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lunasarielI spent the weekend down at my grandparents' (well, grandmother's and step-grandfather's) place in L.A. for an early Thanksgiving. The entirety of both sides of my extended family live within a few dozen miles of each other in the hills, and my immediate family, up here in NorCal, is the only exception. We've been trying to make more frequent visits down south, especially since none of my grandparents are getting any younger and I have several cousins about to head off to their various colleges, and this has been a moderate success. TBH, though, I really have made more of an effort to keep up with my mom's side than my dad's. Don't get me wrong; my dad's side aren't bad people, far from it! It's just that making the rounds with them can feel a little too much like a chore, when I have so much more in common with my mom's side, and I enjoy their company so much more. So this time, it was a mom's-side-only trip. (This is also at least partially because I have, like, a zillion aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins on my dad's side, so visiting all of them would take waaaay longer than the weekend I had, and omitting any branch of the Clan, even unintentionally, would have consequences).
While we were down South officially for an early Thanksgiving (because packing five people into my little Hyundai and driving eight hours in Thanksgiving traffic? I don't think so), we were also there, unofficially, to hold a kind of wake for Xena, my grandma's dog, who died recently. A bit of background: pets are srs bznz in the McLaughlin/Powell/Weber/La Follette world. I don't think any of us have ever gone more than three or four years without a pet, dogs being favorite. A definite part of any family gathering is passing around pictures of pets, telling stories about pets, and keeping up with news of each others' pets, the same way some people do with grandchildren.
My grandma was a professor of philosophy at Pierce College for about a thousand years, and one day, when she was late to class, she found a little grey-and-black puppy that someone had dumped outside her class. Instead of taking it to the pound (probably to be euthanized), as was usual with strays found on campus, she took the puppy home and called her Xena after the Warrior Princess. Almost from day one, Xena was *trouble*. I literally lost track of how many socks, pairs of stockings, bottles of pills, brillo pads, and other miscellaneous stuff (including most of a pair of pajamas of mine) that she ate. Every time, Granny would take her to the vet and pay for increasingly expensive operations to get the object du jour removed from whatever portion of her digestive tract it had gotten lodged in this time. Things came to a head when my grandma tripped over Xena (who, in addition to being a canine garbage disposal, moonlighted as a canine perpetual motion machine) and broke her (my grandma's) leg. After that, Granny got fed up and swore that this was absolutely the last time she would bail Xena out of intestinal trouble.
But then, a few years ago, my grandma had a stroke, and Xena chanced pretty much overnight. She still ate things that she probably oughtn't on occasion, but overall, it seemed as though she had decided to be a Good Dog. She escorted Granny everywhere, even to physical therapy. When Granny got too frustrated with being in a wheelchair, Xena would pull this trick of hers where she would lay her head in your lap, look up at you with Melting Brown Eyes™, and just generally emanate Rays o' Adorableness and Doggy Love at near-toxic levels, which always cheered Granny up. Pet therapy is gaining more and more credibility in rehabilitating stroke victims, and Granny and Xena were a perfect example of that.
But Xena was getting on in years, and she passed away in her sleep about a week ago. We held a kind of mini-wake where the family got together with Xena's ashes and all said a few words about her before Thanksgiving dinner, while we were waiting for the turkey to cool enough to eat. It was sweet, but it reminded me that my own pets won't be around forever, and neither will Granny, so it was a nice balance of happy and sad.
The wake-esque gathering didn't damper our preemptive Thanksgiving, though. My mom and aunt did most of the cooking, although my uncle provided the green bean casserole, I assisted with various menial tasks, and Granny presided overall while my grandad and step-grandad watched football (where, apparently, UCLA beat Colorado, but Cal lost to Stanford, both with much fanfare). It was kind of weird, in that all of us, to one degree or another, are feminists. Not a one of us (I hope) would ever dream of demanding that the wimminfolk stay in the kitchen and make sammiches while the men go out and do a lot of manly sitting around on their asses hollering about that the food is taking too long. And yet, I found that we ended up dividing more or less neatly along gender lines. *shrug* It was an interesting observation.
