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Victory of Eagles (Temeraire, Book 5) | 
 enlarge | Author: Naomi Novik
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 6913
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 342
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 0345496884
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780345496881
ASIN: 0345496884
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
Naomi Novik’s triumphant debut, His Majesty’s Dragon, introduced a dynamic new pair of heroes to the annals of fantasy fiction: the noble fighting dragon Temeraire and his master and commander, Capt. Will Laurence, who serves Britain’s peerless Aerial Corps in the thick of the raging Napoleonic Wars. Now, in the latest novel of this dazzling series, they soar to new heights of breathtaking action and brilliant imagination.
It is a grim time for the dragon Temeraire. On the heels of his mission to Africa, seeking the cure for a deadly contagion, he has been removed from military service–and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason.
For Britain, conditions are grimmer still: Napoleon’s resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon’s prime objective: the occupation of London.
Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon’s forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war and to aid the resistance against the invasion before Napoleon’s foothold on England’s shores can become a stranglehold.
If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain’s scattered forces and take the fight to the enemy as never before–for king and country, and for their own liberty. But can the French aggressors be well and truly routed, or will a treacherous alliance deliver Britain into the hands of her would-be conquerors?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
I can has copyeditor? August 27, 2008
I love this series, and I love this addition to it.
But somehow, for me, this book felt quite disjointed in comparison to the last ones - I won't go into details about the plot (which itself was everything I could have hoped), and regardless, it was the execution that bothered me.
From odd changes in perspective to the myriad of spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors (I have never seen so many in a published work previously), I have to wonder whether Ms Novik or the publisher fired their copyeditor. The errors just served to jar me out of an otherwise gripping story.
I hope this is corrected in the paperback version, but as it stands, the print quality of the UK hardback is appalling.
The series continues well August 24, 2008
This fifth adventure of Temeraire and Laurence continues very well, and indeed there's a sort-of resolution at the end, though not a very satisfactory one nor one that promises an early end to the series. As it begins, Laurence has been condemned to death, and Temeraire to the breeding pens, although in order to keep Temeraire under control Laurence's sentence has been postponed indefinitely and he's been confined to a warship participating in the blockade of the Continent. Then the ship Laurence was on is sunk; he's one of the survivors, but Temeraire is informed that there were none, so he feels released from any obligation to follow orders. And so he organizes the dragons in the breeding pens into a force of riderless dragons to fight the French, who have broken the blockade and landed an army of 50,000 or so in Britain. Laurence, meanwhile, is reprieved if he'll go get Temeraire and return him to active fighting under the Admiralty (they don't know of his breakout with the other breeding dragons). After some jumping around missing connections they manage to join up, and do some useful stuff for the Brits, although some of what they do is contrary to what Laurence (and most British officers) consider to be the laws of war. Eventually Napoleon is defeated, although he escapes back to France, and Laurence and Temeraire are condemned to transportation to Australia and its penal colony. Laurence is too noble to be really believable, but that's the way the series has been set up and I guess I have to accept it. Temeraire is a lot more practical. There's another new dragon character I quite like--a mid-sized dragon who's also something of a mathematical genius (she's worked out things like the Pythagorean Theorem and the nature of e without ever having heard of them) named Perscitia. And Arthur Wellesley plays a prominent role, though the copyreaders did miss one place where he's referred to as "Wellington" before he got his Dukedom. Also, Novik (and her copyreaders) don't seem to realize that the English Channel starts at the Straits of Dover on its eastern end; she several times refers to "the Channel" when speaking of the waters off the ports of Shoeburyness and Sheerness, which are quite a ways north and east of Dover. The boundaries between parts of the ocean are somewhat arbitrary, so I don't know if both ports are on the Thames Estuary, both on the North Sea, or one on one and one the other (they're more or less opposite each other more or less where the estuary opens out into the wider sea). But, I suppose, let it pass. It's still an excellent story.
Solid continuation of the series August 20, 2008
The latest in Naomi Novik's series starting with His Majesty's Dragon continues the troubles of Captain Laurence and his Celestial dragon, Temeraire. I won't give away the plot, but the fifth book in the series picks up almost immediately from the end of the preceding novel, as our two heroes fight Napoleon in the second French invasion of England.
What's interesting is how certain points made in book 1 must be taken up, and Ms. Novik has the courage of her convictions to have her characters have the courage of their convictions. The issue of how British high society, the Admiralty and the Parliament should treat dragons is, in a fair way, a substitute for the abolition argument that raged in that time, and Novik uses that as a starting point for presenting whether dragons should have rights as sentient creatures -- and if not, whyever they should feel 'patriotic' for a society that mistreats them. Clever, clever, and filtered (mostly but not completely successfully) through 19th century minds. This adds to previous novels that looked at the treatment of women (e.g., Jane Rowland) who fight for the country but are denied recognition.
