Aug. 21st, 2010

lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
Throne of Jade (Temeraire, #2)Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


More alt Napoleonic War with Temeraire, the princessiest dragon that ever princessed, and the former naval captain he loves. Except now the Chinese want to take him back.



So . . . it turns out I don’t really like travelogs. And that takes away a lot of the interest in these books, because to me, a lot of this comes across as, “and then they sailed for a while, and then there was a storm, and then they had a fancy ship dinner, and then they sailed some more.” I mean, it’s all functional and it’s all doing work, it just doesn’t work for me.



The thing I do find interesting here, though, is how much these books don’t feel like animal companion fantasies. I mean, they don’t make me want to go reread Pern (shut up, it happens sometimes!) because they aren’t really getting at *gestures* that thing. If anything, these books actually slot more into the category of alien companion because of the way they focus on cross-species intelligences trying to understand each other.





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