Fantasy
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Victory of Eagles: Book Five of Temeraire
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education comes the fifth volume of the Temeraire series, as Will Laurence and Temeraire struggle to reunite and face the Napoleonic army on London's doorstep.
"A story about friendship that transcends not only time and class, but species."-NPR
For Britain, conditions are grim: Napoleon's resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon's prime objective is the occupation of London. Unfortunately, the dragon Temeraire has been removed from military service-and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason.
Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon's forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war. If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain's scattered resistance forces and take the fight to the enemy as never before, for king and country-and for their own liberty.
"A story about friendship that transcends not only time and class, but species."-NPR
For Britain, conditions are grim: Napoleon's resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon's prime objective is the occupation of London. Unfortunately, the dragon Temeraire has been removed from military service-and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason.
Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon's forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war. If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain's scattered resistance forces and take the fight to the enemy as never before, for king and country-and for their own liberty.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for His Majesty's Dragon and the Temeraire series
"These are beautifully written novels-not only fresh, original, and fast paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart. [The Temeraire series] is a terrific meld of two genres that I particularly love-fantasy and historical epic."-Peter Jackson
"A terrifically entertaining fantasy novel . . . Is it hard to imagine a cross between Susanna Clarke, of Norrell and Strange fame, and the late Patrick O'Brian? Not if you've read this wonderful, arresting novel."-Stephen King
"A splendid series . . . Not only is it a new way to utilize dragons, it's a very clever one and fits neatly into the historical niche this author has used."-Anne McCaffrey
"Just when you think you've seen every variation possible on the dragon story, along comes Naomi Novik. Her wonderful Temeraire is a dragon for the ages."-Terry Brooks
"Enthralling reading-it's like Jane Austen playing Dungeons & Dragons with Eragon's Christopher Paolini."-Time
"A completely authentic tale, brimming with all the detail and richness one looks for . . . as well as the impossible wonder of gilded fantasy."-Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice, Grade: A)
"Novik has accomplished something singular with her Temeraire series. . . . At its heart, it's a story about friendship that transcends not only time and class, but species."-NPR
"[Naomi Novik] is soaring on the wings of a dragon."-The New York Times
"A thrilling fantasy . . . All hail Naomi Novik."-The Washington Post Book World
"An amazing performance . . . [I] was immediately hooked by the writing, the research and the sheer courage of the whole enterprise."-Chicago Tribune
"Novik's influences run the gamut from Jane A...
"These are beautifully written novels-not only fresh, original, and fast paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart. [The Temeraire series] is a terrific meld of two genres that I particularly love-fantasy and historical epic."-Peter Jackson
"A terrifically entertaining fantasy novel . . . Is it hard to imagine a cross between Susanna Clarke, of Norrell and Strange fame, and the late Patrick O'Brian? Not if you've read this wonderful, arresting novel."-Stephen King
"A splendid series . . . Not only is it a new way to utilize dragons, it's a very clever one and fits neatly into the historical niche this author has used."-Anne McCaffrey
"Just when you think you've seen every variation possible on the dragon story, along comes Naomi Novik. Her wonderful Temeraire is a dragon for the ages."-Terry Brooks
"Enthralling reading-it's like Jane Austen playing Dungeons & Dragons with Eragon's Christopher Paolini."-Time
"A completely authentic tale, brimming with all the detail and richness one looks for . . . as well as the impossible wonder of gilded fantasy."-Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice, Grade: A)
"Novik has accomplished something singular with her Temeraire series. . . . At its heart, it's a story about friendship that transcends not only time and class, but species."-NPR
"[Naomi Novik] is soaring on the wings of a dragon."-The New York Times
"A thrilling fantasy . . . All hail Naomi Novik."-The Washington Post Book World
"An amazing performance . . . [I] was immediately hooked by the writing, the research and the sheer courage of the whole enterprise."-Chicago Tribune
"Novik's influences run the gamut from Jane A...
Readers Top Reviews
Russell PhillipsRoma
The earlier books in this series roughly follow historical events, albeit with dragons adding an extra dimension to the battles. There are some deviances from history, but they tend to be fairly minor. The blurb for this one, however, makes it clear that it deviates significantly from history, as Napoleon invades Britain. I wasn't sure that I would enjoy this one, since I liked the close matching of history, but
B. Dewhirst
I especially liked the treatment of Napoleon in this novel -- larger than life, the master of the grand gesture, etc. As with all books in the series, the story mixes historical military fiction elements (Sharp's rifles, master and commander, etc.), adventure novel elements, and fantasy tropes. And it does so really well. Ms. Novik clearly has a better understanding of this historical period than I do. One of her challenges (self-imposed, but righteous) was to include racial minorities, women, etc. in a meaningful way into a narrative set in a historical period where they might otherwise be invisible or absent. She does so with consummate skill, naturally, and in a manner which enhances her storytelling rather than drawing attention to their presence for the sake of being present. Great stuff, highly recommended.
