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bluejayreads's review
3.75
I am generally not much for historical fiction, war books, or books that are heavy on politics, and this series is all three. But it also has dragons (and is written by the spectacular Naomi Novik), which I think is why I have stuck with it so far. But I really struggled with this one.
At the end of book two, it seemed like everything was pretty much back to normal. So I naturally assumed the whole book was moderately entertaining but irrelevant to the overall series. I was wrong. First of all, the entirety of this book is taken up with the journey back to England and the mission they did along the way. I didn’t read the back cover and didn’t realize that until the book started and Lawrence and Temeraire were still in China. And second, the experience in China seems to have shifted the entire main plot of the series. I’ll come back to this in a moment.
For the most part, this book was enjoyable. There was plenty of action and adventure and occasional shenanigans. It was fun seeing other parts of a world with dragons, including Istanbul, some other military regiments (Austrian and Prussian if I remember correctly), and some feral dragons. However, some of the challenges Temeraire and company faced felt overly contrived, especially in the beginning. And Black Powder War is so far the heaviest on the war and related politics. I’ll be honest, it got kinda dull in the middle.
Even though this book had a lot more about the war, it feels like the whole focus of the series is changing. Seeing how dragons are treated in China versus England really affected Temeraire, and his driving goal is now dragon equality. He spent most of this book trying to get Lawrence on board. It seems likely to me that this goal will become a driving force, if not the main plot, of later books. And I’m not really sure how I feel about this new direction.
Ultimately, I think I’m going to wait until Lawrence and Temeraire get back to England before I make judgements. This book didn’t have much of the relationship between Lawrence and Temeraire that I loved or any of the fun details of the aerial corps, but they did spend a remarkable amount of time trying to avoid getting killed, so it’s forgivable. I may not be much for historical fiction or war books, but I do love this idea. Considering how awesome so many of the concepts are and how much I have adored Naomi Novik’s other works, I’m disappointed to find that though I like this series, I don’t love it. I’m going to take it one book at a time and see how it goes. Maybe future books will surprise me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and War
Moderate: Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Misogyny, Racism, and Slavery