Brittany McCann's Reviews > Air Riders

Air Riders is written by Echo Fox and is book 3 in the Equilibria Series. It is featured around the main character of Tai who is from a race of people that live in harmony with the wind.

The Zephyrus build things with wind, create wind weapons from any semblance of a sound and live in a world with two other races. There are the less flying creatures known as the Daiku who seem to resemble some sort of flying reptile that are a defensive breed by nature. Then there are the ground bound Riku who are described as fast and reptilian like that will attack either Daiku or Zephyrus for food if they are within reach.

Air Riders starts out with a Prologue that shows us the character of Aiko going through an intense defensive and emotional time. As I woman I felt for Aiko and was intrigued by her as a character. This prologue painted a picture of her which would stick with me through at least the first third of the book. Following the prologue, we are immediately introduced to Tai, who is a young up and coming leader in the Hunting Wing who has proven his skills in hunting and earned much respect. He is pledged to bond with a beautiful Zephyrus from the Teaching Wing named Keiko.

Tai lives and breathes his hunting wing and can only be distracted by his love for Keiko. The Daiku have suddenly begun attacking the Zephyrus, which leaves me as a reader quite suspicious and throw the entire lives of the Zephyrus into chaos. Tai must do all that is in his power to defend his love and his people from succumbing to the attacks coming from the Daiku, but more importantly those coming from within his own people.

I did not read the first two books and initially I thought that they may have answered some of the questions that I had within Air Riders, however as I have investigated them, they seem to overall be standalone books about entirely different races and main characters with only an end game lead up in common. With that being said, I want to talk about the few negative aspects I felt were found within Air Riders. There were many things that were described that seemed to need to be assumed by the reader, whereas I would have liked to have gotten a better grasp on things. For instance, the other Zephyrus, there was not much talk about their living arrangements, how they would communicate across distance and what would happen to them during the coming together of the battle. I also was never able to fully grasp just how many people we were talking about. In a way, I found some of the Zephyrus qualities akin to Native Americans had they held mythological beliefs. Although many of the Daiku and Riku are talked about, it was hard to get a clear picture of exactly what they would look like, for me anyway. Lastly, I felt as if they Zephyrus were a bit TOO ignorant and unquestioning of anything going on or of all the people who wound up missing.

Brilliant points to this novel will first start with the sheer genius possessed by Echo Fox in her creation of many aspects of this world. The air elements and how many things that she utilizes them within her story were wonderful. It was nice to use a familiar religion base that was not overbearing but still was able to shed light onto some of the beliefs and culture of the Zephyrus. Tai and Keiko was real, as was the pain that was felt by Aiko in the rare moments that it was glimpsed. The end held a big shocker for me, and I found myself with tears in my eyes. Echo did a superb job of creating relatable characters with real personalities.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars. It was definitely a wonderful read; it could use a tad bit of extra explanations within the story for lesser aspects but overall, it is a solid good book. I would love to read the first two books in the series as well as any that follow. I highly recommend her writing style and her genuine sense of great story telling. This book held aspects for any interested in fiction, mythology, fantasy, romance, suspense, mystery, young adult, etc.