Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
(Temeraire, Book 4), Del Rey, $7.99, 400pp, pb. Fantasy. ISBN: 9780345496874. On-sale date: October 2007.
This fourth book in the Temeraire series (the first volume was published as His Majesty’s Dragon in the US) is a worthy successor. It raises my ire only in that it is the first book of the second trilogy, and as such, the story chops off rather suddenly, since it will of course be picked up in the next book.
The series is Novik’s reimagining of the Napoleonic wars in a world with dragons—huge dragons that can carry fighting crews of 20 or 30, or a hundred or two of passengers. Temeraire, the title dragon, is the companion of Captain Laurence, formerly of His Majesty’s Navy, and, through events detailed in the first book, now a member of the aerial corps.
In the first three books, we were introduced to the dragons, to the world, and the various breeds of dragon, and also to Temeraire’s heritage. On a long cruise, Temeraire had a cold. That cold has blossomed, in this book, into a veritable plague among dragonkind. Now it’s up to Laurence and Temeraire to find the cure for their friends before it’s too late… and also to protect England from the French, who as yet don’t know their adversaries are so stricken.
Novik has a gift for the period, giving us not only the feel of the language, but of the customs and the world of that time. While in the first three books, it was easy to imagine that her world and ours were the same but for the addition of dragons, this time around, she delves a little deeper, and we start to see the differences. They serve only to whet the appetite for more, to discover how their world has diverged from ours, and yet what remains the same.
A subtheme, which may blossom in the coming books, involves the slave trade, which was of course big business at that time. But what would anti-slavery forces have done with dragons on their side?
Peter Jackson—of Lord of the Rings and King Kong fame—has already optioned the first three Temeraire books. If he can pull off the dragons, I fully expect that option to be extended. And the first book in the series, which is on the ballot for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, recently won the Compton Cook award.
In fact, my only qualm with recommending this book is that I hate waiting for the next installment when reading a series, and I’ll have to wait for volumes 5 and 6. If you like naval history, if you like the Napoleonic era, if you like completely fleshed-out dragons living in a fleshed-out world, you’ll definitely want to read Naomi Novik’s books.