Review: A Dragon of Black Glass

A Dragon of Black Glass by James Rollins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“‘Such are our roles,’ Rami stated with a tired sigh. ‘To be a shining promise during bleak times.’”

Rollins returns to the world of MoonFall after a two year hiatus, during which time the real world has started riding the express elevator to hell in a handbasket once again, and we absolutely need heroes like Nyx and Kanthe and Rami to steer our course right again.

As with the previous book, Nyx continues her explorations of the farthest reaches of the Urth, searching with a loyal crew for artifacts that could resume the world's lost rotation - and along the way, meeting even more creatures worthy of the Sanderson-esque bestiary, as well as moving cities that feel like a cross between Sanderson's own Sunlit Man and The Mortal Engines. Meanwhile, Kanthe continues to play the Game of Thrones in the Southern Klashe, where Rami is really the only friend he's got, that princely bromance for the ages. (If my buddy Koda ever reads this series, he'll love how much Kanthe and Rami could be friends with some of his own characters.)

Rollins took his time crafting his most densely packed plot yet, and while it was an early concern of mine that this series would drag out its apocalypse far too long, this book really slams things home with its depiction of rapidly accelerating disasters attributable to both the falling moon and the paralysis of the planet's rotation. It builds to a head almost like that fateful seventh episode of Paradise, I'd have to say.

Though as pulse-pounding as the compounding disasters of that episode of Paradise were, they were also so many all at once, geologically impossible in some cases, and only viewed on TV in universe rather than in person, to the point where I'm still convinced the show's biggest twist will be that its apocalypse was an elaborate fakeout all along.

With Rollins, however, it feels much more real.

And while the buildup in this book could just as easily have been to the ending of a trilogy, he was planning a tetralogy all along, and he's still promising one. More. Book.

Just don't kill off Rami, Mr. Rollins, and we'll be good.

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