Black Powder War
April 20th 2008 11:54
Black Powder War
The Third Temeraire Book
Naomi Novik
The Third Temeraire Book
Naomi Novik
The third book in htis delightful yet sombre at times series finds Temeraire and crew forced to travel overland from China. Surviving a perilous crossing of the Central Asian deserts they encounter a clan of feral dragons on their way to Istanbul lead by Arkady.
Only the so called "feral" dragons aren't that wild. Yes they do take what they regard as a "toll" of sheep and goats and pigs from travellers but they have culture, choral music, song, even a kind of theatrical story telling and their own language Durzagh!
Reaching Istanbul they find the revenge obsessed Lien has proceeded them on her way to meet Napoleon. Escaping Istanbul with two dragon eggs the crew end up in Germany and Poland in the middle of various battles famous in our world and just as deadly in this world in which the French are aided by dragons and now have Lien on their side who may not be an experienced general but live Temeraire can generate the Divine Wind and has read every single Chinese strategy book ever written (yes all of them The Art of War the 36 stratagems etc)
During this journey one of the dragon eggs hatches and Granby gets a dragonet, alas for him, he's now captain to Iskierka whose personality is best described as dragon meets spitfire meets spoilt aggressive girl!
Dragons may be sentient at birth and have language skills but Temeraire and Iskierka are very young emotionally bright gifted draconic children and Novik's writings makes their innocent observations about fighting and other human vices an added delight to read !
The crew ends up trapped in Danzig the Polish port and besieged but in the nick of time ... help arrives ...
ENJOY!
I have noticed that Borders and other major book chains are still using the paperback versions with the older cover designs but also using NEW HARDBACK versions!
Enjoy whether you buy a new copy or borrow the series from the library!
| 27 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
Subscribe to this blog