The latest big update for the iPhone OS included the ability to turn one's iPhone into a personal hotspot. Since my grandparents' house is pretty much the only place that I know of that is almost completely Internet-less, I was fully planning on taking this snazzy new feature out for a test drive, but I ended up plowing through Temeraire instead. XD
Empire of Ivory went fairly quickly. I feel like its significance to the overarching plot was to re-introduce the British dragons and captains (especially Lily's formation) so that we could get nice and worried about them for Victory of Eagles. And I mean that in the best way possible: after spending two books getting introduced to a dozen new characters and locations, with only sporadic mention made of the home team (mostly in the form of Temeraire going "I wish Maximus and Lily were here to see all this cool stuff!" and "Wait till I tell Maximus and Lily what I did!"), it was really nice to get reacquainted with the gang. I think Maximus is my favorite sub-main dragon character; he's such a big doof! I really can't think of any better way to say it. He reminds me a lot of Jack Aubrey in his straightforwardness, fierce loyalty to his friends (and willing to beat the crap out of anyone who looks sideways at said friends), and...lack of subtlety, shall we say, in a way that always makes me smile. Lily and Harcourt are my favorite dragon-and-captain pair (aside from the main characters, possibly), though, especially after Harcourt has her "egg". I was honestly afraid for either Maximus or Lily, since it isn't unknown for an author to kill off one of the main character's closest friends to highlight the direness of a particular situation, but thankfully, everyone got out more or less unscathed.
Speaking of Maximus and Lily, I'm getting more and more of a Harry Potter-esque trio of power sense from them. It maps pretty well: Temeraire = Harry (the Special Snowflake hero with unusual ideas), Maximus = Ron (the steadfast, ginger BFF who makes up in loyalty what he lacks in finesse), and Lily = Hermione (tends towards jealousy, constantly guiding her friends and at least trying to keep them out of trouble). The three are always mentioned together, and the pact they made to protect each others' captains occasionally sounded a bit like Ron and Hermione refusing to let Harry go after the Horcruxes alone.
As for the other captains and their dragons, I'm having a bit more trouble remembering them, among the cast of thousands. We're constantly told that Chenery's defining attribute is his utter and complete lack of decorum, but really, he didn't seem all that worse than any of the other aviators, who were almost all raised cloistered away from so-called polite society. Sutton and Messoria were likewise defined by their age and experience, but outside of battle, this didn't manifest itself all that often, although Sutton did occasionally have a certain world-weary tone that I kinda liked. Little and Immortalis seemed to both be defined by their quietness, which naturally doesn't lend itself to a lot of memorable character moments for them, although they lent some ballast to the cast, which otherwise occasionally tended towards drama. Warren was a bit more active in his role as support guy, which made a nice (and occasionally rather funny) contrast to Nitidus. I dunno, there's just something about this huge dragon being such a nervous nelly...
Empire of Ivory was very much centered around the whole "historical civil rights movements being linked to various fictional groups' struggles for equal rights/independence/not getting killed" thing that I mentioned a little while ago. I liked Erasmus and his wife, and the twist of Erasmus having been born into a tribe of notorious slavers was an interesting twist. I loved the garden party-type-thing that Laurence and Temeraire attended in London, for some of Temeraire's speeches about liberty and equal rights and whatnot as much as for Temeraire getting exasperated with the British gentry for not being able to do simple geometry and for digging a bit deeper into Nelson's character. The only experience I'd had with him in fiction before this was in the ever-present Aubreyad, where Aubrey, who has once served with Nelson and was a devoted Naval captain and patriot, was always all "OMG NELSON YAY!!! :D" while Maturin, a skeptic, civilian, and occasional revolutionary, was (more quietly) more frequently along the lines of "OMG NELSON STFU!!! XP" But here, we got to see him in the flesh, which leads to a much more nuanced and three-dimensional character. So we ended up with a mixed bag: he was a genuine genius and not completely unreasonable, but there was that whole slavery issue... In addition, we saw him through the eyes of Laurence, who practically hero-worshiped him, but we got more than enough of Temeraire's commentary to see that he didn't impress everyone.
When the formation reached Africa and got embroiled in local politics, we really got to see how Naomi Novik had done her homework, and re-written the world to what it would realistically look like if everyone had dragons. Again, Napoleon-era history isn't my strong suit, but from what I understand, most of the African tribes lost because they had spears and oxhide shields against European muskets and cannons, and introducing a lot of big honkin' dragons would have definitely leveled the playing field. I liked the look we got at a unified African kingdom (relatively) uninterrupted by slavery and colonialism. The thing with the elephants was a good example of this: it makes logical and historical sense, and I could actually see it working. The incorporation of dragons into their religion was also plausible, and provided yet another level of contrast with the European attitude that dragons are just big, dumb, flying lizards. A side note to this: I loved that the postscript, as well as the one to Tongues of Serpents, which I'm just about to begin, were written by a grown-up Sipho.
