Tag Archives: Napoleonic Wars

Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card (Tales of Alvin Maker)

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Synopsis:
As Alvin Maker heads out for his apprenticeship, the French conspire to rouse the Reds against the Whites for a war that will win all of an alternate America for Napoleon.

Review:
I am a big fan of how Orson Scott Card has created an American history that encompasses just enough of our reality to feel authentic, but then skewed to include magic and mysticism. In Red Prophet, Card turns Tecumseh into Ta-Kumsaw, and gives him a brother named Lolla-Wossiky whose transformation will affect young Alvin Maker’s life and destiny.

If my computer weren’t jumping my cursor around inexplicably, I’d write more, but I don’t have the patience. Further explication will be forthcoming when I read book three.

Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

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Review:
The second in trilogy begun in His Majesty’s Dragon finds Temeraire and Laurence traveling by sea to China where Temeraire will take his rightful place as the dragon of an emperor–not a member of His Royal Majesty’s Navy battling against an ever-encroaching Napoleon.

Review:
Throne of Jade is a more than worthy installment in the tale of Temeraire, a dragon hatched from an egg given by China to Napoleon but seized by the English. When Temeraire hatched, the first person he saw was naval officer Laurence–and this was quite by accident, to the despair of the pilot who was next in line to bond with a dragon. Laurence has to leave the navy with his beloved order and ritual, for the less rigorous though no less disciplined aerial corps, and learn to pilot a dragon and his crew to fight the air battle against Napoleon in service of the British Army. Book one covered this coming-of-age story beautifully, and by the end of the book Temeraire and Laurence were as thick as thieves and devoted to fair Albion. Continue reading →

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

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Synopsis:
The setting is the Napoleonic wars, in a world where dragons exist and are part of military operations. An English naval captain captures a French vessel, and on board is a particularly valuable treasure: a dragon’s egg, and joins the Aerial Corps with Temeraire, a very rare Celestial breed, and together they join the fight.

Review:
I loved this idea the minute I read about it in one of Entertainment Weekly’s capsule reviews. The book reads more like an adventure tale than a fantasy–lots of military proceedings and maneuvers and protocol. I’ve never read the Horatio Hornblower books or anything by Patrick O’Brien, but I imagine that this book is cut from the same sailcloth as those. Continue reading →