With the rise of the extremely popular BookTok community on TikTok, one book caught the attention of millions of readers on the platform: “Fourth Wing”. The “Fourth Wing” series by Rebecca Yarros, also known as the Empyrean series, has already sold over 12 million editions in the United States and is one of the most successful career starts for any author.
However the newest addition to the series, “Onyx Storm”, fell greatly under expectations for me. Subpar word building, underdeveloped side characters, and an overly stretched out story that felt like plot filler made “Onyx Storm” underwhelming.
A quick recap of the series: the books are based in the kingdom of Navarre, a military dictatorship where the ruling elite train to become dragon riders, and are written from the perspective of Violet Sorrengail. Violet is the daughter of one of the most important generals in the millitary, and throughout the series she must maneuver through friendships, politics, and divided loyalties as the war between the dragon-riders and the venin (dark magic users) continues to escalate.
In “Onyx Storm” Yarros leans further into the epic fantasy genre, and expands on the world of the Empyrean series beyond Navarre. Violet and her quest squad venture out to a series of remote islands on the edge of the world in order to look for reinforcements, and in doing so the reader encounters new societies, new characters, and magical creatures. But, each of the islands follow the same formula, making it very repetitive. Violet and her quest squad arrive at the island, she faces some sort of threat or challenge, then she discovers part of a truth, then she escapes and moves on.
After visiting 6 different islands, the repetitiveness makes it boring, and many of the revelations were overly convenient as if inserted to patch plot holes. For these reasons, I felt the world-building and quest in general didn’t reach its full potential.
Yarros also attempted to introduce a variety of new side characters in “Onyx Storm”, but the characters were underdeveloped, and I never really felt a connection with them. Since there was no real backstory for these characters, and we never really got to know them, there is no reason for the reader to particularly care for them. The addition of a dozen or so new characters in the quest squad and the constant barrage of new characters in the island civilizations just makes it really hard to take a liking to a particular character, and makes it difficult to follow who is who.
I thought Yarros did a pretty good job with the side characters in “Fourth Wing” especially with Liam, a cadet at the dragon rider academy, but these new characters really just didn’t work for me in “Onyx Storm”. The novel could’ve benefitted from multiple perspectives, like most longer fantasy series such as “Lord of the Rings” or the “Stormlight Archives” so that the reader could really get to know the side characters.
Lastly, the novel felt like a filler book. There was an overwhelming amount of reveals, cliff hangers, and random storylines that didn’t really contribute to the plot of the story. The book also had a major pacing problem with long boring chapters, and the majority of the story felt pointless.
This may be attributed to Yarros deciding early on to change the Empyrean series from a trilogy to a five-book series.
“Probably about 30,000 words in, I called my editor and I said, ‘I think this is a five-book series,’” she told Variety in 2023. “And that’s how we went from three to five.”
But in my opinion, the series would’ve been better off as a trilogy. Most of the pacing problems with both “Iron Flame” and “Onyx Storm” could’ve very easily been avoided if Yarros hadn’t decided to write extra two books.
That being said, I still believe that the next two books in the series could be fantastic if Yarros adds more perspectives, focuses on developing the side characters, and works on the pacing issues in “Onyx Storm”. It may not be at the same literary level as J.R.R Tolkien, but it’s also Yarros’ first series ever, and it has achieved immense success for a reason.
