After the way the last book ended of course I jumped into the next one straight away 😅
It was an interesting (if depressing) read in a number of ways. Firstly this is the first real conflict between Laurence and Temeraire. Although maybe conflict is not quite the right term. More, Temeraire not understanding the consequences of their actions on not just Laurence but the people around them. Poor Ferris…I hope he doesn’t come back as an antagonist later on ☹️ And Temeraire being snubbed by Martin his former crewman. It was kind of funny though how the dragons reacted to Laurence losing his capital. Perhaps the thing that really drove home how serious the situation was for Laurence ahaha… Goes to show just how different human and dragon priorities are.
The breeding ground dragons took this even further with the differing priorities within dragonkind too. Like how Temeraire felt it wasn’t right for Minnow to kidnap a French dragon’s captain, as if boarding and capturing the captain via the usual method was really any different. And it was good to see all the types of dragons who spurned being in harness, for whatever their various reasons were. Pertiscia in particular was really interesting in that she was happy to be a tactician but didn’t want to be on the battleground.
Temeraire as a commander was pretty fun too. The army really needs to talk to dragons more, so many instances where dragons questioned decisions or statements made which turned out to be major intel. Given dragons aren’t likely to be able to be trained to understand what is of importance to military intelligence, the aviators at least should be starting to involve their dragons in their decision making so they can make their most of their observational skills.
Iskierka also finally got her moment where her selfish actions landed Granby in big trouble. Once again Tharkay with the sneaking mission. It was a little contrived how Edith got involved but a tragic but heroic end for her husband. I forgive the coincidence because it led into revelations on how one of the noblewomen acted bravely as a spy during occupation. It was very subtly done, I almost missed it, but made the connection because I was super curious about who was keeping an eye out on Edith on Laurence/Jane’s request.
This was definitely Laurence’s emo book. Fair enough I say, he did pretty much give up everything to support Temeraire’s decision in the previous book. Tharkay once again proving he is the best character in the series. His blunt statement about Laurence being a traitor as well as demanding to know what Laurence was doing when hunting down the French were such good displays of tough love haha. The fact that he also decided to go to Australia at the end made me so happy. And also weirdly endearing that Laurence can’t get a read on Tharkay and sort of coming to the conclusion that ‘he must at least not despise me’ was amusing.
Yeah, since I started accidentally reading the blurb for book 6 I knew they were going to be banished but didn’t make the connection about where too. Of course Australia, that makes so much sense. Iskierka finally deciding she’d had enough of following orders and tagging along too was also amazing. Poor Granby 😂 Also very glad Roland, Demane and Siphos are still around too and that Riley is on goodish terms with Laurence again.
Categories: Book Reviews
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