Blood of Tyrants

Image credit: The Nile

We’re closing in now to the end of the Temeraire series – an exciting and compelling set of adventures set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic War, with dragons. As I’ve written before, there have been some definite peaks and troughs in the second half of the series, with Tongues of Serpents taking a bit of a narrative plummet, but rising up again with Crucible of Gold. I have just closed the cover of Blood of Tyrants; the penultimate book in the series, which took me a good while to get through as, alas, while there is a lot of narrative stuff happening, it proved to be another trough.

Laurence and Temeraire find themselves separated once again, as a shipwreck sees Laurence stranded alone and without his memory in Japan. Unable to recollect the last few years, Laurence finds himself dangerously entangled in political intrigues that could be both fatal to himself and England’s position in the Far East. Meanwhile Temeraire conducts a desperate search for his beloved captain, unaware of the powder keg that his actions might set off. Time and the odds are truly against the pair, as Britain’s potential allies begin to dwindle and Napoleon marches an army on Moscow.

Beginning on a dramatic note with Laurence alone and suffering from amnesia, Blood of Tyrants is the thickest book of the series. Rightly so, seeing as we travel through different countries and see a lot of narrative dramas from Temeraire’s search for Laurence, to an assassination attempt on him and Prince Mianning in China, and finally the mustering of a great force to aid Russia. In between all this, we have little stories of conspiracy, espionage, and the varying cultural attitudes towards dragons that could well add fuel to the fire of rebellion.

I found myself struggling to get through this instalment – putting it down and not really being inspired to pick it back up again, and I think the reason for this is because there is so much crammed into it that it lost something of its intrigue. I can’t quite pinpoint what the problem was, but I just did not find this book as compelling as the others; something in the prose just felt shallow and I struggled to get lost in the world as I had done with the previous books.

The timing of the action too, worked to make Blood of Tyrants a bit disjointed: still compelling but rather that I felt I needed to read on to understand what had just happened rather than thrillingly following the sequence of events.

Image credit: NPR

In the end I think that the penultimate book of this exciting series suffered from a case of overindulgence; narratively, dramatically, environmentally, etc. A case of too many cooks in the kitchen. There was just so much happening that needed to be pushed towards conclusion that the initial magic that made me fall in the love with the series at the beginning was lost. But at least we can’t claim there was ever a dull moment and I am ready to see how it all works out in the end.

Author: Naomi Novik, 2013

Published: First published in Great Britain by Ballatine Books, 2013. Pictured edition published by HarperVoyager, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 2014.

Blood of Tyrants is the 8^th book in Novik’s Temeraire series. Its follows Temeraire, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, Victory of Eagles, Tongues of Serpents and Crucible of Gold.