Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Empire of Ivory

Temeraire – Book 4

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group as Del Ray (2006)

Author: Naomi Novik

Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Pages: 404

Price: $7.99

Tragedy has struck His Majesty’s Aerial Corps, whose magnificent fleet of fighting dragons and their human captains valiantly defend England’s shores against the encroaching armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. An epidemic of unknown origin and no known cure is decimating the noble dragons’ ranks–forcing the hopelessly stricken into quarantine. Now only Temeraire and a pack of newly recruited dragons remain uninfected–and stand as the only means of an airborne defense against France’s ever bolder sorties.

Bonaparte’s dragons are already harrowing Britain’s ships at sea. Only one recourse remains: Temeraire and his captain, Will Laurence, must take wing to Africa, whose shores may hold the cure to the mysterious and deadly contagion. On this mission there is no time to waste, and no telling what lies in store beyond the horizon or for those left behind to wait, hope, and hold the line.

There are a lot of things I liked about this book. One of the main things though is that Naomi Novik has taken a time period with very complicated social standards and values and made the reader understand those standards and how they differ from our time. While slavery is the most evident example, and the easiest one for us to look on with a more progressive view, there are many others present as well. Laurence is a man of his times, and as such he has a clearly delineated view of socio-economic class and the place of women in society. He doesn't hold the views that he does because he's a bad person, more a product of his upbringing and the times. His desire to help those with less than him is easy to understand. Also his interactions with the women of the aerial corps are very fascinating, his initial skepticism has moved through acceptance of their ability to do their jobs, and now he even takes orders from a female Admiral, all while expressing his progressive, for the time, thoughts on the matters. I feel like Laurence's willingness to learn and accept these things is one of the things that has turned him from a slightly irritating character into one I actually like.

The plot of this story is much stronger than the previous book. It felt much tighter and focused with a clear dilemma and solution, something that other books in the series have lacked at times. I very much enjoyed seeing how yet another culture's relationship with their dragons had evolved, and differed from the one that Laurence has the most experience with. I hope to see more of that going forward, especially from the oft-mentioned Inca, for some reason every mention of them has me hoping to read about them in the next book. This is mainly due to the fact that dragon's must play a very large role in their society, since in reality the Inca Empire died out almost 250 years before the events of these books. How did their dragons help maintain their dominance? I need to know!

Laurence is growing as a character, most notably shown in his reaction to the Admiralty's latest plan regarding the war efforts. The Laurence we met in book one would not have made the decision that he does in Empire of Ivory, and he's a better person for it. It has landed him in very hot water though, and given us the first cliffhanger ending of the series. One complaint that I do have is that Laurence, and thus the reader, has been forced to flee battle again. The aerial combat in His Majesty's Dragon was perhaps my favorite part of the book, and it has been absent since. I know the whole thing can't be a bloodbath, but I think the series would benefit from a climactic battle, and not the fighting withdrawls that we've been seeing.

Conclusion: A definite improvement over the previous two books, Empire of Ivory brings a more focused tale to the reader. Laurence is serving well as our proxy in a time when values and beliefs were very different from our own. His willingness to see the necessity for change and acceptance has caused me to reevaluate how I feel about the character, in a good way.

Rating: 8/10