The Dragon-Plague-as-biological-warfare bit was, among other things, an interesting reversal for Nelson. Earlier on, we saw him as a surprisingly, almost surreally, reasonable authority figure among the various degrees of incompetence and assholery to be found in the Admirality, and by no means unwilling to listen to, and seriously consider, Temeraire's argument. But then, when we saw that he had agreed to basically nuke the dragons of most of Europe, my esteem of him dropped quite a bit, to put it mildly. I know he tried to justify it as "the necessities of war" and all that, but it did temper my sadness at his later heroic death.
One thing I really started to notice in EoI was that the various romances really didn't affect the plot that much. The subplot in BPW where Tharkay was suddenly in love with some girl we saw only once and was never mentioned again seemed to appear and disappear without much effect, to my annoyance. Harcourt getting pregnant by, and subsequently marrying, Riley, I liked mostly for its comedic potential, although it'll be interesting to see how the whole thing affects Riley's relationship with Laurence, now that they're stuck together on a ship for seven months, possibly with Riley's baby son in tow. Laurence's most important relationship is obviously with Temeraire, so his aborted quasi-engagement to Edith was obviously doomed, and pretty much only comes into play when he regrets having put her in an uncomfortable situation (more on this in a bit). His affair (should it be called an affair, when neither of them are married to anyone else?) with Jane is probably the most important romantic relationship in the canon, and even that feels more like stress relief/friends with benefits, at least on Jane's side. I do continue to love all the moments when Laurence is all "omg this is improper! Gasp! Shock! Horror!" and Jane is just quietly (or occasionally not so quietly) amused until he figures out that nobody really cares, although I did think that bit where Laurence proposes was kinda bittersweet. As far as my own preferred pairings, if any, go, I'm reserving judgment until I finish the series in its entirety.
Victory of Eagles was definitely a very different kind of book than the previous few have been. Pretty much from ToJ onward, they've all been primarily about going to some far-off, exotic location and having cool adventures, and VoE couldn't be more different. Naomi Novik did a great job of getting across the grinding despair of war, alleviated occasionally by thrillin' heroics, as everybody's favorite trained ape (without the training) would say. Laurence's utter despair during the guerrilla missions were genuinely alarming, as it became increasingly obvious that he had just flat-out given up on everything, up to and including his all-important honor. This made an interesting contrast to the end of EoI/beginning of VoE where he was literally just sitting around waiting until the Admirality sorted out how to kill him without sending Temeraire on a rampage. He was chained up, universally reviled, and separated from his dragon, but he was in a relatively good place, mentally speaking. He knew that he had done the right thing, and would take his lumps for it like a man. On the other hand, the guerrilla missions should have been everything that he loved: he was reunited with Temeraire, he was basically winning the war single-handedly, and their efforts led to the dragons finally getting some basic civil rights. In addition, the whole Robin Hood-esque "steal from the big bad army to feed the plucky, supportive poor" folk hero thing is a trope that I normally love. Given all this, seeing how Laurence had basically shut down and was sinking fast under the sheer odiousness of what he had to do was truly scary.
One of the themes of VoE seemed to be good people getting punished for doing good things: Laurence is bankrupted for freeing slaves, sentenced to death for saving innocent dragons, and yelled at any time he tries to help anyone, Tharkay gets metaphorically (and probably literally) spat on for...existing, basically, for having the audacity to be simultaneously smart, brave, and not white, Granby gets kidnapped while trying to control his bratty dragon, and poor Woolvey gets shot while trying to help with a mission way, way out of his league, not to mention all the soldiers and dragons who, as it's constantly remarked, died just because they were there.
Speaking of Woolvey, the "Batman and Robin Laurence and Tharkay to the rescue!" section was probably my favorite, for a lot of reasons. It was a nice surprise to see Edith again, especially since she was living a nice, happy, as-normal-as-can-be-expected-under-the-circumstances life, which gave Laurence an opportunity for reflection (which, I'm glad to see, Naomi Novik avoided devolving into melodrama or wangst). Poor silly Woolvey also surprised me, in his sudden death as well as in his wholly unexpected courage and resourcefulness. He also gave Laurence another outsider's look at himself and his life. It seems that Laurence seeing himself as Woolvey did, literally red-handed from having just killed three unarmed, sleeping men for their silence and their coats, was a bit of a wake-up call, and prevented his slide into despair at least until he was sent out raiding. It was also great to see some more of Tharkay, who, as the only character without a directly personal stake in the outcome of the war, spent a lot of VoE providing a sorely-needed breath of fresh air and, if not exactly levity, then an alternative to utter pessimism. In addition, we got a lovely little nod to the Aubreyad in the form of Janus, who mentioned "a surgeon we shipped in the Sophie, a learned bloke, saying that I saw both ways like some old Roman cut-up by that name." Ohai, Stephen! I don't remember a Janus or a Darby in the Sophie, but we didn't exactly get to know the entire crew all that well.
