Black Powder War

Temeraire, Book 3

By: Naomi Novik

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Temeraire, Book 3

After their fateful adventure in China, Capt. Will Laurence of His Majesty’s Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching.

Yet disaster threatens the mission at every turn - thanks to the diabolical machinations of the Chinese dragon Lien, who blames Temeraire for her master’s death and vows to ally herself with Napoleon and take vengeance. Then, faced with shattering betrayal in an unexpected place, Laurence, Temeraire, and their squad must launch a daring offensive. But what chance do they have against the massed forces of Bonaparte’s implacable army?

Dragon tales: don't miss the rest of the Temeraire series.

©2006 Naomi Novik (P)2007 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

• Locus Award, 2007

"Novik's magical 18th century, peopled with sympathetic characters, induces avid reading. Long may she write!" (Booklist)

Exciting adventure across Europe

This series of books are wonderful with mixing history and fantasy. With Simon's voice added into it just makes the characters come that much more to life.

Dragons and Simon Vance!

The stories are fun as well as thought provoking, the characters well drawn and again Simon Vance. Nothing else needs to be said.

Good continues

Interesting to see where the story goes based on historical Napoleonic record. Looking forward to the next chapters.

Characters, narrative, and language all glow!

If you could sum up Black Powder War in three words, what would they be?

Characters, imagination, relationships

What was one of the most memorable moments of Black Powder War?

Being within feet of Napoleon - and not killing him

What about Simon Vance’s performance did you like?

His vocal resonance underlined the sheer delight of the language.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me intensely sympathetic with the characters, and want to see more.

Any additional comments?

The comparison between the treatment of dragons in China and England is a mainspring that powers the book, given additional power by the character of the dragons themselves.

Great book, bad accents

Where does Black Powder War rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is the third book in the series and it's on par with the rest of them, fairly good.

Any additional comments?

Then narrator does a good job of reading but his accents are absolutely awful. EVERYTHING that isn't British sounds like a bad 1950's Charlie Chan movie.

The World Tour continues

Another excellent installment, full of adventure and intrigue and Temeraire being unintentionally hilarious - and of course this book features the debut of my beloved Tharkay! He is a wonderful foil for Laurence, and it's fun to see their interactions before our hero knows what to make of him. Also Iskierka is a bloodthirsty delight. Simon Vance continues to be an excellent narrator, juggling voices and accents in what seems (to my untutored ear) a top-notch performance.

Still interesting

Flying through the series it is so interesting I hope the dragons get rights I love that world building aspect

Silk Road: Macau to Istanbul to Danzig, via Dragon

Simon Vance brought Naomi Novik's fantasy to life. I'm learning more about the Napoleonic War from this series, despite the fictional dragons. It's an entertaining alternate history, close enough to the "truth" in some scenes to trigger my interest (so I look things up, comparing the historic account with the fictional).

I liked this 3-part plot, even if the pacing got bogged down in Prussian campaigning (by committee, with outdated strategies). Loved the characters. Here be dragons! Huzzah for the beast-baby Iskierka and for shrewd, swaggering Arkady! We also get a close encounter with Napoleon and threats from Lien, set on avenging her dead captain.

And here we meet the inscrutable Tharkay, half-Nepalese, half-British, fully ostracized. Totally hot.

Hopeful ending, when Team Temeraire finally gets to go home, escaping from besieged Danzig / Gdańsk. They have been away from home a full year. The journey has been fraught with fear, hunger, cold, assassinations, accusations, betrayals, avalanches, bandits, feral dragons, fire, and bloody bloody battles.

Excerpt:

"But the sky ahead was opening up to a fierce, deep, cloudless blue, an endless road of wind and water before them. A signal was flying from the mast of the Vanguard: "Fair winds, sir!" Turner said, as they passed the ships by. Laurence leaned into the cold sea wind, bright and biting. It scrubbed into the hollows of Temeraire's sides to clean away the last of the eddies of smoke, spilling away in gray trailers behind them...

Out ahead of them, Arkady began something very like a marching song, chanting lines answered by the other ferals, their voices ringing out across the sky, each to each. Temeraire added his own to the chorus, and little Iskierka began to scrabble at his neck, demanding, "What are they saying? What does it mean?"

"We are flying home," Temeraire said, translating. "We are all flying home."

Great story and preformance

Simon adds a lot to the story using all sorts of voices to make sure every character that speaks sounds different. Three books in and main characters or ones who leave for a whole book and come back sounding the same as they did before.

slow

I enjoy the characters and internal dialogue, but the realtionship between dragon and rider feels thinner than I had hoped for, and a little underdeveloped at this point. Plot is too slow for me.