Empire of Ivory

I liked this one, but if I step back and think about it... nothing really happened. Kind of odd, but I won't hold that against it punitively since I did get a kick out of it (for some reason).

That ending...............what man giveth, man taketh away too.....

I was just reading some of Ms. Novik's accomplishment, and there, right there, history buff, that is why her stories reads like a history lesson in an alternate world, where Dragons fly in the sky, the early British conquests, the european conquerors, China as one of the powerful albeit mysterious country, then Russia, Prussia, now in this novel, Africa, the land of the wild, and that most grotesque achievement of early man : Slavery, whenever you visit the era 14th to the 18th century, this was one of the most brutal practices, along with opium addiction, I was completely caught unawares on how it was incorporated, and became a storypoint, let alone one of the reason for that cliffhanger of an ending......come to think of it, man has never been a good neighbor, he is callous, greedy and murderous, to think that the book is about Dragons and Man, yet in a way, it is also slavery of Dragons, horses, dogs and etc, we are the prime Alpha of this planet, everything else is usable, edible and when there is no longer any use discarded, a fine, fine study of man hidden inside a story of fantasy!!!!

significantly better paced than Black Powder War, though I do feel like both (and the next) books are excuses to explore the world (first China, Africa and next Australia) with its dragons rather than being plot-driven.