Finally, pretty much my favorite part of the rescue sequence was the fact that it was Granby. Again. It's becoming almost tragicomic, how every single time something time something bad can happen, it does, and every time it does, it happens to poor Granby. He's been shot, stabbed, knocked off midair, clubbed over the head more than once, saddled with a decidedly bloody-minded dragon, and now has the dubious honor of being the one and only British aviator (that we know of) to be captured during Napoleon's invasion. A few indicators that he's started to drink heavily implies that he's just as aware of his status as the universe's punching bag as I am, and he's about as happy with it as you'd expect. Granby's relationship with Iskierka is unusual in that it's the only pairing I can think of where dragon and captain are actually unhappy with one another. Sure, Maximus and Berkley may grumble and swear at one another, but it's made very clear that they're still very affectionate, that the ribbing is all in fun, and that they function as a team, both in and out of battle. I've said before that Granby is an interesting character on a meta-level, and a new aspect of that is that he exemplifies a much less fluffy view of the dragon-captain relationship. Naomi Novik has made it very clear that there's no soul-bonding magic or other nonsense, as I'm sure she'd put it, going on, that dragons just have a knack for seeking out captains that they'll work well with. As we've seen with Laurence and Temeraire, they're not soulmates or psychically linked or anything; they're just really good friends who immensely like and trust one another. But with Granby and Iskierka, we run into the very practical problem of what happens when eighteen tons of fire-breathing dragon decides that obediance, even to one's (supposedly) beloved captain is for squares, and you can take your orders and shove them where the sun don't shine. As we've seen on multiple occasions throughout the first three books, Granby is by no means weak or indecisive. His original problem with Laurence was that he (Granby) was too proud and indomitable to say "sir" or salute, and he spend a good third of BPW trying to keep his dragon, captain, and crew from A) getting killed, B) starting a war, or C) both, and generally succeeding. So the fault here doesn't seem to lie with Granby (although it's entirely believable that he thinks it does), but with Iskierka herself. I don't see her as quite as infuriating as Temeraire does, but she's certainly as obstinate and selfish as the ferals. Also, she seems to have forgotten her rather harsh "haring off on your own = kidnapped captain" lesson, which only started Granby's whole inadequacy problem up again. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this is resolved (hopefully not by Granby becoming the ultimate punching bag and getting killed), if at all, in ToS.
As far as the breeding ground dragons go, my favorite is either Minnow (who I always imagine as having a Cockney accent, and who can shock even Temeraire) or Perscitia (the only person we've met, and who we don't hate, who can out-erudite Temeraire), or possibly old Gentius (for some reason, I could imagine the scene with his Elizabethan-era captain particularly clearly), or maybe Majestatis (who is looking to be the aloof, snarky, secretly honorable draconic alternative to Tharkay). I love their sequence of increasingly awesome misfit mobilization moments, which take them from a lazy bunch of disorganized has-beens and never-weres (a phrase which I believe I'm borrowing from Terry Pratchett, but I'm not sure) into a contender with Lily's formation (in which I include Granby and Tharkay as honorary members) for my favorite ensemble. I especially love any time they get impatient with the humans' blustering, and just get shit done, best exemplified by Perscitia's increasingly inventive array of anti-infantry devices. In the end, let's just say that I'm glad all of them are on our side, especially when they start dropping flaming depth charges on people and using trees as giant brooms (which, admit it, is kind of a hilarious image).
We also got to see more of Lien, which was great. Naomi Novik is using Lien very wisely: not showing her off too much, as seeing her every other page would decrease the aura of mystery and near-omnipotence that makes up such a huge part of her effect, but flashing her out every now and again to underscore some particularly dastardly act of genius. She'll come out, sneer at Temeraire (or whoever happens to be there), make everybody else sound like idiots, and then leave directly after having won the argument, to great effect. On a side note, whenever she shows up, in my head she's always accompanied by the Imperial March (better known as Darth Vader's theme). I mean, think about it: she's technically the Dragon (har!) to the technical Big Bad (Napoleon, in this case), but she's the one we see wreaking havoc everywhere she goes. She's always the one foiling the heroes' plans, and she's the one with a personal connection to, and the dark counterpart of, (arguably) the most pivotal of said heroes. She's the visible one, the scary one, the one who inspires heartfelt "oh shit"s from the best and brightest the protagonists can produce.
