Empire of Ivory

Empire of Ivory
by Naomi Novik
Recommended Ages: 13+

In the alternate world where the Temeraire series takes place, the war between Regency Britain and Napoleonic France – or rather, by 1807, between Regency Britain and the rest of the world – is fought not only on land and sea, but also with dragons crewed by men, women and children, fighting in the airspace over both. Former Royal Navy Capt. Will Laurence and his Chinese Imperial dragon companion Temeraire have seen a lot of the world and done a great deal for the war effort in only a couple years. They've halted a French invasion on British shores, using Temeraire's rare ability known as "divine wind" – a roar that can shatter bones and sink ships. They've ensured the Chinese Empire's neutrality – getting Laurence adopted as an emperor's son. They've secured the first fire-breather in the British service – stealing her in the egg from the Sultan of Istanbul. And they've escaped from Napoleon's ransack of Prussia with 20 semi-feral dragons recruited from the mountain passes of Central Asia.

But now they have to circle back to a place they've already visited – Capetown, Africa – in search of the cure for a disease that threatens to wipe out all of Britain's dragons. Thanks to whatever it was, Temeraire got over his sniffles pretty quickly, during his first trip around the world. Figuring out what it was proves easier than finding more of it, enough to dose his squadron and then the rest of the corps. At first, it seems this is because this life-saving medicine is a rare fungus that the colonists and cattle-hearding tribesmen near the coast have almost eradicated, because it makes cows sick. But the real reason these strange mushrooms are hard to get proves much more dangerous to know.

It's related to the real reason, which no one has correctly guessed, that colonists, missionaries and explorers have never gone deep into the dark continent and returned to tell about it. Everyone thinks it has to do with wild beasts and feral dragons ruling the African interior. But actually, it's due to a great civilization so powerful that it has managed to keep its existence secret from the outside world. Once again, like when they visited China, Temeraire and company bear witness to an entirely different way to order the relationship between men and dragons – only this time, the knowledge brings danger and disaster.

I wish I could go on in more detail about what happens in this book, but I'm already afraid I may have spoiled too much of it. There's a lot more to it, though – including the full range of dramatic scope, from characters telling each other off to colossal battles, over the morality of slavery. This book revises history more radically than the previous installments in the series. For example, the implications of Nelson surviving the battle of Trafalgar begin to hit home. Also, there's all the stuff I said about the interior of Africa, and why it has never been colonized like in our reality; modern African history swerves even more sharply at the climax of this book. But at the very end of the book, something happens that will make you question whether that was really the climax – something that leaves matters so radically changed that as I closed this book, I inwardly kicked myself for not having pre-ordered the next installment.

This fourth of nine Temeraire novels comes between Black Powder War and Victory of Eagles. It only took me one book to get hooked; I plan to work my way through the whole set, if only I can manage my impatience until my next book order arrives. When an unread Naomi Novik book is on my hands, I find, other books that I've started to read lie neglected. Less than halfway through the series, I'm already dreading reaching the end and wonder whether she'll write more of them. It's got just about everything that a fan of Patrick O'Brian or C.S. Forester could wish for, plus dragons – and if you're not convinced that dragons are a plus, just try His Majesty's Dragon (alternate title, Temeraire) and see if you don't get hooked, too.

Black Powder War

Black Powder War
by Naomi Novik
Recommended Ages: 13+

Capt. Will Laurence and his dragon companion Temeraire have had an eventful year. Pairing up moments after the latter hatched, they've undergone a whirlwind training into King George III's Aerial Corps (Laurence having been a Navy captain, before), helped repulse a naval and aerial attack on Dover by Napoleon's forces, sailed around the horn of Africa, survived multiple assassination attempts, and experienced the Imperial Chinese culture where dragons and humans co-exist as equals. Temeraire, one of only eight Celestial dragons in the world, has met his mother, had his first love affair, and acquired a lifelong enemy in the albino dragon Lien. Laurence, for his part, has had his worldview shaken, has become an adopted son of the Chinese emperor, has prevented the French from forming an alliance with China, and now – without even a pat on the shoulder for a job well done – receives brusque orders to Istanbul, where he is to take charge of three dragon eggs the British are purchasing from the Sultan.

Part 1 of this book concerns the perilous journey of a man, a dragon and their crew across the vast width of Asia, including some serious desert trekking where the margin between life and death is very slim. They acquire a Chinese chef, a guide – an enigmatic, contradictory man named Tharkay, who has grown just a bit cynical after being snubbed by society due to the irregular circumstances of his birth – and even, for a spell, a pack of feral dragons from a mountain range in Central Asia, who mostly come along on the promise of beef. The situation changes suddenly when they arrive in Istanbul and find that the British ambassador has been killed, his secretary has disappeared with a million pounds, and the Sultan doesn't want to let them go – with or without the promised eggs.

