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A review by heyjaycee
Last Flight by Liane Merciel
5.0
It’s ten years after the end of the Fifth Blight. After the destruction of the Chantry at Kirkwall and the subsequent slaughter of the city’s Circle mages, war has erupted between mages and templars across Thedas. Mages who want to fight are massing at Andoral’s Reach. But others, seeking only safety from the templars who would destroy them, make their way through the desolate Anderfels to Weisshaupt, home of the Grey Wardens.
Among them is Valya, a young city elf and mage from Hossberg. On reaching Weisshaupt and sanctuary, she and her fellow mages are put to work in the library, looking for any information they can find about intelligent darkspawn, though they’re not told why. But, during her research, Valya discovers a hidden diary belonging to another elven mage: Isseya, a Grey Warden from the time of the Fourth Blight, and sister to the famed hero Garahel who ended that Blight by killing the Archdemon.
Merciel weaves Isseya’s headlong, years-spanning tale of horror and heroism during the Blight around Valya’s quieter story of discovering herself, safe at last inside the walls of Weisshaupt. And in the end, what Valya finds in Isseya’s diary will change not only her own fate but that of all Thedas.
The Grey Warden order has always been the apotheosis of Dragon Age’s dark fantasy theme. In Last Flight the boundaries between good and evil are crossed and crossed again, becoming blurred beyond recognition, by a Grey Warden order that is the world’s only hope of salvation in the face of apocalypse. Nothing is simple, nothing is clear. And even so, even as Isseya transgresses, even as things go from bad to worse, she’s brilliant. She shines. You can’t fail to love her, to inhabit her, to catch your breath when she performs some death-defying stunt or comes up with a world-saving idea.
Merciel’s story really shines when it comes to the griffons. Merciel clearly knows her animals, and that comes through in the depiction of the blood and the grace of a working human-animal partnership in time of war.
I cried more than once at this book. Be warned: there are detailed—not gratuitous, but detailed—descriptions of animal suffering and death within these pages.
Ultimately Last Flight made me cry and gasp, broke and mended my heart, and left me breathless as I put it down for the last time—just like the Dragon Age games always did. To me, this is the best of the Dragon Age tie-in novels. I’m glad I left it 'til last.
Among them is Valya, a young city elf and mage from Hossberg. On reaching Weisshaupt and sanctuary, she and her fellow mages are put to work in the library, looking for any information they can find about intelligent darkspawn, though they’re not told why. But, during her research, Valya discovers a hidden diary belonging to another elven mage: Isseya, a Grey Warden from the time of the Fourth Blight, and sister to the famed hero Garahel who ended that Blight by killing the Archdemon.
Merciel weaves Isseya’s headlong, years-spanning tale of horror and heroism during the Blight around Valya’s quieter story of discovering herself, safe at last inside the walls of Weisshaupt. And in the end, what Valya finds in Isseya’s diary will change not only her own fate but that of all Thedas.
The Grey Warden order has always been the apotheosis of Dragon Age’s dark fantasy theme. In Last Flight the boundaries between good and evil are crossed and crossed again, becoming blurred beyond recognition, by a Grey Warden order that is the world’s only hope of salvation in the face of apocalypse. Nothing is simple, nothing is clear. And even so, even as Isseya transgresses, even as things go from bad to worse, she’s brilliant. She shines. You can’t fail to love her, to inhabit her, to catch your breath when she performs some death-defying stunt or comes up with a world-saving idea.
Merciel’s story really shines when it comes to the griffons. Merciel clearly knows her animals, and that comes through in the depiction of the blood and the grace of a working human-animal partnership in time of war.
I cried more than once at this book. Be warned: there are detailed—not gratuitous, but detailed—descriptions of animal suffering and death within these pages.
Ultimately Last Flight made me cry and gasp, broke and mended my heart, and left me breathless as I put it down for the last time—just like the Dragon Age games always did. To me, this is the best of the Dragon Age tie-in novels. I’m glad I left it 'til last.