Book review
Written by Naomi Novik
Del Rey hardback
Release date 8 July 2008

British Captain Will Laurence is on a prison ship, under suspended sentence of death for his part in saving the dragons of France from a deadly plague. However, soon the French make it to British soil, making it necessary for the Air Corps to parole Laurence, as his dragon Temeraire is essential to the defence of the realm and won’t fly for another captain…

Victory of Eagles is the fifth novel in Naomi Novik’s wonderfully imagined, researched and executed series about what the Napoleonic Wars would have been like if both sides (and the rest of the world) had air corps consisting of intelligent dragons and their pilots.

Novik’s you-are-there style, her eye for detail, her brisk action and her delicious way with character development are continually engrossing. Not content to rest on what’s been established so far, Novik also continually expands her mythos and its implications, so that even as we’re feeling the cannonballs whizzing past the diving dragons in the battle sequences, we’re wondering about the larger implications of Temeraire’s doubts about the animal-like status of his powerful species and where Laurence’s epiphany about his own conduct will lead him. Novik also tweaks history so that we, like the characters, are in constant suspense about what turns the war will take. Abbie Bernstein

VERDICT: 9/10
Confirms Novik’s status as the author of one of the best ongoing fantasy series available today.