No eggs await them, the Turks are fortifying their coasts, the British ambassador is dead, and his secretary missing (absconded with the funds?). After a trek across the barren deserts of central Asia, they find themselves in Istanbul, where they get bad news.

A fire aboard their ship necessitates their going overland. Three dragon eggs have been purchased from the Turks, and Laurence is to supervise their transport back to England. And besides, there’s a war to win first.īefore they can leave China, they receive new orders. But he finds himself forever having to lecture the enthusiastic dragon - who still has a stubborn way of not taking the status quo way of doing things seriously - about how slowly it takes people to adapt to and accept radical social reform. It’s a goal that Laurence, philosophically, agrees with. Temeraire is eager to return to England to launch reforms improving the status of dragons in English society, having seen how much more equality and respect they are given in China. Austria has surrendered completely, and to many it seems as if it’s only a matter of time before the Prussians and English fall.

Now on her own, Lien has flown west towards Europe, where the situation against Bonaparte is still dire. Again, without spoiling that book’s plot for you, it’s enough to know that, while Laurence and Temeraire’s mission in China has ended successfully, it left them with a blood enemy: Lien, the albino Celestial belonging to would-be usurper Yongxing. That and her dedication to storytelling craft - she visited Turkey to research parts of this volume - earn Novik the fantasy field’s crown for 2006.īlack Powder War picks up right as Throne of Jade ends. Indeed, what’s impressed me all throughout this series is the effort Novik has put into making each book’s story distinctive enough so that each stands on its own, while telling a consistent metastory when taken together. While Black Powder War may be less even in tone than the previous volumes, it’s no less satisfying for all that. Naomi Novik’s Temeraire saga continues in the same dazzling fashion in which it began.

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