I like F'lessan a lot. Far more than I've ever liked Jaxom, and I think it says something about how I've gotten used to the casual assholishness of most of the male leads that some of his basic acts of consideration (like going to the alcove so as not to disturb Tai studying), seem really really notable.

The mating flight thing is...still not great. But I kind of feel like, for the first time, the series is actually kinda-sorta acknowledging the fucked up parts. F'lessan does ask for consent (quite emphatically), but it's not really clear that she ever actually gives a clear and unequivocal yes. It's a high pressure situation, at the very least.

That said, the attempt is there. (I might even be willing to chalk it up to a writer who's a few decades out of date when it comes to discussions of consent.) And I really appreciated that F'lessan says something about not necessarily needing to orgasm when his dragon does, and that the dragonriders that were Tai's previous partners should have treated her better even with the mating issues going on.

I appreciate that it makes Jaxom look even worse in retrospect. (F'lar too, but I like F'lar.)

The injury/recovery section was pretty intense. As a h/c fan, I enjoyed it a lot. It's definitely a harsh fate in a lot of ways: there's no way F'lessan can stay wingleader. Golanth will never fly right again. It's probably the first time (except Lytol, pre series) that we really get to see such harsh consequences for a major character.

Well, maybe Brekke. But it's not like the narrative really gave her much after her loss. She went from having her own, pretty important subplot, to being the satellite to F'nor's Red Star idiocy. (And F'nor, conveniently, ends up completely fine and able to take up dragonriding again without issue - after a period of recovery.)

But I did like the focus on recovery, the way all the dragons worked together to get Golanth into a position to be able to fly, at least somewhat, and how F'lessan himself does have a substantial goal for his future.

It does seem decidedly unfair when compared to Jaxom, and how Jaxom gets everything handed to him with no hint of any kind of real effort. But it's also a better story to read. I'd read a sequel if there was one.

(I had the funny thought that it's a shame that Jaxom got Ruth before F'lessan got Golanth. I somehow doubt that Jaxom would have been anywhere near as gracious if F'lessan had gotten anything before he did. That said, of course, with a five year age difference that wasn't likely to happen.)

I have mixed feelings about Toric's role. In many ways, I feel like it's contradictory to his prior appearances. He's a dick, but he's always been something of a radical dick. So to see him take the conservative, anti-AIVAS viewpoint now is jarring. In some ways, it reminds me of the shift of T'ron and the Oldtimers in Dragonquest.

That said, I do appreciate that the story spends a fair amount of time giving us Toric's point of view and he still has some of those great touches that I like. (Like in the Council meeting about appointing Janissian. Where the other conservative assholes try to fight about a woman Holder, Toric's just like "appoint her already, I want to get to the other ways I can be an obstructive dick.)

I also liked how a certain character's death at the end of ATWOP (being vague because my recaps having gotten that far yet), plays into at least some of the villainous motivations. The assumption that said character died because they discovered something nefarious about AIVAS is not completely unreasonable (especially given what happens to that one dude in THIS book).

I didn't notice a lot of major retcons here, but those are things I might need a more focused readthrough to find. (I did think it was weirdly inconsistent about when exactly a certain character died, but I might just need to read it again to clarify.) I did think it worked though as a kind of epilogue to the series. I'd happily read another book that's more about F'lessan adjusting to the changes in his life, but it's not really necessary. He'll survive and grow just like Pern will.