Book Series Review: The Temeraire Series
I haven't really done any reviews for a book series before, so bear with me.
The Temeraire series started off with a lot of promise: the premise, simply put, was the Napoleonic wars ... with dragons. The first few books were really interesting, as the main characters were able to fight and go to various locales throughout the world to forge alliances against the French, but after a while ... the story really started to go off the rails.
The series is nine books long, and I stopped a little more than halfway through. One main reason is that the main characters seemed to stop caring about the main conflict in Europe ... and so did I. The action had taken them from England, to China, Africa, and Australia where the main character decides he's going to make a little homestead for himself before he's called back into service. They fly across the Pacific to meet with the Incas, and that's where I had to stop. Honestly, at this point, I couldn't bring myself to care anymore.
One other thing I have to mention is the type of language used in the books. It is very much an early-1800s type speech. English people with sticks up their butts. It's hard to listen to, then you have to deal with all of the different people and dragons ... it becomes a muddle quickly.
Granted, I listened to the books on audio format, so that could be coloring my viewpoint a bit, but the audiobooks were good quality, and I doubt there would be much different in the hard-copies, other than line breaks so a reader could identify when and where certain characters started their lines of thought so it doesn't feel like head-hopping.
In all, I give the first book of the Temeraire series a 7/10, but it slides down from there. I couldn't finish Crucible of Gold, so that would equate to a 0/10.
Pros:
Interesting premise
Good execution early on
Cons:
Bad pacing
Confusing breaks between characters
Culture is hard to understand/care about
Premise isn't fully taken advantage of
Hard to follow
Not enough direct conflict
The Temeraire series started off with a lot of promise: the premise, simply put, was the Napoleonic wars ... with dragons. The first few books were really interesting, as the main characters were able to fight and go to various locales throughout the world to forge alliances against the French, but after a while ... the story really started to go off the rails.
The series is nine books long, and I stopped a little more than halfway through. One main reason is that the main characters seemed to stop caring about the main conflict in Europe ... and so did I. The action had taken them from England, to China, Africa, and Australia where the main character decides he's going to make a little homestead for himself before he's called back into service. They fly across the Pacific to meet with the Incas, and that's where I had to stop. Honestly, at this point, I couldn't bring myself to care anymore.
One other thing I have to mention is the type of language used in the books. It is very much an early-1800s type speech. English people with sticks up their butts. It's hard to listen to, then you have to deal with all of the different people and dragons ... it becomes a muddle quickly.
Granted, I listened to the books on audio format, so that could be coloring my viewpoint a bit, but the audiobooks were good quality, and I doubt there would be much different in the hard-copies, other than line breaks so a reader could identify when and where certain characters started their lines of thought so it doesn't feel like head-hopping.
In all, I give the first book of the Temeraire series a 7/10, but it slides down from there. I couldn't finish Crucible of Gold, so that would equate to a 0/10.
Pros:
Interesting premise
Good execution early on
Cons:
Bad pacing
Confusing breaks between characters
Culture is hard to understand/care about
Premise isn't fully taken advantage of
Hard to follow
Not enough direct conflict
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