I’ll be picking up a copy of book #4 as soon as possible! :) Overall, I’m still very much in love with the dragons in this series, and am eager to find out where the story goes next. She always brings it back to them, highlighting the novelty and fun, and I’m certain that’s why I’m always engaged during sections that would be a detriment to any other story (lengthy travel scenes, lots of dialogue, and battle sequences – I should clarify that I love military strategy and combat in general, but after the thousandth and one battle scenes in all things fantasy, they start to sound the same… I lose interest unless it’s done with a unique twist). The military angle became a little more prominent in this book, but I didn’t mind it as much as I might have in most other circumstances because of one important thing: no matter what else is going on in the story, Novik never forgets to keep the dragons at the center of attention.

Mini Review: Another enjoyable installment in the Temeraire series. Very interesting and appealing to my idealist sensibilities. He gradually began to see the plight of dragons in Europe through Temeraire's eyes and is evolving more and more into the world's first human activist for dragon rights. The colorful and prickly Sultan and his court, the addition of dragon eggs to be protected and cared for, a vengeful Celestial bent not on killing Temeraire, but on stripping him of everything in his life he values were compelling story elements and very exciting to read about.Īlso, Lawrence's evolution of mind was the most interesting aspect of the book. That being said, there was much about this book I loved. The endless descriptions of troop movements and the crushing weight of poor conditions and lack of food on the troops were given too much attention and slowed down the pace of the book. The second part of the book, the Prussian campaign, dragged considerably. I'm sorry to say I think the author fell prey to her own fascination with the military history of the time and lost sight of what the reader's personal interests might be. This was another foray into the foreign culture and politics of the Napoleonic era, this time exploring first Istanbul and the Turkish people and then moving north to the crushing military defeat suffered by the Prussians at Napoleon's hands.

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik