Picture a giant spiny snake with feet and wings and you should pretty quickly see at least two problems: a) How does this creature walk (or fly for that matter)? b) Coiling yourself up when you have a multitude of steam-emitting spines all over your body does not sound very comfortable! Also, the tsunami at the end would also have come quite a ways inland - I don't remember the description of anything that would have stopped it, but somehow, that just didn't seem to happen. I was trying to picture this creature that is described, on more than one occasion, to be depositing her coils around the decks, yards, wherever the dragons were hanging out. (Spoiler alert further down!) 1) It seems that sometimes the author sacrifices logic at the altar of effect, for example the description of the dragon Iskierka (sp.?), who sounds like a giant spiny python with wings.

While I still really liked this book and would not have missed it, there were a few things that bothered me. 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?

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. 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. Napoleon's prime objective: the occupation of London. For Britain, conditions are grimmer still: Napoleon's resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. 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. It is a grim time for the dragon Temeraire. Now in the latest novel, they soar to new heights of breathtaking action and brilliant imagination. 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.

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik