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A review by bluejayreads
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik
3.0
I enjoyed *His Majesty's Dragon* more than I expected to. I am not much for historical fiction, especially military historical fiction, even if it does have dragons, and I was delighted by how much I enjoyed the relationship between proper gentleman William Lawrence and smart but young dragon Temeraire. I had pretty high hopes for the second book.
*Throne of Jade*, though, was ... rough.
I love the ideas at play. It's fascinating to see how dragons - the massive variety, large enough to be ridden by a whole crew of men - fit into society in the early 1800s. But *Throne of Jade* is weirdly plotted and weirdly paced. Admittedly, much of the story is spent on a long sea voyage and there are only so many ways to make a long sea voyage interesting. But someone keeps trying to assassinate Lawrence, and besides a little conjecture, nobody really bothers to try and figure out who or why. There is someone powerful trying to kill him, there are four different attempts (several of which result in injury), and it's just kinda ... ignored? And then that whole attempted assassination plot thread is resolved too easily and entirely by accident - the culprit is revealed unintentionally while the characters are working on something else entirely.
The pacing here is so weird that I did not recognize the climax was even the climax. Part of that could be because there isn't really one overarching plot in this book. There's a bunch of smaller plots that overlap in parts, but nothing that could be called The Plot, and so no main thing to be finally resolved in a climactic scene. Because of that, it also seems much shorter than it is. There are a lot of words, but it says little and not much happens.
This book overall had less of what I really loved about the first one. There was less action (actually next to no action), and less of the Lawrence/Temeraire dynamic that I loved so much. There was less Temeraire in general, actually, and less of him being awesome and exceptional. (China was a really cool setting, but it took away much of Temeraire's awesomeness since Celestial dragons are rare but not unknown in China.) This book was more about Lawrence - his fears, insecurities, and jealousies. It made for an okay story, but it set him and Temeraire at odds sometimes when I really loved seeing them work as a team.
I am really not sure what *Throne of Jade* is supposed to be, and it feels like the book itself isn't sure either. It seems like in the next book things will be pretty much back to normal, so I'm not even sure what the point of this was - unless the events at the end of this will come back and be important later in the series. Overall, I'm going to chalk this up to growing pains. The Temeraire series are Naomi's first books, and sequels are hard. I'm going to keep reading and I expect book three will be better.
*Throne of Jade*, though, was ... rough.
I love the ideas at play. It's fascinating to see how dragons - the massive variety, large enough to be ridden by a whole crew of men - fit into society in the early 1800s. But *Throne of Jade* is weirdly plotted and weirdly paced. Admittedly, much of the story is spent on a long sea voyage and there are only so many ways to make a long sea voyage interesting. But someone keeps trying to assassinate Lawrence, and besides a little conjecture, nobody really bothers to try and figure out who or why. There is someone powerful trying to kill him, there are four different attempts (several of which result in injury), and it's just kinda ... ignored? And then that whole attempted assassination plot thread is resolved too easily and entirely by accident - the culprit is revealed unintentionally while the characters are working on something else entirely.
The pacing here is so weird that I did not recognize the climax was even the climax. Part of that could be because there isn't really one overarching plot in this book. There's a bunch of smaller plots that overlap in parts, but nothing that could be called The Plot, and so no main thing to be finally resolved in a climactic scene. Because of that, it also seems much shorter than it is. There are a lot of words, but it says little and not much happens.
This book overall had less of what I really loved about the first one. There was less action (actually next to no action), and less of the Lawrence/Temeraire dynamic that I loved so much. There was less Temeraire in general, actually, and less of him being awesome and exceptional. (China was a really cool setting, but it took away much of Temeraire's awesomeness since Celestial dragons are rare but not unknown in China.) This book was more about Lawrence - his fears, insecurities, and jealousies. It made for an okay story, but it set him and Temeraire at odds sometimes when I really loved seeing them work as a team.
I am really not sure what *Throne of Jade* is supposed to be, and it feels like the book itself isn't sure either. It seems like in the next book things will be pretty much back to normal, so I'm not even sure what the point of this was - unless the events at the end of this will come back and be important later in the series. Overall, I'm going to chalk this up to growing pains. The Temeraire series are Naomi's first books, and sequels are hard. I'm going to keep reading and I expect book three will be better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Xenophobia, and War
Minor: Misogyny and Sexism
Animal injury