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Liked It2 of 2 members found this review helpful ““True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” --Arthur Ashe |
Didn’t Like It “Lawrence needed to get off his cross about seventy pages sooner. Also, why is Temeraire becoming progessivly stupider as the series progresses?” see full review » see other reviews » |
Newest Reviews
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“I enjoyed the series so far, It is a novel concept and moved well. I would not rave about it the same as some others, but I would recommend it to other people to read.”
Claytell wrote this review Wednesday, October 21 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“Excellent series.
Damon W wrote this review Thursday, September 17 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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“Continued strife for manumission of dragons. Not bad, but if another follows, will be glad that the main characters will be no longer involved in the military.”
Sharon B wrote this review Sunday, August 9 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I thought Novik might have written herself in a dead-end street with the previous book's ending, but she manages to keep Temeraire and Laurence going without taxing my credulity too much. Another enjoyable romp through the Napoleonic wars on dragonback.”
mjacobs wrote this review Sunday, August 9 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“Lawrence needed to get off his cross about seventy pages sooner. Also, why is Temeraire becoming progessivly stupider as the series progresses?”
DogSoup wrote this review Thursday, July 16 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Awesome series! Can't wait for number 6! ”
Dianne B wrote this review Wednesday, April 22 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Great !”
Ian Bennett wrote this review Monday, April 13 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Outside of Terry Pratchett and a brief dip into Stephen Erickson, I had largely given up on the whole fantasy genre for all the obvious reasons. I kept hearing about Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, though, usually accompanied by the pithy but intriguing description "It's the Napoleonic Wars, except with dragons." Indeed, it turned out to be just that: a story from the war between France and Britain set in an alternate history where enormous dragons form air corps on all sides and thus rewrite the rules of warfare. This post covers the first five books in the series: His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, and Victory of Eagles.
jmadigan wrote this review Friday, December 26 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The story starts when British sea Captain Will Laurence captures a French ship bearing an unusual dragon egg. When Laurence is unable to get into a friendly port before the egg hatches, the newborn dragon Temeraire imprints on him, linking the two together. This is at first an unwelcome shock to Laurence, who is faced with the prospect of giving up a hard-earned and lucrative career as an officer in the British Royal Navy and replacing it with the wild and largely mysterious life of an Aviator and dragon handler in the air corps. Bur Laurence rises to the challenge and warms to his new life when his training as an Aviator begins and his relationship with the curious, noble, and intelligent Temeraire develops.
From there, the books arrange themselves into basically a set of serial adventures, with Laurence and Temeraire moving from one predicament to the next and having to see their way through. Part of Novik's formula for each book usually involves a fantastic new location and travels for the dragon and his crew, so that we don't get much time to settle into one location or situation before moving on to a fresh one. The second book has them on a sea voyage to China on a diplomatic mission, while the third book has them leaving China overland through the Ottoman and Prussian empires, and the fourth has them braving the interior of Africa in order to find a cure for a deadly draconic plague that's threatening to wipe out England's air corps. The fifth book returns home to England, where Laurance and Temeraire's fortunes are reversed and they desparately try to repel an invasion by Napoleon's armies, who are proving to be much more clever at adapting dragons to the cause of warfare.
Those subplots aside, two meta plots have run through all five of the books so far. The first is Temeraire's (and eventaully Laurance's) fight for draconic equality. The dragons are intelligent and possessed of free will, but are often seen and used as mere tools or beasts of burden by their owners. Like, say, a ship or cannon that can talk and breed. Novik draws several parallels here to the problem of human slavery, which England was also wrestling with at the time. The second thread tying all the books together is the war with Napoleon, with skirmishes and major battles providing the climax for more than one book.
I liked these books well enough, not only because they're set in a time period mostly unknown to me and NOT in just another Middle Earth knockoff. But also largely because they manage to eschew many of the tired standards of the fantasy genre. Here are some of the things that you will NOT find:
* An epic storyline to save the world (Napoleon aside)
* Multiple points of view tracking multiple characters (Novik doesn't break form Laurance's point of view until book 5, and then only temporarily)
* A protagonist who starts as farm boy but who is secretly of high birth (both Laurance and Temerare are already of high birth)
* An apprenticeship to some wise teacher who awakens a hidden power
* A quest to destroy/reclaim some magic foozle
* A king being corrupted by a wicked adviser
Instead, we get a fairly small and personal story about Laurence and his journey into a new career set against a more epic backdrop. There's also some interesting world building going on, with Novik's descriptions of how warfare changes when you have thirty ton dragons on the battlefield, each capable of carrying an entire squad of riflemen and bombardiers in addition to their own teeth, claws, and occasional breath weapon. I also liked that dragons are the only magical things to appear in the books, and even then they're treated largely as intelligent animals. It's fantastic enough to be exciting and fanciful, but different enough from the usual tripe to keep your attention.”
“I am SO sad that I have reached the most recently published of this series...now I have to WAIT! Seriously, if you haven't gotten to it, get to it now. Ask for it for Christmas or Hannukah or whatever you can ask for, it's that good.
kickinlibrarian wrote this review Monday, December 15 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, and Victory of Eagles.”
“For a series which I've truly enjoyed this one left me cold.
MiamiMark wrote this review Tuesday, October 14 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I can't put my finger on it but for the first time the actions and motivations of Laurence and Temeraire felt forced to me.
I'm hoping this is just a blip but it is two books in a row which have not been as good as the first three were.”