While we were down South officially for an early Thanksgiving (because packing five people into my little Hyundai and driving eight hours in Thanksgiving traffic? I don't think so), we were also there, unofficially, to hold a kind of wake for Xena, my grandma's dog, who died recently. A bit of background: pets are srs bznz in the McLaughlin/Powell/Weber/La Follette world. I don't think any of us have ever gone more than three or four years without a pet, dogs being favorite. A definite part of any family gathering is passing around pictures of pets, telling stories about pets, and keeping up with news of each others' pets, the same way some people do with grandchildren.
My grandma was a professor of philosophy at Pierce College for about a thousand years, and one day, when she was late to class, she found a little grey-and-black puppy that someone had dumped outside her class. Instead of taking it to the pound (probably to be euthanized), as was usual with strays found on campus, she took the puppy home and called her Xena after the Warrior Princess. Almost from day one, Xena was *trouble*. I literally lost track of how many socks, pairs of stockings, bottles of pills, brillo pads, and other miscellaneous stuff (including most of a pair of pajamas of mine) that she ate. Every time, Granny would take her to the vet and pay for increasingly expensive operations to get the object du jour removed from whatever portion of her digestive tract it had gotten lodged in this time. Things came to a head when my grandma tripped over Xena (who, in addition to being a canine garbage disposal, moonlighted as a canine perpetual motion machine) and broke her (my grandma's) leg. After that, Granny got fed up and swore that this was absolutely the last time she would bail Xena out of intestinal trouble.
But then, a few years ago, my grandma had a stroke, and Xena chanced pretty much overnight. She still ate things that she probably oughtn't on occasion, but overall, it seemed as though she had decided to be a Good Dog. She escorted Granny everywhere, even to physical therapy. When Granny got too frustrated with being in a wheelchair, Xena would pull this trick of hers where she would lay her head in your lap, look up at you with Melting Brown Eyes™, and just generally emanate Rays o' Adorableness and Doggy Love at near-toxic levels, which always cheered Granny up. Pet therapy is gaining more and more credibility in rehabilitating stroke victims, and Granny and Xena were a perfect example of that.
But Xena was getting on in years, and she passed away in her sleep about a week ago. We held a kind of mini-wake where the family got together with Xena's ashes and all said a few words about her before Thanksgiving dinner, while we were waiting for the turkey to cool enough to eat. It was sweet, but it reminded me that my own pets won't be around forever, and neither will Granny, so it was a nice balance of happy and sad.
The wake-esque gathering didn't damper our preemptive Thanksgiving, though. My mom and aunt did most of the cooking, although my uncle provided the green bean casserole, I assisted with various menial tasks, and Granny presided overall while my grandad and step-grandad watched football (where, apparently, UCLA beat Colorado, but Cal lost to Stanford, both with much fanfare). It was kind of weird, in that all of us, to one degree or another, are feminists. Not a one of us (I hope) would ever dream of demanding that the wimminfolk stay in the kitchen and make sammiches while the men go out and do a lot of manly sitting around on their asses hollering about that the food is taking too long. And yet, I found that we ended up dividing more or less neatly along gender lines. *shrug* It was an interesting observation.
The latest big update for the iPhone OS included the ability to turn one's iPhone into a personal hotspot. Since my grandparents' house is pretty much the only place that I know of that is almost completely Internet-less, I was fully planning on taking this snazzy new feature out for a test drive, but I ended up plowing through Temeraire instead. XD
Empire of Ivory went fairly quickly. I feel like its significance to the overarching plot was to re-introduce the British dragons and captains (especially Lily's formation) so that we could get nice and worried about them for Victory of Eagles. And I mean that in the best way possible: after spending two books getting introduced to a dozen new characters and locations, with only sporadic mention made of the home team (mostly in the form of Temeraire going "I wish Maximus and Lily were here to see all this cool stuff!" and "Wait till I tell Maximus and Lily what I did!"), it was really nice to get reacquainted with the gang. I think Maximus is my favorite sub-main dragon character; he's such a big doof! I really can't think of any better way to say it. He reminds me a lot of Jack Aubrey in his straightforwardness, fierce loyalty to his friends (and willing to beat the crap out of anyone who looks sideways at said friends), and...lack of subtlety, shall we say, in a way that always makes me smile. Lily and Harcourt are my favorite dragon-and-captain pair (aside from the main characters, possibly), though, especially after Harcourt has her "egg". I was honestly afraid for either Maximus or Lily, since it isn't unknown for an author to kill off one of the main character's closest friends to highlight the direness of a particular situation, but thankfully, everyone got out more or less unscathed.
