Did you ever wonder how all the books in the “Silence of the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” got in the Library? It might have gone something like this: Irene the junior Librarian for the Invisible Library, a secret organization that seeks out rare and unique books to collect in the library by traveling through different parallel dimensions with various degrees of technology and magic, goes on missions to retrieve them. She’s a pretty good secret agent, but sometimes she runs into unexpected adventures. […]
Forget the stupid rat-creatures. Stupid and annoying Phoney Bone, more like it
The three Bone cousins Fone Bone (renamed Hero Bone in my head), Smiley Bone (Comic Relief Bone) and Phoney Bone (Greedy, or frequently Insufferable, Bone) have been driven out of their home town of Boneville because Phoney Bone had some sort of get rich quick scheme and scammed the entire town, and now an angry mob has driven them off. They are wandering in the wilderness when they are attacked by a huge swarm of locusts and end up in a mysterious forest in a […]
In Russia, dragon flies you
(note before I start this review: HALF CANNONBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!) At this point, Blood of Tyrants being the eighth book in the Temeraire series, I am still very much on board the Temeraire train, but reading all of them in a row without the benefit of waiting between books (other than brief stints when the library is out of copies of whatever’s next) has meant that a certain fatigue has set in. I think I said in an earlier review that Novik has an incredible way of […]
Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now
THIS WAS GREAT. For reals. I really liked this one. It reminded me a lot of Uprooted, which is still on track to be my favorite book of the year (as evidenced by the fact that I bring it up in so many other reviews GIVE IT A REST, JENNIE). Interesting that they both involve dragons. Well. “Interesting.” Also, “dragons.” Anyway. (I’m not sure this needs to be said at this point of Cannonball but please forgive me if I can’t remember all the facts […]
Dragons with feathers!
Though I’m writing reviews for Books 4-7 all at once, and posting separately, I haven’t mentioned until now that the regular cast of characters besides Temeraire and his human buddy Will Laurence has really grown to a large group of familiars. I have to give giant props to Naomi Novik for building a world of details easy to absorb and remember, and still read super quickly. This book, number 7 of the series, brings us to South America, one of the few continents not yet visited […]
Temeraire Down Under
Let’s be real: Temeraire is the Forrest Gump of dragons. He goes everywhere, just when the action where he happens to be is most important. World history hinges on his behavior. He meets all the famous people and gets to be on a first name basis with all of them. And we get to go with him and see the entire world. THE ENTIRE WORLD! This time, we get on a dragon transport and travel with Will Laurence and Temeraire to Australia. Having had a […]