Thursday, September 28, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Empire of Ivory (Temeraire #4) by Naomi Novik



Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is probably the series I am the most confused about as compared to any other book series I've read in a long time.  It's a series where for multiple books I've found myself sort of skimming through parts - parts that aren't meant to be busywork but major parts of the book - in sort of a lack of interest.  On the other hand, it's a series where I've ended every book really wanting to know more and I find myself immediately reserving the next book from the library.

Empire of Ivory is no different.  This is the fourth Temeraire book, and in theory you could start with this book, but I really wouldn't recommend it, as it follows up pretty straight on from the end of Black Powder War (just like Black Powder War followed straight on from Throne of Jade).  If you liked Books 1-3 of this series, you'll enjoy this one as well.  If not, well, obviously you won't find much difference here.  I will say this one does for the first time since Book 1 really involve inter-dragon relations, which is a nice change.

More after the Jump:



------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
After Black Powder War, Temeraire and Captain Laurence finally make their way back to Britain....but what they find there is not heartening - a mysterious deadly disease has spread to all of the British Dragons, resulting in their inability to help England's Prussian allies.  Should the French discover this fact, an invasion of Britain will surely be imminent.

But a ray of hope seems to come when it's discovered that Temeraire has somehow acquired an immunity to the disease.  Seeking to figure out what could be the cause of this immunity, Temeraire and several of his fellow dragons depart again on the dragon carrier that took them to China, this time bound for Africa, to find out what Temeraire consumed that would make him acquire the immunity.  But what they will find there is a culture of peoples and dragons who do not care for the activities of White British peoples and may not be willing to share their knowledge peacefully.

And that's to say nothing of the actions of Temeraire and Laurence's own allies, who may force the pair to make a potentially fatal choice.....
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The best part of Empire of Ivory is that for the first time since the first book in the series, we have Temeraire really interacting with other dragons.  Some of the dialogue/interactions between them (Dragons debating philosophy or having problems with what humans regard as correct mathematical theorems are great) add quite a bit and are not to be missed.  Alas, by the midpoint of the book, we really lose this element of the plot.

Still, Temeraire and Laurence remain great together and the conflicts they face in this book are definitely new to the series, so it never really feels like the book is retreading the same grounds, even when the duo appears headed on a repeat of the voyage they made in the 2nd book.  And the finale of this book is a definite surprise - totally in-character mind you, but not where I could've expected this book to go.  It definitely left me looking for more, which naturally means I've reserved the fifth book (Victory of Eagles) from my library.

Again, this isn't a perfect book - I kind of glossed over the 60 to 80 percent portion of the book, as uninteresting - and that's the part where the titular Empire of Ivory takes place!  I think a large part of it is that well, we've already been introduced to several human-dragon cultures at this point, so another one didn't really inspire me, and there aren't any particularly interesting characters in this area.  And well, this part of the book suffers from the reader knowing that the main characters are going to get out of their situation somehow, so I kind of felt like I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Moreover, there's a personal conflict that takes place in this book that just felt....awkward - namely, the issue of marriage for female captains of Dragons with other male officers/individuals.  As a book that takes place in an alternate Napoleonic era, it makes sense for our main character to have a conflict over whether it's right for couples to be having sex/children without marriage, but it just still felt awkward to me and not really something I was interested in.  Others will probably disagree I guess.

Finally, this book once again has the potential issue in that well, It's hard to see whether our heroes are truly on the "good" side, and the book series doesn't seem to be turning in that direction.  We're four books in, three of which have involved conflicts between Napoleon and the rest of Europe, and well....we haven't found any reason to really see Napoleon as a bad guy, while our in close look at the British government certainly makes them out to be at best a snobbish bureaucracy!  I think the book kind of realizes this at the end and I hope the series will try to resolve this matter, because it feels weird to be rooting for characters that are kind of on the worse side of a war without the book realizing it.

Anyhow, for the above reasons, this is another solid Temeraire novel, even if it's nothing spectacular.  If you liked the past books, you'll enjoy this one.
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