Product Description
For Britain, conditions are grim: Napoleon’s resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon’s prime objective is the occupation of London. Unfortunately, the dragon Temeraire has been removed from military service–and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason. Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon’s forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war. If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain’s scattered resistance forces and take the fight to the enemy as never before–for king and country, and for their own liberty…. More >>
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The war rages on between England and France, but Napoleon’s forces have landed on English soil. At the same Will Laurence knows he did the right moral thing when he betrayed his country but also feels anguish for doing so (see EMPIRE OF IVORY) as he realizes Napoleon is bringing the atrocities of war to his people thanks in part to his seditious act. Already convicted of treason, he believes he deserves to die even if he still feels he acted ethically as slavery is an abomination.
Meanwhile his dragon Temeraire is bored and grieving as he assumes Will is dead and cannot stand the haggling hags who he shares the Pen Y Fan breeding pen with in Wales as a guest of the state. However, having enough with their jealousies and constant bickering, Temeraire quickly turns them into a dragon force led by him.
When the ship bringing prisoner Laurence to England for his execution goes down in the Channel, he survives. He is given a stay if he reunites with Temeraire to bring the Divine Wind against Bonaparte, who controls London.
The fifth tale in this alternate historical fantasy is a superb entry even as Will and Temeraire stay home unlike the world traveling of the previous novels (see THRONE OF JADE, HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON, and BLACK POWDER WAR). The story line is fast-paced from the onset while once gain insuring dragons at war seem genuine. However it is Laurence’s conflicting anguish between knowing he did right vs. betraying his country and Temeraire’s doubts as to how to help him move past his angst make this a strong military fantasy. Fans of the Naomi Novik saga will appreciate this excellent entry even if Temeraire’s miraculous conversion of the cackling dragons into a precise aerial military unit in Guinness Book of Records time seems implausible as the heroes debate my country right or wrong.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 5 / 5
Things that are good about this book is that it is better than the last in the series. Things that are bad is I just don’t think Novik gets the period. There are a great deal about the attention to detail of Napoleonic England, which of course if Georgian England that Novik doesn’t understand.
She seems to have an Austenian wish, or to make her series more Austen then the fantasy world based on the wars. Austen, despite having brothers who served in the Navy and became admirals there, kept the war far from her books.
You wouldn’t even know it was going on, even in Persuasion. So we go to the world of Temeraire and the entire war is turned upside down. Just not believable.
I could understand if all the battles that happened in the war, happened in her alternate universe with just the addition of dragons, but if dragons have been used for years, the course of the history of the planet would have changed prior to this war. There should not even have been a mad king George and Napoleon. And why do we need to see each? Wow.
Our hero is certainly someone who sees both of these, even with a sentence of death over his head. So what we are saying is that the story suffers from an absurdity in the plot. It also suffers from the use of language, where Novik tries hard to force her thoughts on how WWJD, or rather what would Jane write instead of do.
There are other great fallacies in the series, such as China being satisfied with its lot in life. China has never been satisfied with its lot in life. How nobles of the period respond to each other. There are a great many research pieces on the period, rather than thinking again WWJD.
Stay with this book to complete your reading of the series, but if you have not started the series, there are much better pictures of the Napoleonic Wars, even if they don’t have a sentient sometimes 2 year old, and sometimes teenage dragon.
Rating: 3 / 5
Sigh. After the rip-roaring ending to the last novel in the series, this one comes as a severe disappointment. (Minor spoilers follow.)
If you, like me, were expecting this book to start with some excruciating emotional torture (while watching Laurence being manhandled, locked up, and condemned to death for treason, etc. etc.), you’ll know you’re in trouble from the first paragraph. The most compelling part of what-happens-next was simply left out, and into this emotional vacuum strides a rather limp and depressed Laurence, along with a preoccupied Temeraire. Neither of them does anything compelling thereafter.
Yes, Laurence has reason to be depressed. He also has reason to be incandescently angry: his country wants to murder him for having prevented the near annihilation of a sentient species. I expected more in the way of spine from him, I suppose, not the total capitulation we get at the end of act two. His character has lost his spirit, the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire has settled into a rut, and I was so uninterested in the whole thing by the end of the book that I only finished reading it out of habit.
I hope the next one’s better.
Rating: 2 / 5
I was so excited about this book, I rushed out to buy it the day it came out. Sure, Empire of Ivory wasn’t the best in the series, but it was still fun and interesting and best of all, hard to put down so I was 100% sure this would be the same.
WRONG! I almost quit reading when every other page had Laurence feeling guilty over his part in saving the dragons of the world from germ warfare by the British Government.
Laurence moped around like a geisha with big feet feeling sorry for himself pretty much the entire book, ugh. I’m not sure if this can be fixed in the next book. I will give the next one a try, but frankly my hopes aren’t high.
Rating: 3 / 5
The seller was excelent, very reliable and fast, I ordered the book on a Wed. and got it on the following Mon.
Rating: 5 / 5