Speaking of Maximus and Lily, I'm getting more and more of a Harry Potter-esque trio of power sense from them. It maps pretty well: Temeraire = Harry (the Special Snowflake hero with unusual ideas), Maximus = Ron (the steadfast, ginger BFF who makes up in loyalty what he lacks in finesse), and Lily = Hermione (tends towards jealousy, constantly guiding her friends and at least trying to keep them out of trouble). The three are always mentioned together, and the pact they made to protect each others' captains occasionally sounded a bit like Ron and Hermione refusing to let Harry go after the Horcruxes alone.
As for the other captains and their dragons, I'm having a bit more trouble remembering them, among the cast of thousands. We're constantly told that Chenery's defining attribute is his utter and complete lack of decorum, but really, he didn't seem all that worse than any of the other aviators, who were almost all raised cloistered away from so-called polite society. Sutton and Messoria were likewise defined by their age and experience, but outside of battle, this didn't manifest itself all that often, although Sutton did occasionally have a certain world-weary tone that I kinda liked. Little and Immortalis seemed to both be defined by their quietness, which naturally doesn't lend itself to a lot of memorable character moments for them, although they lent some ballast to the cast, which otherwise occasionally tended towards drama. Warren was a bit more active in his role as support guy, which made a nice (and occasionally rather funny) contrast to Nitidus. I dunno, there's just something about this huge dragon being such a nervous nelly...
Empire of Ivory was very much centered around the whole "historical civil rights movements being linked to various fictional groups' struggles for equal rights/independence/not getting killed" thing that I mentioned a little while ago. I liked Erasmus and his wife, and the twist of Erasmus having been born into a tribe of notorious slavers was an interesting twist. I loved the garden party-type-thing that Laurence and Temeraire attended in London, for some of Temeraire's speeches about liberty and equal rights and whatnot as much as for Temeraire getting exasperated with the British gentry for not being able to do simple geometry and for digging a bit deeper into Nelson's character. The only experience I'd had with him in fiction before this was in the ever-present Aubreyad, where Aubrey, who has once served with Nelson and was a devoted Naval captain and patriot, was always all "OMG NELSON YAY!!! :D" while Maturin, a skeptic, civilian, and occasional revolutionary, was (more quietly) more frequently along the lines of "OMG NELSON STFU!!! XP" But here, we got to see him in the flesh, which leads to a much more nuanced and three-dimensional character. So we ended up with a mixed bag: he was a genuine genius and not completely unreasonable, but there was that whole slavery issue... In addition, we saw him through the eyes of Laurence, who practically hero-worshiped him, but we got more than enough of Temeraire's commentary to see that he didn't impress everyone.
When the formation reached Africa and got embroiled in local politics, we really got to see how Naomi Novik had done her homework, and re-written the world to what it would realistically look like if everyone had dragons. Again, Napoleon-era history isn't my strong suit, but from what I understand, most of the African tribes lost because they had spears and oxhide shields against European muskets and cannons, and introducing a lot of big honkin' dragons would have definitely leveled the playing field. I liked the look we got at a unified African kingdom (relatively) uninterrupted by slavery and colonialism. The thing with the elephants was a good example of this: it makes logical and historical sense, and I could actually see it working. The incorporation of dragons into their religion was also plausible, and provided yet another level of contrast with the European attitude that dragons are just big, dumb, flying lizards. A side note to this: I loved that the postscript, as well as the one to Tongues of Serpents, which I'm just about to begin, were written by a grown-up Sipho.
The Dragon-Plague-as-biological-warfare bit was, among other things, an interesting reversal for Nelson. Earlier on, we saw him as a surprisingly, almost surreally, reasonable authority figure among the various degrees of incompetence and assholery to be found in the Admirality, and by no means unwilling to listen to, and seriously consider, Temeraire's argument. But then, when we saw that he had agreed to basically nuke the dragons of most of Europe, my esteem of him dropped quite a bit, to put it mildly. I know he tried to justify it as "the necessities of war" and all that, but it did temper my sadness at his later heroic death.
