Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, Book 4)
by Naomi Novik
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Book Summary Information
Author: Naomi NovikEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-25
ISBN: 0345496876
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, Book 4)
Book Review: In PC-est Africa
Summary: 1 Stars
This follow-up to the far superior Black Powder War is a dreary, depressing book; the first of the series I had to force myself to finish. Considering how much I loved what has gone before, I was stunned. What could possibly have gone wrong? Just about everything.
THE MACGUFFIN: I haven't seen a MacGuffin this strained or this obvious since Throne of Jade, but at least that MacGuffin was allowed to fade mercifully into the background after kicking the plot into motion. In this book, perhaps because these repeated threats to separate our heroes are beginning to pale, Ms. Novik decided to rub our noses in it. Fully one third of the book is devoted to detailing the intense suffering as the Dragon Plague tears its bloody course through the Aerial Corps before Temeraire is FINALLY exposed and FINALLY found to be immune so that the quest for the cure can FINALLY begin.
THE IMPORTANT ISSUE OF THE DAY: Still, it ought to have been worth it just to have all the old crew back together again, and it might have been if so much of the book hadn't been spent debating the issue of slavery. Yes, readers, in case we had any doubts, Ms. Novik has bravely decided to voice her opinion on slavery: she's against it.
Thus she makes a common mistake, forgetting that what would be an act of courage for one of her characters, is not one for her today. Seriously, other than criminals and Muslim extremists, who DOES she think she is arguing slavery with today? Again the problem here is not the mention of it but the overdoing of it. Since the question is no longer in doubt in our age, we really don't need to have our noses rubbed in it so vigorously in order to "get" the connection with the concept of dragon emancipation. About all this continual nastiness about slavery in general or the Erasmus family in particular accomplishes is to lower our opinions both of Laurence's (former?) friend Tom Riley who comes across as an astonishingly childish bigot and of Laurence himself for ever calling him friend.
THE HANDLING OF CHRISTIANITY: I cringe whenever a modern secular author, especially one whose work I enjoy, decides to tackle Christian characters or Christian themes because almost without exception the result is to display either her hostility to or her ignorance of Christianity. However, Ms. Novik fooled me at first. Unlike a number of modern writers of history, much less writers of fiction, Ms. Novik correctly notes that the abolition movement was largely the work of Evangelical Christians while political, scientific, and more nominal Christian elites opposed it. In addition her portrait of the Rev. Erasmus comes pretty close to capturing the all but incomprehensible to non-Christians Missionary Calling that has sent wave after wave of them off to the most incredibly hostile regions to meet the most incredibly hostile people armed with nothing but an old, old book whose teachings they deem worthy of risking (and losing) their lives in order to share.
Unfortunately, this rather promising beginning dies quite suddenly and pointlessly along with the Rev. Erasmus. To make matters worse his grieving widow eventually responds by "going native", defecting to the very people who murdered her husband. Now to be fair, she has better motives than most Stockholm Syndrome sufferers. This IS the same tribe she was enslaved out of, and her reasons appear relatively rational and thought out. Unfortunately they also appear completely self-serving. No mention is made of continuing her husband's work; in fact it seems clear that along with her "slave" name and "slave" garb, she is also casting aside her "slave" religion in favor of the obviously phony Tswana religion (we actually see dragon eggs being "imprinted" with false memories of the people they are supposedly reincarnations of). In a nominally Christian former slave this might be understandable; in a missionary's widow it really is not. One is forced to conclude that she merely pretended to Christianity in order to motivate her future husband into facilitating her manumission. Well, people have certainly sold their integrity for far less, and at least this time she was the one doing the selling. Still, a true Christian would have realized that his former church community would be unlikely to allow the widow and orphans of a genuine Christian martyr to end up begging on the streets!
PC HISTORICAL CHANGES: However, the most annoying part of this book is undoubtedly the significant PC historical changes Ms. Novik casually tosses out without apparently thinking through to the logical consequences. The first actually dates from His Majesty's Dragon; I have long wondered why Ms. Novik had Admiral Nelson survive the Battle of Trafalgar. Now we know. Frankly it seems to me a pity to spare England's greatest naval hero a martyr's death just so he can be made into the double villain of this novel.
For the surviving Lord Nelson manages to change history himself by ensuring the defeat of the abolition of the slave trade law that passed in our world in 1807 and led in time to the naval strangling of the world wide slave trade and eventually to the abolition of slavery itself. Instead Ms. Novik has the Tswana take advantage of the Napoleonic Wars to massacre all the lightly defended European colonies in Africa. What Ms. Novik seems not to grasp is that this must logically result in a much darker course in European-African history for her world.
To begin with abolition is dead for the foreseeable future; revenge will be the cry all over Europe. The best abolitionist argument: "What have these people ever done to deserve such treatment from us?" just died along with the largest group of murdered European colonials outside the Indian Mutiny. Of course said revenge will necessarily be delayed until Napoleon's final defeat, but when it comes, it will probably be a united European response against which the Tswana will have no chance of survival much less of winning. If vengeful Europeans do not exterminate them, their long suffering neighboring tribes will do so as the opportunity presents. We forget to our folly that Europeans of the Napoleonic Wars or the Imperialist Era were not like our modern Europeans who would first ask, "Why do they hate us?" before allowing guilt to paralyze them into inaction. Nineteenth century Europeans knew EXACTLY how to respond to these sorts of massacres: massacre them right back on a vaster scale! The slave trade, too, will continue indefinitely though at a somewhat reduced level. The Tswana clearly lack the means to effectively police an entire continent, and the Europeans lack a motive.
