Book review: The Third Lynx

Today's first book review is The Third Lynx by Timothy Zahn.

This is the sequel to Night Train to Rigel, and draws its characters and situation directly from that book without a whole lot of explanation; I think it would be quite confusing to read it by itself.  Sadly, it doesn't add much new world-building to the first book; there is tremendous running around, shouting, and blowing things up, but not all that much real story.  Readable, moderately entertaining, but no more.  And after finishing it just last night, I can't really keep the details of the story straight.  5 out of 10.

( plot summary )

Book review: Black Powder War

I was stuck at home today, snowed in when I should have been at EFRC, and I indulged my self-pity by reading the next Temeraire book.  So today's bonus book review is Black Powder War by Naomi Novik.  Third in the series, and if you want to understand just who the characters are and how they got to the start of the book, start with His Majesty's Dragon and continue with Throne of Jade.

I remain sufficiently smitten with Temeraire that it's hard to be properly critical.  As Temeraire and company get caught up in Napoleon's ground war in Europe, we're presented with increasingly less historical military situations; I wish I knew a bit more of the real history.  I'm guessing that the outcome of the battles is fairly historical, even though the tactics involved certainly aren't.  Oddly enough, reading this book gives me a lot of feeling for the ugly side of the actual historical war and a general impression of why Napoleon was so effective.  That's the best part of the story; the other themes, about the dragons' social capabilities and how they might integrate better into European society, while still entertaining, are starting to seem dangerously contrived and also seem to be contradicting what was implied in the earlier books.  I'm wondering how long Novik can manage to keep any sort of control on the chaos that seems to be spreading through her world.  Hopefully, it won't lose so much plausibility that it ceases to be fun.  (I thought I knew where the series was going to go in book 4 waiting on the shelf, Empire of Ivory.  Suddenly, it seems like it might be going in a different direction entirely.)  But while I think the writing has fallen off just a tiny bit, I'm really eager to see where we go next.  8 out of 10.

( plot summary )