Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik

For some reason I had it in my head that this was going to be the last of the Temeraire series.  Not really sure why I thought that – evidently Ms. Novik plans to have probably nine of them before she’s done.  She must have many, many facts in her brain to want to write so many books (even though she’s now ditched history entirely).

Yes, at this point she has abandoned real history in favor of stuff that’s more fun, which, hey, I’m completely fine with.  It would be silly to accept dragons and then complain that Napoleon had invaded London, so I have no complaints about Napoleon invading London.  Unless he starts tearing down things that I like, or doing something wicked on the area that will someday grow into the South Bank, my favorite bit of the world.

I enjoyed this book nearly as much as I did the first one.  Temeraire’s a point-of-view character now, off and on, which was fun given how cute Temeraire has always been.  He’s a mighty community organizer dragon these days, organizing the breeding ground dragons into a bunch of fighters for fighting off the wicked French armies.  It was refreshing to have everybody winning battles and having clever ideas, instead of all systems devolving into chaos, as has been the case so much in the last few books.

As much as I was looking forward to seeing Iskierska in this book, I thought she was wasted.  You saw a good bit of her, but she wasn’t really doing that much – or no, I guess what I would say is that I wanted to see her grow up and become useful and clever and do cunning things, and she really didn’t.  She was just a nuisance, requiring to be watched and rescued, and I wanted her to be a mighty fightin’ power!  Maybe in the next one.  I like her and I want her to come into her own at some point.

The books continue to be entertaining.  I continue to like them enough to reserve them at the library but not enough to actually purchase them at the store.

Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik

The Temeraire series continues, hooray! I liked this one much more than I did the last two. It was more pulled together than they’ve been, and Laurence was very, very polite, and Temeraire is still a cutie. I’ve been having ongoing concerns that Laurence will get less polite the more he hangs out with the Aerial Corps people (and Jane, who bores me).  He didn’t though.  He might have been the most polite in this book that he’s been in any of the books.  Ah, courtesy.

They flew to Africa, and I felt, of all the places they’ve been, Ms. Novik deals the best with Africa.  It’s full of mushrooms that are the cure for a disease that is killing all of England’s dragons, and Temeraire very fortunately has an immunity to it, so he goes off hunting for the cure.  Unfortunately, the tribe that cultivates the mushrooms is pissed at England because the slave trade’s legal there, so they are none too thrilled with the Brits.  I was pleased in this book to have some other dragons (besides the irritating ferals) for Temeraire to interact with.  I’ve missed Lily and Maximus, and I’m really hoping we get to see more of the bitty dragon that Granby has whose name contains so many vowels and k letters that I always forget it.

*spoilers now*

At the end, the Brits send an infected dragon to France in biological warfare manner, and Laurence and Temeraire go chasing over to France to cure the dragons because they don’t like biological warfare, and then Laurence goes back to England.  To be executed.  Which I’m sure he won’t be, but it was a good ending to the book.  I have the new one on hold at the library, so once I finish reading the other many books I have out, I’ll go and collect it.

Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik

Well, I was slightly less thrilled with this than the last one.  I know it’s good for Laurence to chill out a little bit because yes, he did in some respects have a stick up his ass, and I appreciate that’s not necessarily an ideal state for a stalwart hero to be in – but I got sad when he started to feel disenchanted with the British government and the Navy and everyone, and how he started thinking sedition mutiny thoughts.  I liked His Majesty’s Dragon because of how proper and British he was, and now he’s all different.  I don’t feel like I know him anymore.  *tear*

Laurence and Temeraire are off to China in Throne of Jade.  It’s all about what a rare and unusual dragon Temeraire is, and the Chinese are very cross that their most rare and unusual dragon, which was meant for an emperor (Napoleon), is being minded by an ordinary guy and being sent off to war.  In order to avoid irritating China so much that they start giving out dragons to France willy-nilly, Britain ships Laurence and Temeraire to China to sort the whole mess out.  It’s a long journey, so most of the book takes place on the ship’s journey to get there.

My main gripe is that there was a massive build-up for not much conclusion.  They spend all this time on the ship fretting about everything, whether Temeraire will be taken from Laurence, whether the Chinese are going to get angry with their wicked British dragon-having ways and kill them all, who’s evil and who’s okay, and then at the very tail end everything gets resolved really, really quickly.  (Except for the problem of dragon liberty, which is obviously meant for future books.)

That issue aside, however, I did enjoy the book.  Not as much as His Majesty’s Dragon, of course, but still quite a fair bit.  I still don’t like Jane Roland, but she wasn’t around much.  Although the book wasn’t fast-paced, it was interesting, all the conflicts that arose on the ship.  Just the kind of thing that would happen in these circumstances – different branches of the armed forces getting in each other’s way and being irritated with each other, the dragon being stubborn, culture conflicts – it was interesting.

Overall, I’d say – second book in a series with all the attendant problems.  Not bad, but not good enough that I feel compelled to read Black Powder War straight away.  It’s in my library bag and all, but I’ll just wait.  I think that will be better.

His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik

Recommended by some book blog somewhere, though damned if I remember where. I’ve been meaning to get this out of the library for ages, and it was very fortunately not checked out last time I went.

Oh, it was such fun to read! I was so pleased by it! It’s all about the Brits during the Napoleonic Wars, only they’ve put in dragons also. Laurence, the main guy, is a captain in the Royal Navy and he’s all got his duty and good manners and his ship captures a dragon’s egg from a French ship, and the egg hatches and he gets stuck with the dragon. But happily for everyone, it’s a lovely dragon with a sweet temper and many nice skills, and furthermore it is the Rarest Kind of Dragon Ever.

The book charmed me. I like reading books where people are being all British and courteous and duty-to-the-crown and “Surely, sir, you are not questioning my loyalty?” It wasn’t one of those books with a thrilling plot and you can’t put it down because you simply must find out what happens, but it was one of those books that’s just totally nice and friendly. His Majesty’s Dragon is like the Ramen noodles of books: not the greatest thing you’ve ever had, but so pleasant and comforting and possessing the capacity of making you feel like everything’s totally fine.

I’m in such a good mood now. I may go outside and skip.