Of course, Lien shows up again, vowing revenge against Laurence and Temeraire over the death of the Chinese prince who was her whole world. Thanks to Lien's strategems, the Temeraires (if you'll pardon me for calling the crew that) are already caught in a trap, and it continues to close around them more tightly. As time runs out for their escape, they must run the dangerous gauntlet of a sultan's harem where any man who enters, other than the eunuch guards, must surely die. But collecting the eggs and escaping are only one moment of danger in an adventure that proceeds, in Part 3, to reimagine Napoleon's 1806-07 Prussian campaign with dragons. More or less conscripted into the aerial defenses of the doomed Prussian side, the Temeraires witness and, indeed, take part in the crushing defeats at Saalfeld, Jena and Auerstedt, before finding themselves boxed in by the seige of Danzig.

By and large, the course of history isn't much changed by the participation of dragons. But we view those historic battlefields with a certain thrilling sweep that they might lack (as if!) by not having dragons flying overhead. But besides adding aerial views and thrilling, dragon-on-dragon action, the draconic revision also casts the personality of Laurence up against such real-life characters as Napoleon, Queen Louise, King Friedrich Wilhelm III, Generals Blücher, L'Estocq, Hohenlohe and Kalkreuth, and Marshal Lefebvre.

Throw in the ticking time-bomb of two unhatched dragon eggs, a vendetta between two dragons, swift-moving battles, surprise reunions and aerial warfare tactics that put everything Laurence has yet learned in the shade, and you have something much more thrilling than just a bit of military history dramatized for novel-reading audiences. It's a simmering, spicy stew of suspense, a grim depiction of what war is like, a thought-provoking tangle of personalities and ideologies (such as Temeraire's dream of improving conditions for British dragons), a rich picture of the manners and lifestyles of that time, and a series of thrilling battles and narrow escapes, all knit together in flawless style and pacing. I was totally entertained.

A beautiful piece of writing all around, this is the third of nine Temeraire novels, coming between Throne of Jade and Empire of Ivory.

Creepy Dream

About a week ago, I woke up from a really weird dream and wrote down a note about it, to remind myself about it later. I didn't really need the reminder; it's been on my mind a lot. What a creepy dream!

I dreamed that I was attending a conference with some old schoolfellows, staying at the kind of motel where guests' rooms open straight out onto the parking lot. As I approached my room, I noticed something hanging on the door that I took at first for a decorative bundle of straw or fine sticks. Then I recognized it as an enormous, daddy long-legs type spider that immediately started chasing me.

As I ran for it, I gradually realized that my initial guess was closer to the truth, and my pursuer was really more of a kind of hollow tumbleweed. It outwardly seemed to be just rolling around, but it really was following me everywhere I went and even seemed to be trying to head me off. It had intelligence and intent. Somehow I realized that allowing it to touch me would be disaster.

I don't know what would have happened when it caught me – whether it was trying to bite me or snag on my clothing or steal my car keys or what – but I woke up pretty freaked out. I also remember that my chase covered some interesting dream terrain.

Well, sweet dreams, y'all!

Throne of Jade

Throne of Jade
by Naomi Novik
Recommended Ages: 13+

This is the second of nine Temeraire books by the author of Will Supervillains Be on the Final?, A Deadly Education, Uprooted and Spinning Silver. Shortly after reading book 1, titled either Temeraire or His Majesty's Dragon, I ordered this book online as well as the next two after it, Black Powder War and Empire of Ivory. I just couldn't get enough of Laurence, Temeraire and their world, or the astounding intelligence and talent of their creator. When I read in the inside-the-back-cover blurb that she was inspired by a love of Patrick O'Brian and Jane Austen, I fell in love with her a little. If I keep up like this, I'm going to run out of her books again, too soon.

In the current book, Capt. Will Laurence of H.M. Aerial Corps and his remarkable companion, the dragon Temeraire, have just saved the United Kingdom from invasion by Napoleon's forces when they are called on the carpet by an ungrateful Admiralty, who want to break up their partnership and give Temeraire back to the Chinese. A delegation from that country, including the Emperor's brother, reveals that Temeraire belongs to a rare, sacred breed that must never be harnessed or put to hazardous service – a Celestial, the highest order of dragons, bred as companions to emperors and their families. Because Temeraire refuses to give up Laurence, and Laurence refuses to lie to the dragon and say he wants him to, the only way out of the diplomatic impasse is to ship dragon, man and all to China and see what the Emperor has to say about it.

Their journey around the Horn of Africa is fraught with challenges, including clashes of culture with the Chinese passengers, a nighttime attack by enemy forces, a couple attempts on Laurence's life and Temeraire's dawning realization that British dragons live in conditions just this side of slavery. This last concern weighs most heavily on Laurence after they arrive in Peking and Temeraire meets others of his kind. They witness a society where humans and dragons live among each other as equals, where dragons can move about freely and aspire to a variety of careers, where they read and write, earn and spend money. To be sure, he meets a villainous Celestial, but he also bonds with his mother and enjoys a little romance with a pretty Imperial. And the Prince presents him with a little boy meant to be a more suitable companion than Laurence.