Julie W. CapellTal
Fantasy series that go beyond three can easily get repetitive, but this fifth book about Temeraire and his human captain, Will Laurence, was interesting enough to keep me reading, if not quite as good as book 4. Temeraire and Laurence are separated for a good chunk of the book, so this book had a lot more focus on the dragons. Extending themes she has been exploring in the other novels in the series, the author really takes time here to show the dragons as intelligent, thinking beings in their own right. As the dragons discuss things amongst themselves, it is refreshing that they don't all agree, and also that they don't agree with the orders of their human "superiors." They make mistakes and learn from these mistakes (sometimes). Also, since Napoleon invades Britain early on in the action, this book features more military battles than in any one of the Temeraire novels since "His Majesty's Dragon." Describing skirmishes and battles well is not an easy thing, and of course Novik has her work cut out for her because not only is she postulating how Napoleon would have gone about occupying London, but also she must imagine how aerial battles between the French and the British would have been fought in the early 1800s. A worthy entry in the Temeraire canon.
Kindle
You've got to admire an author who lets her heroes suffer the consequences. There is something so inevitable about the decision that rocked Laurence's world in the end of the previous book - it was the natural consequence of his own honor and his dragon's character. And we can't but see the honor in this decision. But Novik allows all it's costs to play out unforgivingly, and there is sadness in it but also great power. Can't wait to see how it shapes events to come.
Cynthia H. Grossman
Laurence is jailed as a traitor, and Temeraire is banished to the breeding grounds. The ship upon which Laurence is jailed is attacked by the French and sunk. Laurence assists the surviving crew to row ashore where he is jailed in a house. Temeraire is bored in the breeding grounds. He has an altercation with one of the larger dragons who wants Temeraire's cave--Temeraire has enlarged the cave. Temeraire convinces the dragons to fight the French. Laurence returns to the Aerial Corps and is sent to find Temeraire. Laurence and Temeraire help the English defeat Bonaparte's invasion of England. As a reward, Laurence is sent to New South Wales as a convict; Temeraire accompanies him. A really good story.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
The breeding grounds were called Pen Y Fan, after the hard, jagged slash of the mountain at their heart, like an ax-blade, rimed with ice along its edge and rising barren over the moorlands: a cold, wet Welsh autumn already, coming on towards winter, and the other dragons sleepy and remote, uninterested in anything but their meals. There were a few hundred of them scattered throughout the grounds, mostly established in caves or on rocky ledges, wherever they could fit themselves; nothing of comfort or even order provided for them, except the feedings, and the mowed-bare strip of dirt around the borders, where torches were lit at night to mark the lines past which they might not go, with the town-lights glimmering in the distance, cheerful and forbidden.
Temeraire had hunted out and cleared a large cavern, on his arrival, to sleep in; but it would be damp, no matter what he did in the way of lining it with grass, or flapping his wings to move the air, which in any case did not suit his instinctive notions of dignity: much better to endure every unpleasantness with stoic patience, although that was not very satisfying when no-one would appreciate the effort. The other dragons certainly did not.
He was quite sure he and Laurence had done as they ought, in taking the cure to France, and no-one sensible could disagree; but just in case, Temeraire had steeled himself to meet with either disapproval or contempt, and he had worked out several very fine arguments in his defense. Most importantly, of course, it was just a cowardly, sneaking way of fighting: if the Government wished to beat Napoleon, they ought to fight him directly, and not make his dragons sick to try and make him easy to defeat; as if British dragons could not beat French dragons, without cheating. "And not only that," he added, "but it would not be only the French dragons who died: our friends from Prussia who are imprisoned in their breeding grounds would also have got sick, and perhaps it might even have gone so far as China; and that would be like stealing someone else's food, even when you are not hungry; or breaking their eggs."
He made this impressive speech to the wall of his cave, as practice: they had refused to give him his sand-table, and he had no-one of his crew to jot it down for him, either; he did not have Laurence, who would have helped him work out just what to say. So he repeated the arguments over to himself quietly, instead, so he should not forget them. And if these should not suffice to persuade, he thought, he might point out that after all, he had brought the cure back, in the first place: he and Laurence, with Maximus and Lily and the rest of their formation, and if anyone had a right to say where it should be shared out, they did: no-one would even have known of it if Temeraire had not contrived to be sick in Africa, where the mushrooms which cured it grew.
He might have saved the trouble. No-one accused him of anything, nor, as he had privately, a little wistfully, thought just barely possible, hailed him as a hero; because they did not care.