One other reviewer questions why we shouldn't root for Napoleon. That's precisely the point: Napoleon, brutish as he might be in conquering other countries, displays an enlightened attitude (or a ruthlessly mercenary one, take your pick, and Novik lets you) in the relationship of man to dragon. Struggle with that one as you read Temeraire's exploits, and you begin the see the cleverness in this series -- it's not about dragons, it's about how we humans see the world.
One star off: the middle-third of the books sags some. Novik could do with some time off before her next book, as much as I'd like to read it.
Overall, a very solid continuation of the series. Novik is an excellent writer, and she's created a world that is at once familiar and alien. That's a neat trick for a sci-fi/alternative history/fantasy writer.
Solid continuation of the series -- the main characters are as intriguing as ever August 17, 2008
Even though the preceding volume in this ongoing series ended on a cliffhanger, with Napoleon about to invade Britain, the real story here has to do with the developing relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. That's what's holding me to the story, and will keep me anticipating each new volume. The Temeraire series is light reading, but is more than merely a guilty pleasure.
Novik does a marvelous job describing the ongoing battles and intrigues -- and obviously has done a great deal of research. Little details stand out in the midst of elaborate descriptions -- I was struck by her description of a cannon ball that had been fired on the ship where Laurence was imprisoned. It was moving at a pace where the guard thought he might stop it with his foot -- but it had built up enough momentum that it ripped cleanly through his foot and a wall before ceasing to roll.
Where the book really shines, though, is in its attention to the evolution in Laurence's attitudes and response to situations -- his commitment to a sense of honor and dignity in the face of the indignities he suffers -- and in its tracing of an evolution in Temeraire's understanding of himself and of the world. Temeraire was born intelligent and able to speak -- a situation quite different from that of human beings who have to grow into reason, and for whom habituation and norms come prior to elaborate self reflection. He can't understand Laurence's peculiar sense of pride and dignity in the service of duty -- and why he would be willing to be executed for treason when he did what was obviously the just thing. What I found most intriguing in this book were the ways he tried to make sense of Laurence's values -- even as his experiences began to call for some of the same skills as Laurence.
Apart from its alternative history, the series is clearly moving in a direction where Temeraire will begin to develop an independence and autonomy from Laurence -- that is essential to his development. One of the primary reasons offered in the series why the dragons -- while sentient and intelligent -- are not free is the fact that humans have exploited the fact that they imprint so strongly to a master. If Temeraire is to live up to his promise to be a leader among dragons, he will have to find a degree of autonomy and independence in spite of this.
The series looks as though it could go on for a while -- and that's not a bad thing. I look forward to the future exploits and adventures and growth of both Laurence and Temeraire.
 ***Sigh*** August 13, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
First, and out of kindness to Ms. Novik, I am a great fan of this series, in particular books one and two. She has successfully married "Master and Commander" to "Dragonriders of Pern", an act that must have taken considerable courage. And in the main has produced an enjoyable read.
Unfortunately, that read is not to be found in this fifth installment in the series. After settling in comfortably with Captain Laurence and his dear Temeraire, it dawned on me that nothing, nothing at all, was really happening in this book. Laurence broods throughout the novel, embracing his identity as a convicted traitor doomed to hang. Temeraire begins sowing socialist, or are those capitalist?, notions amongst his fellow exiles on the dragon breeding grounds. And then Napoleon invades England, requiring the nation to reunite our two heroes and unleash their considerable military prowess.
Novik is kind enough to reintroduce many of our favourite characters, but with the exception of Laurence's mother, Lady Allendale, they fail to rise above cookie-cutterdom. I became downright annoyed at her portrait of the testy and impatient Duke of Wellington, whose constant sneering made me wonder....how could this man ever have inspired a nation?
With the thinnest of plots, a minimum of character development, and a large quotient of deus ex machina thundering in the background, it strikes me that Ms. Novik is rushing her deadlines and coasting on her laurels, perhaps indulged by her publishers and the moonstruck fan quotient as well. The book chugs along comfortably enjoying its own formula. Not good enough, Naomi, not good enough by half.
As we move to Book 6, and its very interesting locale, I hope the author slows down and makes a sincere attempt to give her characters and plotlines some well deserved depth and richness. There is so much to work with here, and such wonderful personalities to explore and explicate, things most writers would sell their souls for. I wonder if Ms. Novik's history in, and enthusiasm for, fan-fic is blinding her to the possibilities, and responsibilities, that present themselves in an original work.
As Temeraire would say, "Don't drop the egg."
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