One thing I really started to notice in EoI was that the various romances really didn't affect the plot that much. The subplot in BPW where Tharkay was suddenly in love with some girl we saw only once and was never mentioned again seemed to appear and disappear without much effect, to my annoyance. Harcourt getting pregnant by, and subsequently marrying, Riley, I liked mostly for its comedic potential, although it'll be interesting to see how the whole thing affects Riley's relationship with Laurence, now that they're stuck together on a ship for seven months, possibly with Riley's baby son in tow. Laurence's most important relationship is obviously with Temeraire, so his aborted quasi-engagement to Edith was obviously doomed, and pretty much only comes into play when he regrets having put her in an uncomfortable situation (more on this in a bit). His affair (should it be called an affair, when neither of them are married to anyone else?) with Jane is probably the most important romantic relationship in the canon, and even that feels more like stress relief/friends with benefits, at least on Jane's side. I do continue to love all the moments when Laurence is all "omg this is improper! Gasp! Shock! Horror!" and Jane is just quietly (or occasionally not so quietly) amused until he figures out that nobody really cares, although I did think that bit where Laurence proposes was kinda bittersweet. As far as my own preferred pairings, if any, go, I'm reserving judgment until I finish the series in its entirety.
Victory of Eagles was definitely a very different kind of book than the previous few have been. Pretty much from ToJ onward, they've all been primarily about going to some far-off, exotic location and having cool adventures, and VoE couldn't be more different. Naomi Novik did a great job of getting across the grinding despair of war, alleviated occasionally by thrillin' heroics, as everybody's favorite trained ape (without the training) would say. Laurence's utter despair during the guerrilla missions were genuinely alarming, as it became increasingly obvious that he had just flat-out given up on everything, up to and including his all-important honor. This made an interesting contrast to the end of EoI/beginning of VoE where he was literally just sitting around waiting until the Admirality sorted out how to kill him without sending Temeraire on a rampage. He was chained up, universally reviled, and separated from his dragon, but he was in a relatively good place, mentally speaking. He knew that he had done the right thing, and would take his lumps for it like a man. On the other hand, the guerrilla missions should have been everything that he loved: he was reunited with Temeraire, he was basically winning the war single-handedly, and their efforts led to the dragons finally getting some basic civil rights. In addition, the whole Robin Hood-esque "steal from the big bad army to feed the plucky, supportive poor" folk hero thing is a trope that I normally love. Given all this, seeing how Laurence had basically shut down and was sinking fast under the sheer odiousness of what he had to do was truly scary.
One of the themes of VoE seemed to be good people getting punished for doing good things: Laurence is bankrupted for freeing slaves, sentenced to death for saving innocent dragons, and yelled at any time he tries to help anyone, Tharkay gets metaphorically (and probably literally) spat on for...existing, basically, for having the audacity to be simultaneously smart, brave, and not white, Granby gets kidnapped while trying to control his bratty dragon, and poor Woolvey gets shot while trying to help with a mission way, way out of his league, not to mention all the soldiers and dragons who, as it's constantly remarked, died just because they were there.
Speaking of Woolvey, the "
Finally, pretty much my favorite part of the rescue sequence was the fact that it was Granby. Again. It's becoming almost tragicomic, how every single time something time something bad can happen, it does, and every time it does, it happens to poor Granby. He's been shot, stabbed, knocked off midair, clubbed over the head more than once, saddled with a decidedly bloody-minded dragon, and now has the dubious honor of being the one and only British aviator (that we know of) to be captured during Napoleon's invasion. A few indicators that he's started to drink heavily implies that he's just as aware of his status as the universe's punching bag as I am, and he's about as happy with it as you'd expect. Granby's relationship with Iskierka is unusual in that it's the only pairing I can think of where dragon and captain are actually unhappy with one another. Sure, Maximus and Berkley may grumble and swear at one another, but it's made very clear that they're still very affectionate, that the ribbing is all in fun, and that they function as a team, both in and out of battle. I've said before that Granby is an interesting character on a meta-level, and a new aspect of that is that he exemplifies a much less fluffy view of the dragon-captain relationship. Naomi Novik has made it very clear that there's no soul-bonding magic or other nonsense, as I'm sure she'd put it, going on, that dragons just have a knack for seeking out captains that they'll work well with. As we've seen with Laurence and Temeraire, they're not soulmates or psychically linked or anything; they're just really good friends who immensely like and trust one another. But with Granby and Iskierka, we run into the very practical problem of what happens when eighteen tons of fire-breathing dragon decides that obediance, even to one's (supposedly) beloved captain is for squares, and you can take your orders and shove them where the sun don't shine. As we've seen on multiple occasions throughout the first three books, Granby is by no means weak or indecisive. His original problem with Laurence was that he (Granby) was too proud and indomitable to say "sir" or salute, and he spend a good third of BPW trying to keep his dragon, captain, and crew from A) getting killed, B) starting a war, or C) both, and generally succeeding. So the fault here doesn't seem to lie with Granby (although it's entirely believable that he thinks it does), but with Iskierka herself. I don't see her as quite as infuriating as Temeraire does, but she's certainly as obstinate and selfish as the ferals. Also, she seems to have forgotten her rather harsh "haring off on your own = kidnapped captain" lesson, which only started Granby's whole inadequacy problem up again. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this is resolved (hopefully not by Granby becoming the ultimate punching bag and getting killed), if at all, in ToS.
