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I seem to have run out of Temeraire books to read, which is annoying. There’s a fifth one on its way – Victory Of Eagles, in a few months, though annoyingly that’ll be in hardback. I can’t have four paperbacks and a hardback! It’ll look all wrong! The American paperback might be out sooner than the British one I suppose, but the American editions aren’t nearly as pretty, so that’s not an option either. *grumble* No fair with the complications...
On to Empire Of Ivory. This is a good one - though not, imho, as good as Black Powder War. I guess I liked the sprawling nature of book three, with its mad dash across half the world, and its jumble of plots and events. Empire Of Ivory is a pleasing mix, though. It somehow manages to combine Southern African history with an entertainingly mad Johnny Weissmuller-era Tarzan movie. Not something that you find often, and good fun to read. Did have one inescapable flaw, though.
The book starts with Temeraire and Iskierka arriving in England, with their new tangle of friends – Arkady and his marauding dragon gang having come to join them in their fight against the French. When they land, though, they find that all the other dragons in Britain are dying, due to some horrible wasting coughing disease to which Temeraire appears immune. Since he had a brief cold on his way out to China in book two, they assume it was the same thing, and that somewhere along the way he accidentally ate a cure, which he’s dispatched to find. But that’s the problem, see. Whilst the story of the disease unfolds, Iskierka is adapting to her new life in England. And Iskierka, inspired by some of Temeraire’s talk, wants money. She hits upon the idea of capturing ships for the bounties, and is jubilantly setting out upon this venture at the time that Temeraire and his crew – now minus Granby of course – are setting off to hunt for possible dragon cough remedies. And Britain, still in the grip of a war, is at present devoid of healthy dragons to guard it. Save for... ? Yep. The increasingly light-fingered Iskierka, and a fleet of pirate dragons. Now I’m sorry. I want a cure for the others, obviously I do. And as it turns out, I really enjoyed the story about it. But come on... Iskierka and a gang of pirate dragons?! Am I supposed to just turn my back on that, and not spend the next three hundred pages wondering what’s going on back in Blighty?! I wanna read that story, damn it. It needs to be told.
Temeraire, meanwhile, has flown straight into my third year at university. Book three kept colliding with my A-levels, so this isn’t entirely without precedent, but it was still rather unexpected. It’s strangely disconcerting when old memories of lectures and seminars get dragged up out of the depths. I liked the history of Southern Africa. Well – mostly I did. The lecturer was rather dry, and embarrassingly often I was the only one who turned up to listen to him, but the subject was good. The talk in Empire Of Ivory of everybody struggling with the unfamiliar “clicks” of the local languages amused me too, having struggled vainly with them myself throughout that year. The bloke who ran the course had lived in various places in Southern Africa for several decades, and could do some of them, and it can be a strange sort of thing to hear. It’s quite pleasing, really, how wildly different languages can be in different sections of the world. Yes, I am rambling. I know. Anyway, predictably enough they find the cure – a giant, stinky mushroom – and pack it off home, getting that bit of the plot neatly out of the way, just in time to crash unsuspectingly into the Johnny Weissmuller bit. That really is the best way I can think of to describe it. Later era Johnny Weissmuller, once they’d got past the first few, fairly run of the mill stories about his life in the jungle with Jane. The era when giant spiders started turning up, and man-eating water lilies, and that film about the Leopard Women that BBC2 used to show every summer holidays back in the eighties. Beneath a waterfall, in tunnels tiled with ivory, lives a vast colony of dragons and men, farming elephants for snack food and decorative purposes, and growing ever more filled with hatred for the slave traders that are decimating the local populations. We’re back with Temeraire now, by the way. Not Tarzan. More teeth, less loincloth. It’s a great adventure story. Jungles and fighting and dragons and all the rest of it. I can’t say that I remember the bit in African history when all the colonists got kicked out of Africa by a rampaging dragon army though, if I’m honest. It is, however, perfectly possible that we skipped that bit of the course due to time constraints. Anyway, everybody flies home again, deadly disease cured, rampaging dragons avoided but in no way defeated, and a surprisingly small amount of familiar names killed off. Dozens dead, but less of the big names this time around. Can it be that some people are safe after all? Strikes me that little Emily Roland, and the heavily pregnant Harcourt, can live through just about anything unscathed. Which is nice for them, but does make me feel rather sorry for poor little Morgan and Digby, killed off in books two and three respectively as though they were nobody. At the time I thought it was brave, now I’m wondering if it wasn’t perhaps a little unfair. Or maybe I shouldn’t complain, since there’s certain people I definitely don’t want added to the Dead List.
And then we hit problems again, because they arrive home to the discovery that Iskierka – who seems to have become Granby’s captain, rather than the other way around – and her gaggle of feral pirate friends have been capturing French ships left, right and centre whilst they’ve been away. So she now has a giant house (ish) on a hill to live in, and has been merrily decorating Granby in gold and jewels all the while – and the description of him dripping in rings, and with a diamond-hilted sword, really does sound enjoyably camp. You can’t keep dangling these things at me, and not expect me to whimper. Yes, I did love Temeraire does Tarzan. I loved the flashes of real history combined with the adventure, and it was a jolly good book. But, damn it, pirate dragons! A light-fingered, fire-breathing buccaneer, and her spangly and be-jewelled best mate, laying waste to French shipping from the skies with their rag-tag gang. How can I not want to read this?! Actually, screw that. I want to watch it. In glorious Technicolor™, and preferably made in the nineteen fifties. Or the nineteen eighties, if I can have Ray Harryhausen, an improbably large budget, and lots of swords.
