#A Chorus of Dragons

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Henry "Monty" Montague- The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Kihrin D’mon- A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn lyons

Silas Bell- The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Robert Lanyon- The Glass Scientists by S.H. Cotugno

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1D

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Prepare to die. His kingdom is near.

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.

But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.

Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.

A furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors.

Horror, science fiction, postapocalyptic, young adult

The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons (A Chorus of Dragons series)

Endorsement from submitter: "These books are some of the best adult fantasy out there… great worldbuilding fantastic characters doing all kinds of fascinating stuff with storytelling (do you like footnotes? This series has footnotes! Every book canonically exists in-universe!) as for queer characters/relationships there’s basically every kind of rep you can think of"

Kihrin is a bastard orphan who grew up on storybook tales of long-lost princes and grand quests. When he is claimed against his will as the long-lost son of a treasonous prince, Kihrin finds that being a long-lost prince isn't what the storybooks promised. Far from living the dream, Kihrin finds himself practically a prisoner, at the mercy of his new family's power plays and ambitions. He also discovers that the storybooks have lied about a lot of other things too: dragons, demons, gods, prophecies, true love, and how the hero always wins. Then again, maybe he's not the hero, for Kihrin is not destined to save the empire. He's destined to destroy it.

Fantasy, epic fantasy, politics, nonlinear, secondary world, series, adult

[lyssq]

[lexalovesbooks]

I think at least half of what makes a chorus of dragons so much fun is how much jenn lyons clearly delights in flipping common fantasy tropes on their head. It’s nonstop like: love triangle? Nope! Polyamory! Main character sacrifices his life to save the world? Try again, he’s in time out and everyone’s gonna yell at him until he never tries to pull that again. The Gods? Are not. The immortals? Also not. Mysterious prophecies foretelling the end of the world scholars dedicate their life to deciphering? Actually, they’re bullshit. Like, total complete bullshit, stop trying to decipher them, please. Please. Book one seems like it pulls a bury your gays but then two books later they’re brought back from the dead and also by then 2/3rds of the rest of the cast is Also queer, the demons are only demons because that’s what we decided to call them, and the big big big bad that you meet in book one that is surely going to be the final villain out of the many many contenders? Well. :)

[livingasaghost]

all i wanted when i was reading the ruin of kings the first time was a visual map of what the fuck was going on so i became the change i want to see in the world! please share!! please use this to read this series!! i need more people to yell with!!!! click here to download full HQ of this as well as a series guide

[bookwyrminspiration]

deleting all my dating apps so I can meet someone the old fashioned way (your third mother, the queen of demons, assaults me and plants horrific images in my mind and a single image of you that I will obsess over for years)

[kalzmayan]

recently bought the ruin of kings by jenn lyon and decided to draw my interpretation of khirin

[arynneva]

Okay I said I'd make a more expansive post about this so here it is.

If you like high fantasy, check out A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons.

It's got

magic

dragons

demons

gods that aren't gods

a main character throuple

platonic marriage

distinct characters of various ages

just general diversity

the most incomprehensible family trees

sassy footnotes

and more!

There are five books and the worldbuilding is so neatly woven into the story so as not to overwhelm the reader. I was learning neat facts about the world even in the last book.

The overarching plot is a bit complicated to explain, but it's basically "Ancient mage with an ego has secret plans centuries in the making and must be stopped, but in the meantime there are demons wrecking havoc, terrible shitheads vying for political power, shapeshifters with dubious morals, revenge schemes, slavery, a god of annihilation that has slowly been consuming the sun, and so much family drama."

The five books are:

The Ruin of Kings (aka will someone please tell Kihrin what's going on)

The Name of All Things (aka the adventures of Janel and Qown, a horsegirl and her emotional support atheist priest)

The Memory of Souls (aka Oh My God)

The House of Always (aka Group Therapy tries to stop the apocolapyse)

The Discord of Gods (aka wtf is even going on--OH)

So in conclusion:

great characters, great pacing, great worldbuilding, great antagonists

[itmakesssenseincontext]

Im seriously chewingvl glass over a chorus of dragons WHERE IS THE GODDAMN FANDOM ITS GAY ITS POLY THEY ARE DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE THERE ARE FOOTNOTES

FOOTNOTES

[gottalovethegeeks]

Currently reading 'a chorus of dragons' and im a little over half way though book 2 and im just sitting here with book 1 open trying to remember who's who and what they've done and why they hate each other because you have this fun combination of soul swapping, reincarnation and just flat out living a really long time and it's 10:30pm and i feel like I'm losing my mind and what do you mean there are three more books how am I going to keep up with all of this please send help i feel like I'm going crazy because I'm talking to the walks trying to remind myself of what's happened (im having a fantastic time 10/10 this is how i love spending my weekends)

[the-great-infinity]

man there really is nothing like going absolutely insane about a piece of media that has no fandom

[anyagee]

I'm re reading A Chorus of Dragons and just started The Name of All Things. I remembered the horses but forgot how much everyone in Jorat is "what if you were a horse girl that also really liked shonen anime"

[fandomsareforlife]

So are people who are from Jorat just certified horse girls

[lyssq]

The Ruin or Kings is truly the pinnacle of unreliable narrators. Kihrin and Talon are telling the story and you cannot trust either of them to tell the proper truth – meanwhile Thurvishar is writing this down and he’s pointing out the mistakes in the above two’s narrative, however we find out later that he himself added stuff that is straight up Not True

[lexalovesbooks]

Hang on. wait. “My goddess is dead and the forever-hungry void that used to be a part of my soul could break free of his prison and begin consuming everything at any moment, starting with me, I’m gonna (remembers suicide jokes are bad for my mental health) visit my good friend Talon.” is this anything

[livingasaghost]

absolutely wheezing at kihrin talking to galen about being gay and that dumbass is like “nah i just like girls!”

one day when you work through your internalized homophobia and fall in love with an assassin man THEN YOU WILL SEE…