As far as the breeding ground dragons go, my favorite is either Minnow (who I always imagine as having a Cockney accent, and who can shock even Temeraire) or Perscitia (the only person we've met, and who we don't hate, who can out-erudite Temeraire), or possibly old Gentius (for some reason, I could imagine the scene with his Elizabethan-era captain particularly clearly), or maybe Majestatis (who is looking to be the aloof, snarky, secretly honorable draconic alternative to Tharkay). I love their sequence of increasingly awesome misfit mobilization moments, which take them from a lazy bunch of disorganized has-beens and never-weres (a phrase which I believe I'm borrowing from Terry Pratchett, but I'm not sure) into a contender with Lily's formation (in which I include Granby and Tharkay as honorary members) for my favorite ensemble. I especially love any time they get impatient with the humans' blustering, and just get shit done, best exemplified by Perscitia's increasingly inventive array of anti-infantry devices. In the end, let's just say that I'm glad all of them are on our side, especially when they start dropping flaming depth charges on people and using trees as giant brooms (which, admit it, is kind of a hilarious image).
We also got to see more of Lien, which was great. Naomi Novik is using Lien very wisely: not showing her off too much, as seeing her every other page would decrease the aura of mystery and near-omnipotence that makes up such a huge part of her effect, but flashing her out every now and again to underscore some particularly dastardly act of genius. She'll come out, sneer at Temeraire (or whoever happens to be there), make everybody else sound like idiots, and then leave directly after having won the argument, to great effect. On a side note, whenever she shows up, in my head she's always accompanied by the Imperial March (better known as Darth Vader's theme). I mean, think about it: she's technically the Dragon (har!) to the technical Big Bad (Napoleon, in this case), but she's the one we see wreaking havoc everywhere she goes. She's always the one foiling the heroes' plans, and she's the one with a personal connection to, and the dark counterpart of, (arguably) the most pivotal of said heroes. She's the visible one, the scary one, the one who inspires heartfelt "oh shit"s from the best and brightest the protagonists can produce.
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Date: 2011-11-21 09:15 am (UTC)O.o You're right, though, it does map pretty well! XD
Maximus is my favorite of Lily's wing, too. I find I'm generally really fond of the Regal Coppers -- they are big and uncomplicated. (Then again, Ron is my favorite of the Trio, also.)
Perscitia quickly became my favorite character in the entire series, dragon or human. I love that she is brilliant -- clearly smarter than Temeraire, at least when it comes to mathematics, since he's had considerably more learning -- and that she sees no need to fight, but makes a really scarily good military engineer. I also did really like old Gentius.
On a side note, whenever she shows up, in my head she's always accompanied by the Imperial March (better known as Darth Vader's theme). I mean, think about it: she's technically the Dragon (har!) to the technical Big Bad (Napoleon, in this case),
Heh. Lien, of course, would be quick to point out that it better be the Celestial March, but all of it's a very true observation!
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Date: 2011-11-22 01:30 am (UTC)I love that contrast! She's smart enough to realize that charging out and getting mauled isn't going to help anyone, her least of all, but instead uses her particular advantage to enormous effect. Of course, it's always nice to see the underdog nerd triumph over the big guys.
Lien, of course, would be quick to point out that it better be the Celestial March
Hee! Yup, I can imagine her getting peeved, as only she can get peeved, about that.
Also, I finally got the reference in your "fourth-best coat" icon! Iskierka...XD
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Date: 2011-11-25 04:52 am (UTC)I find Iskierka hilarious in small doses, although she'll never be my favorite dragon. But as someone who finds it funny to watch Grandby suffer, I do appreciate her high spirits for that reason as well :P
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Date: 2011-11-25 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 05:30 pm (UTC)My Fluff is no longer a young cat, and I feel sad when I think that I'll only be able to enjoy his company for another few years. But on the other hand, knowing that time is short makes me cherish him every day.
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Date: 2011-11-22 01:35 am (UTC)I hope you and Fluffy have many more wonderful years together! I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but sometimes I think it's horribly unfair that our pets have such shorter lives than ours.