Book Review: Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

 Book title: Victory of Eagles
Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: July 8, 2008
352 pages
My rating: 5/5

“No; they nearly drowned you, and not even on purpose but only through carelessness. I am not letting them have you back,” Temeraire said.

After being convicted of treason, Captain Will Laurence is imprisoned and waiting for his death sentence while his dragon Temeraire is taken to the breeding grounds in Wales. But when Napoleon invades Britain with his dragons and infantry, both Laurence and Temeraire are called back to action.

Victory of Eagles is the fifth book in Naomi Novik’s historical fantasy series Temeraire set during the Napoleonic Wars and featuring dragons. You can find my review of the first book in the series here. I listened to this as an audio book, and needless to say, I’m loving this series.

After rather slow and not so exciting fourth book, Victory of Eagles rekindled my excitement for this series. There was more action, more battles, and faster pacing. And we finally get to read Temeraire’s point of view! I absolutely loved the scenes from his perspective. He’s intelligent but also rather naïve, and his interpretation of the events from a dragon’s perspective clashes nicely with what the human characters think. I didn’t expect to get Temeraire’s perspective, but now I hope the rest of the books in the series include it.

I love how active Temeraire is—he isn’t just controlled by humans but has his own ideas on how to win the war, and he takes the dragons from the breeding grounds and forms his own dragon militia that attacks the invading French army.

The only negative thing I have to say is the ending. I felt it dragged on a little too long, and some of it could have easily been moved to the beginning of the next book, Tongues of Serpents. I’m not sure how I feel about the direction that book seems to be taking, but we’ll see once I read it this week. I’ll let you know next week how I liked Tongues of Serpents.

If you love historical fantasy and dragons, I highly recommend this series for you. This was my favorite book in this series so far, and I’m eager to continue with the series. I gave Victory of Eagles five stars.