Download PDF Blood of Tyrants Temeraire Naomi Novik 9780345522900 Books

Product details Series Temeraire (Book 8) Mass Market Paperback 512 pages Publisher Del Rey (July 29, 2014) Language English ISBN-10 0345522907

Blood of Tyrants Temeraire Naomi Novik 9780345522900 Books Reviews

• Summary 3/4 of this book can be thrown away, and the last 1/4 is a short story teaser to set up the final book in the series.
  The rest of this review probably contains spoilers.
  
  After enjoying many of the previous Temeraire novels, I really dislike having to give this one only two stars, but I had problems with this book. First, the plot twist that Laurence has amnesia seems too contrived. The memory loss is way too selective, and utimately never seems to make a difference to the outcome at all. Second, after so much wonderful descriptions and detail that the previous books gave for people, places, events, and especially societies and their integration (or lack of) of intelligent dragons, this book is missing a whole lot of it. Too much text is spent on Laurence's amnesia and Japan is barely touched at all. Third, there are no long journeys in this book. Once they leave Japan they are suddenly back in China for yet another political plot just like the second book, which then gets resolved all too cleanly. Then they are magically in Moscow as if no time had passed at all. Russia seems to be where the focus of the book wants to be, and was the only interesting part of the book. But there so little of it, that we had to sit through over 300 uninteresting pages of Japan and China that feels thrown in so the book would be large enough. And lastly, the ending is such a cliffhanger that I felt cheated.
• I loved all the other books in the series, but this one just... blah. Without spoiling anything, there are some plot elements that I just found tiresome. The books are a little formulaic overall, but up to this point they've been like meeting an old friend after not seeing them for a while. This one... I found myself skimming. I'll get the next one, but I'm glad it's the last in the series. I can't shake the feeling Novik is kind of dialing it in, here, for whatever reason. That said, I think she's a great writer, and I loved Uprooted - and the first books in this series.
• It was only okay for me. And considering most of the rest of the Temeraire series is on my 'touch and you die' shelf at home, that's saying a lot.
  
  The story was kind of disjointed with three different adventures (Japan - Laurence loses his memory, China - the team goes hunting rebels, Russia - Back to fighting Bonaparte). The three tales didn't mesh well or lead easily one to another. I kept forgetting who the characters were in the earlier stories and why they were important.
  
  I also had a hard time following why the secondary characters were behaving the way they were (particularly in China). It was all mildly confusing and almost nonsensical.
  
  The Russian part is HEAVY on combat scenes - which is usually fine. I normally find these engaging because Temeraire makes them interesting. I didn't this time though. They all felt distant and impersonal in a way I hadn't experienced with Temeraire before. They got so boring, I ended up skimming (so sad).
  
  The worst part though was that neither Laurence nor Temeraire seemed themselves in this book. Their personalities had somehow lost that larger-than-life quality that makes me read these books again and again. This was understandable for Laurence at first (having lost his memory), but Temeraire was lackluster and a bit whiny/predictable. So disappointing. I love seeing they way each character in these novels slowly changes/deepens/becomes more complex. This book felt like a huge step backwards in all that.
  
  More than anything, it felt like it had been written in a hurry without the usual care taken to make it vivid and alive. It also doesn't come to a climax, but just kind of peters out as if rather than finish the tale, the author had run out of time and/or energy to write it.
• I don't know if it was heavily edited , but I kept feeling like whole chapters were missing.
  It jumped from one event to the next without explanation.However the battle scenes were in
  great (too much) detail. I miss the inter-action between Temeraire and Laurance. Also the other
  dragons, much more intriguing characters than most the humans, way too little of them.
  I can only hope there is another book in the works and it wont take years to come out.
  It seems once a series becomes popular the subsequent books become shorter allowing
  the author to sell more -when 2 could easily be one book! I will continue to follow this series
  but wish she would get back to format of earlier books.