The older dragons, not feral but retired, were a little curious about the latest developments in the war, but only distantly, more inclined to tell over their own battles of earlier wars; and the rest had plenty of indignation over the recent epidemic, but only in a provincial way. They cared that they and their own fellows had sickened and died; they cared that the cure had taken so long to reach them; but it did not mean anything to them that dragons in France had also been ill, or that the disease would have spread, killing thousands, if Temeraire and Laurence had not taken over the cure; they also did not care that the Lords of the Admiralty had called it treason, and sentenced Laurence to die.
They had nothing to care for. They were fed, and there was enough for everyone. If the shelter was not pleasant, it was no worse than what even the retired dragons were used to, from the days of their active service; they had none of them even heard of a pavilion, or thought they might be made more comfortable than they were. No-one ever molested an egg; the grounds-keepers would take them away, but with infinite care, in waggons lined with straw, hot-water bottles and woolen blankets in the wintertime; and they would bring back reports until the eggs were hatched and no more of anyone's concern; so everyone knew the eggs were safe in their hands; safer, even, than keeping them oneself, so even the dragons who had not cared to take a captain themselves, at all, would often as not hand over their own eggs. They could not go flying very far, because they were fed at no set time but randomly, from day to day, so if one went away out of ear-shot of the bells, one was likely ...
The breeding grounds were called Pen Y Fan, after the hard, jagged slash of the mountain at their heart, like an ax-blade, rimed with ice along its edge and rising barren over the moorlands: a cold, wet Welsh autumn already, coming on towards winter, and the other dragons sleepy and remote, uninterested in anything but their meals. There were a few hundred of them scattered throughout the grounds, mostly established in caves or on rocky ledges, wherever they could fit themselves; nothing of comfort or even order provided for them, except the feedings, and the mowed-bare strip of dirt around the borders, where torches were lit at night to mark the lines past which they might not go, with the town-lights glimmering in the distance, cheerful and forbidden.
Temeraire had hunted out and cleared a large cavern, on his arrival, to sleep in; but it would be damp, no matter what he did in the way of lining it with grass, or flapping his wings to move the air, which in any case did not suit his instinctive notions of dignity: much better to endure every unpleasantness with stoic patience, although that was not very satisfying when no-one would appreciate the effort. The other dragons certainly did not.
He was quite sure he and Laurence had done as they ought, in taking the cure to France, and no-one sensible could disagree; but just in case, Temeraire had steeled himself to meet with either disapproval or contempt, and he had worked out several very fine arguments in his defense. Most importantly, of course, it was just a cowardly, sneaking way of fighting: if the Government wished to beat Napoleon, they ought to fight him directly, and not make his dragons sick to try and make him easy to defeat; as if British dragons could not beat French dragons, without cheating. "And not only that," he added, "but it would not be only the French dragons who died: our friends from Prussia who are imprisoned in their breeding grounds would also have got sick, and perhaps it might even have gone so far as China; and that would be like stealing someone else's food, even when you are not hungry; or breaking their eggs."
He made this impressive speech to the wall of his cave, as practice: they had refused to give him his sand-table, and he had no-one of his crew to jot it down for him, either; he did not have Laurence, who would have helped him work out just what to say. So he repeated the arguments over to himself quietly, instead, so he should not forget them. And if these should not suffice to persuade, he thought, he might point out that after all, he had brought the cure back, in the first place: he and Laurence, with Maximus and Lily and the rest of their formation, and if anyone had a right to say where it should be shared out, they did: no-one would even have known of it if Temeraire had not contrived to be sick in Africa, where the mushrooms which cured it grew.
He might have saved the trouble. No-one accused him of anything, nor, as he had privately, a little wistfully, thought just barely possible, hailed him as a hero; because they did not care.
The older dragons, not feral but retired, were a little curious about the latest developments in the war, but only distantly, more inclined to tell over their own battles of earlier wars; and the rest had plenty of indignation over the recent epidemic, but only in a provincial way. They cared that they and their own fellows had sickened and died; they cared that the cure had taken so long to reach them; but it did not mean anything to them that dragons in France had also been ill, or that the disease would have spread, killing thousands, if Temeraire and Laurence had not taken over the cure; they also did not care that the Lords of the Admiralty had called it treason, and sentenced Laurence to die.
They had nothing to care for. They were fed, and there was enough for everyone. If the shelter was not pleasant, it was no worse than what even the retired dragons were used to, from the days of their active service; they had none of them even heard of a pavilion, or thought they might be made more comfortable than they were. No-one ever molested an egg; the grounds-keepers would take them away, but with infinite care, in waggons lined with straw, hot-water bottles and woolen blankets in the wintertime; and they would bring back reports until the eggs were hatched and no more of anyone's concern; so everyone knew the eggs were safe in their hands; safer, even, than keeping them oneself, so even the dragons who had not cared to take a captain themselves, at all, would often as not hand over their own eggs. They could not go flying very far, because they were fed at no set time but randomly, from day to day, so if one went away out of ear-shot of the bells, one was likely ...