Worrying about whether he will lose Temeraire is trouble enough, but Laurence hasn't left behind the threat of assassination as a guest of the Chinese. The book balances desperate battles with a scenic tableau that seamlessly blends historic culture and manners with fantasy world-building. It's a thrilling adventure whose style and literary merit approach that of the authors mentioned above. Beneath all, it is charged with a strange kind of love that perhaps doesn't resemble any relationship we know of, but that nevertheless, touches the reader's heart.

The Book of Secrets

The Book of Secrets
by Cynthia Voigt
Recommended Ages: 11+

Max Starling has settled into his new identity as Mister Max, a "solutioneer" (not a detective) of indeterminate age, who uses disguises and roles learned in his parents' theater to solve people's problems without anyone noticing that he's a 12-year-old boy living alone. Well, not exactly alone; he does have a lodger, and his Grammie lives just across his backyard. But his parents remain mysteriously missing, possibly living in character as the king and queen of a tiny South American country, and now Max has received a cryptic message from his father that may just be a cry for help.

While he struggles to understand what he can do for his parents, Max carries on solutioneering – first helping a little boy who's worried about his father, then a father worried about his son and finally, a young man who wants to know if he can do anything to help a beautiful young woman with whatever she's worried about. Between all these cases, I mean jobs, comes one from the Mayor of Queensbridge that puts Max in the most danger he's faced yet. Someone is vandalizing and setting fires to businesses all over town, and the more Max understands what's going on, the more he becomes a target for the people behind it.

But Max's biggest worry isn't the secrets other people are keeping, but how to keep his own. What he wants most of all is independence, and if anyone finds out about his living situation, he could lose that. So he gets a little snippy with the girl who has appointed herself his assistant. He gets evasive with a schoolmate who sees through his disguises. And at a couple of moments, this need to keep secrets puts him in an awful dilemma – such as whether to ask for, and accept, the help that he really needs.

Max's adventures are both written and illustrated in a quirky, original way that puts emphasis on the theatrical home in which he grew up. The unique way he thinks, the solutions he arrives at for other people's problems, the way he almost disappears into a role and even (once or twice) holds debates between different characters he is dancing between, his amazing strengths and abilities are a lot of fun in and of themselves. But then you see his vulnerability, his weaknesses, the things he simply can't do – from painting anything but a watercolor sky to saving his family without help – and he becomes a living person you would like to know.

This is the middle book of the "Mister Max" trilogy by the Newbery Medal winning author of Dicey's Song and six other "Tillerman Cycle" books, Jackaroo and five other "Tales of the Kingdom," The Bad Girls and five sequels, The Callender Papers, The Vandemark Mummy, and somewhere around 15 other novels for young adult readers. The other "Mister Max" titles are The Book of Lost Things and The Book of Kings.

277. Transformation Hymn

As brief and deceptively simple as this hymn is, I've been brooding over it for months. It finally hatched today; hooray! Intended especially for Christian youth and young adults, it takes its ideas from Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18 and Philippians 3:20-21. As I wrote it, I had no particular tune in mind, but right now it seems to go nicely in my head to the tune REX CHRISTE, FACTOR OMNIUM (below), which I previously paired with this hymn.

Beloved, be not pressed into
The mold this world designs for you;
But be transformed, your mind restored
To what is pleasing to the Lord.

Thus we, with unveiled face, may view
The image He'll transform us to:
His glory overwriting ours,
According to the Spirit's powers.

For heaven is our proper state,
Upon whose King we keenly wait;
He will our body form anew
And all things to Himself subdue.

276. Encouragement Hymn

The idea behind this hymn is a letter of encouragement to a younger member of the congregation who has moved away for college and may or may not be going to church. The only tune I know of that fits this hymn (though not ideally, from a stanza structure point of view) is SINGEN WIR AUS HERZENS GRUND (a.k.a. IN NATALI DOMINI), a 1544 Bohemian Brethren chorale, illustrated here as set to the German text "Auf den Nebel folgt die Sonn" in an 1895 Liederbuch. (See also LHy 110.)

Child of God, abide in faith:
Call to mind your solemn pledge
All to risk, yes, even death,
Lest the foe, with wily wedge,
Sheer you off the narrow path.
Let your Father's teaching serve
As your guide at every curve.

Child of God, abide in Christ:
Know His truth; absorb His word.
Let His body sacrificed,
Let His blood, in mercy poured,
Feed you, like a scion spliced
In the rootstock of the vine,
Burgeoning with choicest wine.

Child of God, abide in love:
Seek the fellowship of grace.
Share the comfort of His Dove,
Heartened by the saints' embrace.
Strive with us for things above,
For the things that make for peace,
Till all din and discord cease.

Child of God, abide in hope:
Looking toward the eastern sky;
Toward the dawning light we grope,
Watching as the hour grows nigh.
Then, no more in figured trope,
Plain to every weary eye,
Christ will beckon us on high.