I note that in an attempt to preemptively counter this sort of analysis, Ms. Novik lets slip with briefest mention and little justification another very significant PC historical change at the end. In her imagining it seems that effective military air power a millennium ahead of time has rendered most of European colonialism impossible; this is anti-Imperialist wishful thinking on stilts. More densely populated regions like China and India would benefit most from dragons, being able to field enough to effectively patrol their territory. But how were China and India colonized in our world? Not primarily by military conquest but rather by Europeans taking advantage of internal divisions, which dragons will not magically eliminate. Less densely populated areas like Africa and the Americas would be much more vulnerable since they would have little chance of stopping an invasion on the beach. Of course any such landing or colony would need air support. In fact the ONLY logical way dragons would materially affect colonialism would be to make it more expensive, which might spare poorer regions with little worth stealing. But any "cities of gold" would be doomed.
THE TREASON: The final major annoyance is how the scheme by Lord Nelson (Boo! Hiss!) to send the infected French dragon home in an early attempt at germ warfare is dealt with. Well, NATURALLY Temeraire and Laurence cannot be expected to stand for this because while it is perfectly acceptable to slash enemy dragons to pieces by clawing, rip their throats out with biting, sear their skin off with fire, eat through to their brains with acid, crush their chests with round shot, plunge them to their deaths, or concuss them with the Divine Wind, it is absolutely wrong to kill them by making them sick!...
I think the sheer stupidity of this sort of "reasoning" is self-evident. My problem is not that dragons or dragon riders would be incapable of such stupidity; they would rather obviously be the most susceptible to it. With the manipulative way Ms. Novik has set things up, any of us would be tempted. My problem is that I doubt that Ms. Novik will lay upon these two geniuses the burden they so richly deserve. Is Laurence going to be executed and Temeraire banished to the breeding grounds? PUH-LEAZE! Let us not dignify this all too obviously phony threat by even calling it a cliffhanger. Ms. Novik is not going to kill off her heroes, especially not for doing something she so obviously thinks is noble and right. But these big hearted but brainless meddlers ought to be made aware that in exchange for saving the lives of thousands of dragons from disease they have just condemned hundreds of thousands of men (and how many dragons?) to death in future Napoleonic battles because the rational reason for doing this would be in order to trade the cure for Napoleon's abdication. (Accusing the plotters of intending to wipe out all dragons outside of British control is self justifying self delusion.) Thanks to their "heroism" Napoleon will continue to fill the graveyards of Europe for the foreseeable future.
Way to go guys! And way to go Ms. Novik!
THE CHEAT: Ms. Novik gives another indication that she is aware just how shaky is the ground upon which she has erected this PC edifice. She has been in the habit of appending a short extract from some allegedly real contemporary document to provide additional info. In this one she carefully details the increasingly implausible events (elephant farming?) by which she constructs her castle in the air: the invincible Tswana Kingdom. I shan't bother to pick it apart; I shall only note the date: 1838. Aware of just how preposterous this entire book is she tries to settle the argument by fiat, by establishing the Tswana Kingdom lasting until "the present day" of 1838, thirty years beyond the present day of her story. I shall consider it what it is: an admission that she has substituted wishing for thinking.
I was planning to preorder Victory of Eagles in hardback right after finishing this book, but you know what? I think I can wait for the mass market paperback to come out in order to see whether this is a one book slump or a dismal warning of what is to come in Tongues of Serpents.
Note: if you find yourself intrigued by the idea of Napoleonic warfare with dragons, how about American Revolutionary warfare with dragons?
Dragon America
Or American Civil War naval action...
with magic?
Land of Mist and Snow
Summary of Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, Book 4)
?A new writer is soaring on the wings of a dragon.??The New York Times
?Enthralling reading?it?s like Jane Austen playing Dungeons & Dragons with Eragon?s Christopher Paolini.?
?Time, on His Majesty?s Dragon
Tragedy has struck His Majesty?s Aerial Corps, whose magnificent fleet of fighting dragons and their human captains valiantly defend England?s shores against the encroaching armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. An epidemic of unknown origin and no known cure is decimating the noble dragons? ranks?forcing the hopelessly stricken into quarantine. Now only Temeraire and a pack of newly recruited dragons remain uninfected?and stand as the only means of an airborne defense against France?s ever bolder sorties.
Bonaparte?s dragons are already harrowing Britain?s ships at sea. Only one recourse remains: Temeraire and his captain, Will Laurence, must take wing to Africa, whose shores may hold the cure to the mysterious and deadly contagion. On this mission there is no time to waste, and no telling what lies in store beyond the horizon or for those left behind to wait, hope, and hold the line.
?A gripping adventure full of rich detail and the impossible wonder of gilded fantasy.?
?Entertainment Weekly, on His Majesty?s Dragon
?A thrilling fantasy . . . All hail Naomi Novik.?
?The Washington Post Book World, on His Majesty?s Dragon
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