Thursday, May 3, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: League of Dragons (Temeraire #9) by Naomi Novik





League of Dragons is the ninth and final book in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (So no, do not start the series with this book).  It is the culmination of all of the books so far, with events going back as far as book 4 (Empire of Ivory) being referenced repeatedly, as Napoleon attempts to make one final stand against the Allied forces of Europe, as both he and our main characters attempt to recruit dragons from all over the world to their side for the final battle (hence the title).

And after a slow start, League of Dragons easily becomes one of the best three books in the series, up there with the opener (His Majesty's Dragon) and midway point ("Victory of Eagles").  The characters are excellent, both new and old, with the dialogue and interactions between the same being frequently hilarious and amazing, and the story wraps up in a believable satisfying manner.  This book exemplifies pretty much all of what made the Temeraire series able to capture my attention for 9 books over a single year - and earn a Hugo Nod for Best Series last year to boot - it's really good.

Note: Again, I read this book as an audiobook, and the format remains an excellent way to get into the series,with the characters having nice distinct voices and the reader going at a nice pace.   


---------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Having defeated Napoleon in Russia, with large help from the rough Russian Winter, Laurence and Temeraire pursue Napoleon in an attempt - that they know is probably futile - to catch him and end the war before he can safely retreat back to Paris.  But matters of honor in Russia threaten to waylay Laurence and prevent them from fully preventing Napoleon from getting to safety.

And despite suffering such a great defeat, Napoleon is by no means done.  His latest scheme is elegant in its brilliance - he has devised a compact for Dragons across the world, dividing Europe and Africa into portions on a map for the dragons of various areas to take for themselves, with each dragon group and Napoleon pledging to defend these territorial rights against any others - such as the Allied forces.  If Temeraire and Laurence can't convince the dragons of the World that their best interests don't lie with Napoleon, the resulting reinforcements could turn the tide of the war once again.

And then there's Napoleon's latest personal scheme - the capture of Temeraire and Iskierka's egg, for purposes unknown....can it be saved from his clutches?  And what is likely to hatch from such an unusual pairing?
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League of Dragons starts slow - the first part of the book - divided for the first time into four parts instead of three - deals with matters left over from Napoleon's campaign in Russia, and devolves into a small scale personal matter of honor between Laurence and an East-European noble, which seems kind of pointless on the grand scale of things given where we are in the series.  Still, the writing of even this situation is excellent - with good amounts of humor that cracked me up amongst the seriousness, and the conflict rings true to the characters, so it does work, even if it does feel out of place here.  So it's not like this segment is bad, it just starts the book off on a weird foot.

Still, after that part, the remainder of the book is terrific, to the point where, as I said before the jump, we wind up with a book that rivals Victory of Eagles for the best in this excellent series.  The book finally deals with my recurring complaint throughout that Napoleon seems like the good guy of the series...with large help from the return of one of my favorite characters in the series, Perscitia, the pacifist dragon!  She's become a Member of Parliament in her four book absence, and wow is she once again terrific in her short time in this book.  I'm not going to spoil how the book makes this case against Napoleon, because it's quite clever, but it does finally answer my complaint to an extent that Napoleon would be a more just winner of the war than the Allied Powers.

As you might've guessed from that last paragraph, we have a lot of returning characters in this book (although oddly, the main battle group of Lily, Maximum and co., along with Kulingile, do not return in this book from their departure in the prior book), and it's really great to see them all again.  This is not to say there aren't some new characters - human and dragon - even now, and the new additions, particularly one who's a spoiler, tend to be fascinating in personalities and characters.

And of course, our leading protagonists remain excellent, with both Laurence and Temeraire having great moments to shine.  At one point we regain our dream team of Laurence, Temeraire, Granby, Iskierka, and Tharkay, which made me incredibly happy - again if you're this far into the series, you probably agree with me on this - but man would I kill for a Tharkay spin-off series about him spying across Europe.  It takes a lot of clever decision making by both our heroes in order for them to get an upper hand on Napoleon, and the brilliance they each come up with both together and individually made me smile really really often.

It's not really a spoiler to tell you that this book does end with Napoleon finally being defeated, but the book manufactures this defeat in a way that is interesting and surprising, and yet at the same time makes total sense.  If there's one minor complaint about the book's ending, it's that the ending denies us any grand showdown between Temeraire and Lien - they basically don't have a final showdown at all with Lien's role in this book being rather small, which seems weird given her earlier importance in the series.   It's kind of an anticlimax, but the rest of the ending fits so well that it all fits perfectly.

In short, League of Dragons concludes the Temeraire series, which is an excellently fun series all the way around, on a high note, making me really glad I took the time over this past year to devour it all.  Recommended.
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