Dragon Quill

This book has some really interesting dragons and dragon-related culture and nice travalogue bits. Laurence is increasingly annoying, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s questionable if you know history or think too long. If you didn’t mind him at all last book and don’t know much about British history, and probably nothing about African history either, you’ll probably like this one.

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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.

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Throne of Jade is even more easily summed up than the last one.

Did you thoroughly enjoy His Majesty’s Dragon? Then you’ll certainly enjoy this one.
Did you think it was okay, but not the best thing ever? You’ll probably still like it.
Do you have knowledge of how terrible this timeperiod actually was, and trouble turning off your brain? Probably should skip this.
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This month only, we’ll be spending our Saturdays on this, because Farla has to finish her gift fanfics before the deadline and that takes free time.

His Majesty’s Dragon is honestly a really easy book to describe.

Do you like historical British people being historical and British? Would you like it even more if there were dragons that don’t really affect that historical Britishness in any way and also the main character immediately converts to modern social standards whenever challenged rather than spend time prejudiced? Do you like stories about a lot of decent people with occasional bad ones everyone doesn’t like, and with everything working out neatly?

Then off you go! You’ll enjoy the book thoroughly.

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