Mostly, though, I just want the story of what happened when Temeraire and co were away. And I want it now!
*sigh*
On to Empire Of Ivory. This is a good one - though not, imho, as good as Black Powder War. I guess I liked the sprawling nature of book three, with its mad dash across half the world, and its jumble of plots and events. Empire Of Ivory is a pleasing mix, though. It somehow manages to combine Southern African history with an entertainingly mad Johnny Weissmuller-era Tarzan movie. Not something that you find often, and good fun to read. Did have one inescapable flaw, though.
The book starts with Temeraire and Iskierka arriving in England, with their new tangle of friends – Arkady and his marauding dragon gang having come to join them in their fight against the French. When they land, though, they find that all the other dragons in Britain are dying, due to some horrible wasting coughing disease to which Temeraire appears immune. Since he had a brief cold on his way out to China in book two, they assume it was the same thing, and that somewhere along the way he accidentally ate a cure, which he’s dispatched to find. But that’s the problem, see. Whilst the story of the disease unfolds, Iskierka is adapting to her new life in England. And Iskierka, inspired by some of Temeraire’s talk, wants money. She hits upon the idea of capturing ships for the bounties, and is jubilantly setting out upon this venture at the time that Temeraire and his crew – now minus Granby of course – are setting off to hunt for possible dragon cough remedies. And Britain, still in the grip of a war, is at present devoid of healthy dragons to guard it. Save for... ? Yep. The increasingly light-fingered Iskierka, and a fleet of pirate dragons. Now I’m sorry. I want a cure for the others, obviously I do. And as it turns out, I really enjoyed the story about it. But come on... Iskierka and a gang of pirate dragons?! Am I supposed to just turn my back on that, and not spend the next three hundred pages wondering what’s going on back in Blighty?! I wanna read that story, damn it. It needs to be told.
Temeraire, meanwhile, has flown straight into my third year at university. Book three kept colliding with my A-levels, so this isn’t entirely without precedent, but it was still rather unexpected. It’s strangely disconcerting when old memories of lectures and seminars get dragged up out of the depths. I liked the history of Southern Africa. Well – mostly I did. The lecturer was rather dry, and embarrassingly often I was the only one who turned up to listen to him, but the subject was good. The talk in Empire Of Ivory of everybody struggling with the unfamiliar “clicks” of the local languages amused me too, having struggled vainly with them myself throughout that year. The bloke who ran the course had lived in various places in Southern Africa for several decades, and could do some of them, and it can be a strange sort of thing to hear. It’s quite pleasing, really, how wildly different languages can be in different sections of the world. Yes, I am rambling. I know. Anyway, predictably enough they find the cure – a giant, stinky mushroom – and pack it off home, getting that bit of the plot neatly out of the way, just in time to crash unsuspectingly into the Johnny Weissmuller bit. That really is the best way I can think of to describe it. Later era Johnny Weissmuller, once they’d got past the first few, fairly run of the mill stories about his life in the jungle with Jane. The era when giant spiders started turning up, and man-eating water lilies, and that film about the Leopard Women that BBC2 used to show every summer holidays back in the eighties. Beneath a waterfall, in tunnels tiled with ivory, lives a vast colony of dragons and men, farming elephants for snack food and decorative purposes, and growing ever more filled with hatred for the slave traders that are decimating the local populations. We’re back with Temeraire now, by the way. Not Tarzan. More teeth, less loincloth. It’s a great adventure story. Jungles and fighting and dragons and all the rest of it. I can’t say that I remember the bit in African history when all the colonists got kicked out of Africa by a rampaging dragon army though, if I’m honest. It is, however, perfectly possible that we skipped that bit of the course due to time constraints. Anyway, everybody flies home again, deadly disease cured, rampaging dragons avoided but in no way defeated, and a surprisingly small amount of familiar names killed off. Dozens dead, but less of the big names this time around. Can it be that some people are safe after all? Strikes me that little Emily Roland, and the heavily pregnant Harcourt, can live through just about anything unscathed. Which is nice for them, but does make me feel rather sorry for poor little Morgan and Digby, killed off in books two and three respectively as though they were nobody. At the time I thought it was brave, now I’m wondering if it wasn’t perhaps a little unfair. Or maybe I shouldn’t complain, since there’s certain people I definitely don’t want added to the Dead List.
And then we hit problems again, because they arrive home to the discovery that Iskierka – who seems to have become Granby’s captain, rather than the other way around – and her gaggle of feral pirate friends have been capturing French ships left, right and centre whilst they’ve been away. So she now has a giant house (ish) on a hill to live in, and has been merrily decorating Granby in gold and jewels all the while – and the description of him dripping in rings, and with a diamond-hilted sword, really does sound enjoyably camp. You can’t keep dangling these things at me, and not expect me to whimper. Yes, I did love Temeraire does Tarzan. I loved the flashes of real history combined with the adventure, and it was a jolly good book. But, damn it, pirate dragons! A light-fingered, fire-breathing buccaneer, and her spangly and be-jewelled best mate, laying waste to French shipping from the skies with their rag-tag gang. How can I not want to read this?! Actually, screw that. I want to watch it. In glorious Technicolor™, and preferably made in the nineteen fifties. Or the nineteen eighties, if I can have Ray Harryhausen, an improbably large budget, and lots of swords.
Mostly, though, I just want the story of what happened when Temeraire and co were away. And I want it now!
*sigh*