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Naomi Novik’s
Empire of
Ivory picks up just after book three,
Black
Powder War, concludes but holds the
urgency. This time the plight rests not in the war with France, but rather with
the illnesses of the English dragons. It seems that the cold Temeraire caught
on his way to China was in fact a mysterious disease that had swept across Britain
and in his absence has been decimating the dragon population. While many of
died, others cling to life. While the addition of the feral dragons has helped defend
the coast from invasion, with an increasingly zealous force of French dragons,
a cure must be found, at any cost. Thus, since Temeraire was cured by eating
strange foods concocted by his Chinese chaperons at the time, Laurence and he
take off for Africa to discern the source of the cure and recreate the cure.
Thus the journey begins. While Laurence fights with Riley
over allowing a black missionary aboard their ship, the novel heads down Novik’s
familiar paths. There will be a long wait, then a flurry of action. Scenes of despair—they
cannot seem to find the right mushroom, and then when they do they discover a
dangerous and growing civilization of African dragons hell-bent on punishing
the European interlopers for the slave trade. All of this comes to head as Temeraire
and Laurence must make a decision on whether the cure is theirs for the taking
or something that should fall into the hands of all dragons, both friend and
foe.
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