Back into battle with Laurence and Temeraire! Napoleon’s the bad guy! Easy and fun to read! But wait, first we have to get Laurence and Temeraire back together, because Laurence has been sentenced to death for treason for saving all the dragons in the world (<cough>Mary Sue<cough>), and Temeraire is moping in the breeding grounds in Wales. This is an opportunity for Novik that she jumps all over, and I think the reader is the big winner: we finally get to read from Temeraire’s POV. […]
The hunt for penicillin, and the kidnapping of Laurence
Onward with Temeraire, this time into the depths of the African continent! Today I’m writing four reviews, covering Books 4-7, so it’s all a little overlap-y, but one of the wonderful thing about what Naomi Novik is doing with this series is that she’s truly writing stand-alone books that also happen to build on each other. So, this one, Empire of Ivory, which is Book 4 of currently 8 in the series, takes our heroes, Will Laurence the human and Temeraire the wonderful dragon on […]
Never get involved in a land war in Asia
I will admit, I thought I might be out-smarting these books, with the formula all figured out, but this one, the third in the “Temeraire” series, totally took me on a ride. Delightful, surprising, and exciting. Well played, Novik. Black Powder War bothers with barely any passage of time after Throne of Jade. The company is still in China, preparing for travel back to England, when natural disaster and politics coincide and intervene, causing Laurence and Temeraire to take their scrappy crew of aviators overland […]
Temeraire Meets the Far East
Just in case there was any doubt, dragons are still my JAM. I should clarify that it’s specifically the dragons in Naomi Novik’s world that I am adoring. I’ve never encountered such interesting characters inhabiting and giving personality to such mythic bodies. Sure, lots of great stories have dragons, or dinosaurs, or talking frogs, or whatever. But these dragons are the heart and soul of this corner of the multiverse and I am ON BOARD. Throne of Jade picks up just a few weeks after […]