The Desert Talon is a study of PTSD, social welfare that is not as helpful as it possibly could be, and the clash of cultures as the Ba’Suon characters face off against their Mazoön counterparts. It takes place within the same time frame and a length of time after The Mountain Crown. This is the story of Janan, the Ba’Suon soldier who Lilley had a relationship with in The Mountain Crown. In this, he has successfully reached Mazemoor, but he’s been confined to a prison/holding facility. (Mazemoor is keeping the combatants in lock down while they do background checks and find out if there are any relatives within Mazemoor who are willing to sponsor said combatants. None of this appears to have been explained to Janan.)
The Mazemoor share a common ethnic background with the Ba’Suon, but use their abilities in ways that differ from the Ba’Suon. They refer to their abilities as “mysticism” and have a high technology level, powered by the forces of nature. (At the cost of slowly killing their environment. I have a strong suspicion that the “desert” is actually a “dustbowl.”)
This book delves into different kinds of prejudice and the complicated problem of a refugee population with former combatants among their numbers. Our Protagonist must attempt to navigate the complicated ins and outs of a bureaucratic system he is in no way familiar with, and has reason to be hostile about. (Due to the entire “no one appears to have made sure he understands the Process and Knows Why It’s a Thing.”)
Janan is taken in by a relative who lives alone with her son on a small farm. They do not get much time for family introduction activities before Janan is approached by a “dragon baron” named Eben Wisterel who immediately attempts to offer him a job working with his dragons. This is not well taken as Janan’s “knowing” tells him that the rancher is extremely sketchy. This is eventually confirmed!
In addition to the refugee assimilation allegory we also have a strong romantic thread worked into the story via Janan’s boyfriend Lilley. We see a lot of Janan being both angry and guilty that he hadn’t “done something” about Raka. (The guy that got Lilley captured and left behind when they tried to leave.) Janan does a lot of mooning about Lilley, and it’s really a good thing that we know what happens to Lilley in The Mountain Crown or we’d be getting extremely anxious.
(By we I mean me. I was the one who would have been getting anxious. It think I was less worried about Janan in The Mountain Crown due to point of view character not having a complete read on Lilley. Janan was more of a concept in Crown, then he turns up in this book–and we go, “he isn’t dead!” And then we go, “oh no…” and so on. Again, by we I mean “me.”)
Overall, this was a great sequel to The Mountain Crown. This book review is based off of a galley copy received from NetGalley!
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