reading wednesday

[sea_changed]

Tongues of Serpents, by Naomi Novik. Kulingile! Kulingile and Demane! Probably other things happened in this book but this is what I walked away with; they broke my heart and then put it back together again in the most wonderful way.

I'll admit overall though that this was not one of my favorites of the series; I spent significant stretches of it fairly bored, which is not an emotion I usually feel reading these books. There wasn't the excitement or interest of another dragon culture, I think, and while the sea serpent smugglers could've been great they came out rather flat, which again I think was tied to the fact that the creatures didn't have personalities of their own and there was no real dynamic between them and the dragons, or various human group and dragon group combinations; the same was obviously true of the bunyips. There was none of the intrigue of meeting the Chinese or Tswana dragons (or the Inca; I am most of the way through Crucible of Gold at the moment and loving it).

The Fantasy of Feminist History, by Joan Scott. Ah, Joan Scott. It has the disjointed feel of a collection of talks and essays, which it is, though there's plenty of interesting stuff. The psychoanalytic side is surprisingly (though thankfully) downplayed, and her better points seem largely absent of any Freudian (or more appropriately Lacanian) influence.

Comments

[copperfyre]

Tongue of Serpents is definitely not my favourite Temeraire, but like you I came away with exclamation marks of joy about Demane and Kulingile! Also I do love the ending with Temeraire and Laurence and their valley and Laurence doing a lot of quiet character work with himself.

I do really enjoy Crucible of Gold, it’s such a romp, and Napoleon comes back (I think?)!

[sea_changed]

I just want so much more with them, and Sipho, and Emily. I would read an entire series just about Kulingile and Demane having adventures. I would read an entire series about Sipho growing up to be an author (!!). I'm just love them all so much.

Napoleon does show up, though only for a brief time. But romp is exactly right: it just keeps getting more ridiculously delightful throughout.

[copperfyre]

Yes! The adventures of that group would absolutely be stories I would read! One of the things I love about the Temeraire books is how so many of the characters are really interesting, and also off having their own adventures. Whenever Jane and Excidium show up they've very much been having lives and doing things offscreen, and often even characters who show up really briefly feel pretty fully formed (and then I want all the stories about them).