Book Review: The Memory of Souls
It’s time to wrap up my review blitz through the Chorus of Dragons series with The Memory of Souls, released earlier this year. And listen, readers: this one broke my brain a bit. But in a good way.
Kihrin, Janel, and their friends have won the battle against Morios and Relos Var, but they’re losing the war — Vol Karoth’s prison is weakening, and soon it will be free. The Hellwarriors, now assumed to be Kihrin, Janel, Thurvishar, and Teraeth, set out on a mission from the Eight Immortals to convince the vané to undertake the Ritual of Night, which will strip their immortality in exchange for strengthening Vol Karoth’s prison once more. But the ritual’s been done before, and each successive ritual buys less time…
That’s a gross oversimplification of the plot, by the way, because there are just SO MANY threads to follow here. Senera travels with Xivan Kaen, now the wielder of Urthaenriel, to find Suless. Ostensibly it’s to find Xivan’s granddaughter, but Senera works for Relos Var. The Hellwarriors are almost immediately thrown off course into the Korthaen Blight as the vané king refuses to cooperate. Doc/Terindel the Black re-enters the picture, along with his long-lost wife, Valathea. Kihrin’s mother, Khaeriel, sets about trying to get her throne back, which includes bewitching Therin (proving once again that enchantment is the most morally dubious school of magic). There’s a flashback timeline to a very famous wizard who resurrected the Eight Immortals after they initially “died” to Vol Karoth. And those Eight Immortals are meddling everywhere now.
Oh, and everybody fucks.
That sounds like a silly thing to say, but DAMN. EVERYBODY FUCKS. Everybody has fucked everybody, and it’s all coming out now. The family trees and relationships in this story are goddamn wild. The best part is the sheer lack of shame from just about everyone — it’s super casual and rather accepted, and there’s surprisingly little jealousy.
Well, except in the throuple everyone is rooting for. Kihrin, Teraeth and Janel have some issues to work out. But honestly, this is the most satisfying kind of love triangle, where you just want the whole triangle to get it on, and where that seems like a genuinely viable option.
Sorry, had to get that out of the way.
Normally this is the part where I explain the insanely complicated story structure, but Lyons has largely abandoned the dual-narrative-leading-to-single-present-narrative style here. The Memory of Souls jumps all over the place, from POV to POV as needed, and to be honest, I don’t think Lyons had much of a choice. The narrative has spun out so much, and includes so many characters, that it would be impossible to maintain the structure of the previous books. It is, however, still ostensibly an account put together by Thurvishar D’Lorus, complete with his usual footnotes and some in-character forwards.
I do love the classic “band of adventurers” vibe that The Memory of Souls rocks. It has a more frantic air to it, as our heroes scramble from one bad situation (undead zombie dragon) to another (A WILD VOL KAROTH APPEARS) to another (vané prison, woooo!), and so on. And the frantic pacing rather matches the mood, as the clock counts down to Vol Karoth breaking free, as the demons begin to assault the afterlife in earnest.
All of our usual suspects are in fine form here. Kihrin is still struggling with his connection to Vol Karoth, what it means for his future, and what it means for the world. Janel explores her past lives even more deeply and comes to some uncomfortable conclusions about what she is. Teraeth reckons with his past lives as well, and struggles to be something better than he was previously. Thurvishar is in love apparently (!), and he continues to save everybody’s asses when it comes to magic.
Valathea is the most interesting new character for sure, released from her harp through some sneaky vané bullshit. She has that aura of power and carries it off like a queen (which she was, once), but she’s having to adjust to a lot of changes that have occurred while she was sleeping, for lack of a better word. She also brings with her a wealth of ancient knowledge, and it’s through her that we get a window into the ancient past of this world.
Which, okay, pause. SPOILER ALERT. SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANNA KNOW.
I’M SERIOUS OKAY.
All right, holy forking shirtballs. The worldbuilding bombs that drop here are WILD. Humanity came here from another world? This is some interdimensional shit? What were they fleeing? The Immortals are actually kinda shitty and sort of insane? The vané already lost their immortality? The dragons AND the cornerstones came from the ritual that turned S’arric into Vol Karoth? Urthaenriel is Vol Karoth’s gaesh? Just...holy shit. I felt like Lyons continually ripped the rug out from beneath me and lo! There is another rug, which she will now proceed to rip away, and so on and so on.
COOL, YOU CAN COME BACK NOW.
Anyway, for the non-spoiler crew, the worldbuilding is intense. Lots of answers here, and the answers are just breeding more questions, as they do.
And I said this above but the ending of this book absolutely BROKE me. I just…sat there, in stunned silence, for about ten minutes, then wandered around my house aimlessly for a bit as I processed. There is a massive battle at the end, with literally ALL the major players save one, and you’ll be rooting for or against people you didn’t expect. It ends with some massively important deaths, and a hard choice from Kihrin…which is another way of saying, it ends on a massive cliffhanger.
Listen, as far as I’m concerned, this series just gets better with every book. I truly cannot wait until The House of Always comes out.
Grade: 5/5 stars
Memorable Quote:
““Fourteen thousand years old,” Relos Var repeated. “And let me spell this out—the problem with immortality isn’t that you forget things. It isn’t that you grow bored—there is always something new to learn. It isn’t even watching the people you love who aren’t immortal die—that’s tragic, but loss is part of life. No. None of that. It is watching the people you care about make the same stupid fucking mistakes again and again and again.””
