances the overall story arc with the characters you've grown to know and enjoy spending time with

**MANY SPOILERS IN REVIEW**

Early on in reading this series I caught on that Michelle Sagara was going to have books highlighting each of the known races. This book, as others have pointed out, dealt with the Aerians. I liked Cast In Flight for the most part. It was a much better book than than Cast In Honor. However I felt that Kaylin did not grow in this book and her powers seemed to have diminished. More on this later. Also she still had Nightshade's mark. After having her face burned by Nightshade in Cast in Honor, I wanted to see the author get the mark removed. As I thought many others did too. It didn't happen. The author tried to make Nightshade a bit more likeable in this book but it didn't work for me. He was still a villain to me, brotherly love or no. Time for the mark to be removed and also for Nightshade and his brother to move on from their current stalemate.

The Outcaste seemed to have evolved almost mythical powers. And at the very end, Helen asked if Kaylin perceived the Outcaste as an Ancient. When Kaylin first fought the Outcaste in his dragon form she almost killed him. In this book, he seemed invincible and a totally different type of character and no longer a "dragon". Kaylin was unable to utilize her powers as effectively as she had before. In fact she was almost killed and ended up with "shadow gloves" on her hands - although Helen calls it clean shadow. This was very disturbing to me. Somehow the author decided to change many of the rules. I didn't appreciate that at all. Maybe she had this arc planned for many books, but I found it jarring and wrong.

Moran has been around since the beginning of the series. Her speckled wings were remarked on but never explained. And yet now she turned out to be a mystical representative of the Aerians whose powers seemed to eclipse Kaylin's. Again I didn't appreciate the big turnaround here even though I knew in book 11 that Moran would play a bigger role in book 12.

After 12 books the cast of characters is getting very large and unwieldy. Characters who played large roles in other books are now absent from these later ones. For example, we don't see Tara and Tiamaris in this book. These are two of my favorite characters. We do get a brief mention of Tiamaris when the author talked about hoards and how Tara was his hoard. I don't like her relegating Tara to basically a non-person. That is not what we see in the earlier books.

The writing in this book is very good, The book is much better than Cast In Honor. However I believe the author has Kaylin going backward, instead of moving her forward. At least this is how I see it. Again I ask the author to let Kaylin grow and become the Chosen. Will I buy the next book? Probably. But if the author again changes the rules dramatically and has Kaylin going backward as she did in this one did, I will not buy any further books in the series.

***I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review, which was first posted on book blog Will Read for Feels.

I’ve been reading Michelle Sagara’s Chronicles of Elantra for years now, and I continue to look forward to each new volume, each new mystery in this crime fantasy series that’s always rife with intrigue, both political and criminal, and also gives us a glimpse into the life and personality of one Private Kaylin Neya, who is the Chosen one and as such wears ancient magical symbols on her skin but hates magic, is treated with very little deference by her peers, and has manners so appalling they may get her killed were she ever to grace the Dragon Emperor’s court. And I mean that literally, as the emperor is a dragon capable of turning her to ash with a well-aimed breath.

But Kaylin is not just the sum total of her eccentricities. She’s also brave enough to charge in where dragons fear to tread, she’s got a heart as big as Elantra, and what she lacks in good manners, she makes up for with good action. As in she will do what’s needed, and she’ll stand by her friends even when they would prefer she step away, for her own safety and their emotional pride or security.

In fact, it’s this very quality that has her embroiled in political intrigue in this novel. Which works because it’s true to character, as far as Kaylin is concerned, but it also lets us get to know more about a character introduced only lately to the series, Aerian Hawk Sergeant Moran dar Carafel, but also the cultural nuances of the Aerian race, who number among their winged people long-time favorite supporting characters like Clint and the Hawklord.

Where previous novels have let us learn about the Barrani, Tha’alani, and even dragon races, I’ll admit that the Aerians weren’t a people I really thought about until recently, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren’t so much the elevated people of Kaylin’s biased imaginings, but a people with a complicated history and class system, one whose prejudices worked against them just as any other race’s would. The book is set on the edges of this political milieu, but it also drives an arrow straight into the heart of it, as we learn about the magical workings of the Aerians’ own “Chosen One” and that person’s place in their society. It also looks at the Aerians’ (or any race’s) existence within the empire insofar as the law is concerned, and insofar as the Emperor’s word is law. More than that, it tackles the nature of Shadow and the enemy Kaylin has faced off against from the very beginning of this series.

While not a great book to start the series with (I would strongly recommend starting with book 1), I think anyone who’s been previously immersed in Elantran politics will appreciate Cast in Flight. Several subplots are progressed during the course of the events of this book that promise to become even more interesting down the road, once they become vital enough to warrant their own books, and there were moments that had me positively beaming at the pages as I read. All in all, a fun, engrossing read, but not one for the uninitiated.

Probably because her understanding of shadow has progressed. This story has implications for the larger frame of the world but Kaylin herself remains unchanged and at the exact same place as at the start of this book, and possibly even the previous book.

I love this series. Michelle has become my favorite writer and I faithfully purchase the newest additions as soon as they become available. I love Kaylin, really enjoyed learning more about Arieans and cannot wait for the next book. The characters are engaging and relatable for me. The overarching plots continue to weave the books together. I enjoyed this story just as much as the rest.

I love to return to these characters, and the new ones. Still as fresh, and has all of the mystery and heroism, and magic. I am amazed at the complexity of the stories as well. Can't wait for the next one.

I love this series. Michelle has become my favorite writer and I faithfully purchase the newest additions as soon as they become available. I love Kaylin, really enjoyed learning more about Arieans and cannot wait for the next book. The characters are engaging and relatable for me. The overarching plots continue to weave the books together. I enjoyed this story just as much as the rest.