Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
Mar. 4th, 2017 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday I read Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik.
I quite like the plot, and the interesting travel across alternate ecologies, but I want to go read fanfic for desert. I'm not quite sure what the emotional payoff is supposed to be. I mean they chase the egg across the whole continent only to find it happily ensconced as a translator, which is nice for it, but doesn't give you a big hugs reunion moment, let alone a payoff proportional to the effort along the way. And it's excellent when the ugly duckling dragon turns out to be secretly biggest, but it's also predictable, and he still hasn't done anything yet. It's a win, but it's not the emotional cookie I was wanting. And all the human reactions are held at such a formal distance. And I suppose it is quite satisfying when Lawrence decides to go :-P to the British and go farm his nice valley, except he has no particular right to call it his valley, on account of rather a lot of indigenous people being there first. Temeraire being quite indignant about that when it's on the far coast doesn't quite serve to explain how they're going to claim much of anything around Sydney. And so much of such import is happening so far away it's quite clear any such resolve won't last anyway.
I liked how the Chinese had set up their ports, and how the earlier triumph with Temeraire is having so many interesting consequences. Fascinating use of bio engineering, kind of interesting politics.
I guess I just want to feel more about any given even than 'that's nice' with a side of 'huh, interesting'.
So I'm going to go read fanfic for a whole yearning/having cycle in a few thousand words. Not even Temeraire fanfic, I don't know who would do the yearning, they're all too brave faced sensible.
I quite like the plot, and the interesting travel across alternate ecologies, but I want to go read fanfic for desert. I'm not quite sure what the emotional payoff is supposed to be. I mean they chase the egg across the whole continent only to find it happily ensconced as a translator, which is nice for it, but doesn't give you a big hugs reunion moment, let alone a payoff proportional to the effort along the way. And it's excellent when the ugly duckling dragon turns out to be secretly biggest, but it's also predictable, and he still hasn't done anything yet. It's a win, but it's not the emotional cookie I was wanting. And all the human reactions are held at such a formal distance. And I suppose it is quite satisfying when Lawrence decides to go :-P to the British and go farm his nice valley, except he has no particular right to call it his valley, on account of rather a lot of indigenous people being there first. Temeraire being quite indignant about that when it's on the far coast doesn't quite serve to explain how they're going to claim much of anything around Sydney. And so much of such import is happening so far away it's quite clear any such resolve won't last anyway.
I liked how the Chinese had set up their ports, and how the earlier triumph with Temeraire is having so many interesting consequences. Fascinating use of bio engineering, kind of interesting politics.
I guess I just want to feel more about any given even than 'that's nice' with a side of 'huh, interesting'.
So I'm going to go read fanfic for a whole yearning/having cycle in a few thousand words. Not even Temeraire fanfic, I don't know who would do the yearning, they're all too brave faced sensible.