erastes

I've been re-reading Victory of Eagles, after the disarster-dahling that was Tongues of Serpents (both by Naomi Novik) and I'd been trying to work out why ToS just wasn't working for me. But Victory of Eagles made it very very clear just in the first couple of chapters.

At the core of the book is the relationship between Temeraire (a massive Celestial dragon with a roar that can flay skin and disintegrate wood and stone) and his Captain, Laurence. Although Laurence is very remote and repressed—and I never found myself warming much to him—it's his interactions with Temeraire that brings him to life and more importantly Temeraire's feelings towards Laurence. It's a love affair—pure and simple and as such is hugely touching. There's a point in Victory of Eagles – two points actually where I am brought to tears by this relationship.

So Tongues of Serpents was almost a bucket of water in the face. It felt that Novik had lost that touch, that spark that had made so many of us fall in love with Temeraire—Laurence and he hardly spoke, the secondary characters were all but pushed to one side and the only dragons were a quite unpleasant bunch. We'd never really been in Laurence's head much, but in ToS we weren't in anyone's head at all, it seemed.

Another point I loved in the earlier books was the way the dragons are quite child-like in their behaviour.Some of them can be hugely intelligent, but they have a limited view. There's a scene in VoE where they bury some men (after Temeraire roundly told some dragons they couldn't eat the bodies). And it was matter of fact—they buried them (too deep, which is a nice comic touch) and then lowered their heads (because that was the thing to do) and then went off to scoff more cows. There's a large pinch of comedy in these books,and it was entirely missing in ToS.

So, I really hope it was an aberration, and that Novik hasn't lost her love of the series. I'll probably give the next one a go, and hope it's back to the quality of the rest.