I found Black Powder to be better than the previous Temeraire book, Throne of Jade, setting-wise. This time, they have to travel back across the land, and it’s some good travelogue stuff. The description of the route they have to take is actually quite creepy, with a bit about how the oases are disappearing, the water has dried up, and the cities are dying. The dragons are better developed as well, with Temeraire finally getting a chance to meet some wild ones.

The human aspect is not so good, though.

Racially, well, for a chunk of the book they’re in Arab territory and there’s a lot about how decadent and fat things are. And, uh, the guy who’s of mixed race is constantly suspected by main character. Then the guy confesses he deliberately is kind of a dick because he knows people won’t trust him due to his race and so he prefers to give them reason, and instead of Laurence saying “Oh god, that’s just what I was doing!” he dresses the guy down about how HE never did that, and the guy submissively admits that yes, Laurence is so great and really he was the one being prejudiced by unfairly assuming the worst of Laurence due to past experiences.

Also, Laurence is extremely flat, and it’s starting to show. He never does anything wrong. There’s a bit where the British negotiated a deal for three dragon eggs, and then the other country killed the guy doing the deal, stole the money, and plans to make nice with their enemy. Laurence therefore breaks into where they’re keeping the eggs, finding more than a dozen eggs, any one of which would be of enormous value to their dragon-impoverished country, and only takes the three eggs they bargained for. Not even a different better three eggs, specifically the three agreed on.

What makes this particularly disappointing is that one of the eggs is accidentally killed during the escape, in part because of the rush of trying to place all three eggs on his dragon. If he’d taken even one extra egg, then you could say the reason all the eggs weren’t secured properly is because of the addition, or say that it’s good he took the extra egg because that way they still have three. You could have opinions on if what he did was right or wrong. It would say something about his character that he made this decision. Instead, he’s sticking with something no one could argue about, of stealing something already bought from a murderous backstabbing traitor nation, and by complete chance something goes wrong, and they’re all sad about it and then move on.

The albino dragon from last book reappears throughout this. I quite like her, but she’s basically here to be evil at Temeraire. Blaming him for her companion’s death, she’s decided to spend her time destroying all he cares for, starting with the country he’s part of. There’s also a bonus story with her found in the collected edition of these first three stories that I loved.