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A review by iam
League of Dragons by Naomi Novik
adventurous
medium-paced
4.0
A great series ends...
Content warnings include: starvation, violence, war, graphic injury, kidnapping, imprisonment, threat of execution, insubordination, semi-explicit sex on-page, duelling, character gets shot, sexual harassment and assault.
Not gonna lie, there were several times when I thought this would go dreadfully south and ruin the series for me, but THANKFULLY it always managed to avoid disaster and turned out surprisingly well!
While I overall did enjoy the book and do think it's a well deserved ending of the series, in some ways it was sorely lacking.
I have three particular complaints:
1) Unresolved plotthreads. Especially in the last few books several things happened that, while mostly fun to read, didn't really seem to follow any particular reason or have any purpose or advance the story. I had hoped these threads to be picked up and tied neatly in League of Dragons but that didn't happen, or only in a very flimsy fashion.
2) Plotholes. There were a few things that made me scratch my head and wonder how they could come to be, and while I was mostly ready to excuse them there was one that was just glaring the entire time. Something that directly contradicts what had happened a chapter before and there was zero explanation offered. It almost felt like an entire scene or even a chapter was cut, creating a, well, hole in the middle of the story, leaving the ending of one and the beginning of the next chapter wholly unconnected.
3) Timeskips. I noticed this happening in a few of the books in the second half of the series already, where scenes spanning weeks or even entire months were simply skipped. For the most part I understand that - Temeraire & crew travel A LOT, and there is only so much adventure on the road that can be exciting, especially when nothing of import was supposed to happen.
In League of Dragons however, not just travelling but entire fights and discussions were skipped - which I can also, for the most part, excuse, because similar to the travelling, reading the same maneuvers and argument over and over again can be tiring. Which is all fine and good - but to skip the entire final battle that brings down the one big enemy, the moment the protagonists have been working towards for nine books?
That's a BOLD move, that, while not ruining it entirely, does leave me feeling perplexed and robbed of a certain kind of satisfaction.
Another thing, which is more something I notice now in hindsight that while reading, is that I'm disappointed in the (lack of) advancement in the personal relationships of the characters. The series has never paid much attention to any sort of relationship outside the one between dragon and captain, and isn't very big on the internal feelings of the characters either, but part of me still expected there to be more happening on an interpersonal level. There were even hints to some of the characters getting closer than they had been previously, but all of that led to nothing.
While I would have wished for a longer epilogue that went into detail about various characters' fates in the future, the ending was nevertheless satisfying without limiting the reader's imagination for the future.
So this was a fun read and I had a pretty good time with it, but overall it felt very unstructured and lacked the pleasant coherence and tight plotlines from the first few books.
I truly adore this series. It's brutal and heart-breaking at times, but also hilarious in its subtly situational humor, with lovable characters and interesting worldbuilding in the form on integrating dragons into actual historical events and various cultures.
I cannot speak on the accuracy of the historical events, persons and cultures but they were for the most part portrayed believably and respectfully, though the British approach often made me cringe, even while the protagonists do not approve of it.
Content warnings include: starvation, violence, war, graphic injury, kidnapping, imprisonment, threat of execution, insubordination, semi-explicit sex on-page, duelling, character gets shot, sexual harassment and assault.
Not gonna lie, there were several times when I thought this would go dreadfully south and ruin the series for me, but THANKFULLY it always managed to avoid disaster and turned out surprisingly well!
While I overall did enjoy the book and do think it's a well deserved ending of the series, in some ways it was sorely lacking.
I have three particular complaints:
1) Unresolved plotthreads. Especially in the last few books several things happened that, while mostly fun to read, didn't really seem to follow any particular reason or have any purpose or advance the story. I had hoped these threads to be picked up and tied neatly in League of Dragons but that didn't happen, or only in a very flimsy fashion.
2) Plotholes. There were a few things that made me scratch my head and wonder how they could come to be, and while I was mostly ready to excuse them there was one that was just glaring the entire time. Something that directly contradicts what had happened a chapter before and there was zero explanation offered. It almost felt like an entire scene or even a chapter was cut, creating a, well, hole in the middle of the story, leaving the ending of one and the beginning of the next chapter wholly unconnected.
3) Timeskips. I noticed this happening in a few of the books in the second half of the series already, where scenes spanning weeks or even entire months were simply skipped. For the most part I understand that - Temeraire & crew travel A LOT, and there is only so much adventure on the road that can be exciting, especially when nothing of import was supposed to happen.
In League of Dragons however, not just travelling but entire fights and discussions were skipped - which I can also, for the most part, excuse, because similar to the travelling, reading the same maneuvers and argument over and over again can be tiring. Which is all fine and good - but to skip the entire final battle that brings down the one big enemy, the moment the protagonists have been working towards for nine books?
That's a BOLD move, that, while not ruining it entirely, does leave me feeling perplexed and robbed of a certain kind of satisfaction.
Another thing, which is more something I notice now in hindsight that while reading, is that I'm disappointed in the (lack of) advancement in the personal relationships of the characters. The series has never paid much attention to any sort of relationship outside the one between dragon and captain, and isn't very big on the internal feelings of the characters either, but part of me still expected there to be more happening on an interpersonal level. There were even hints to some of the characters getting closer than they had been previously, but all of that led to nothing.
While I would have wished for a longer epilogue that went into detail about various characters' fates in the future, the ending was nevertheless satisfying without limiting the reader's imagination for the future.
So this was a fun read and I had a pretty good time with it, but overall it felt very unstructured and lacked the pleasant coherence and tight plotlines from the first few books.
I truly adore this series. It's brutal and heart-breaking at times, but also hilarious in its subtly situational humor, with lovable characters and interesting worldbuilding in the form on integrating dragons into actual historical events and various cultures.
I cannot speak on the accuracy of the historical events, persons and cultures but they were for the most part portrayed believably and respectfully, though the British approach often made me cringe, even while the protagonists do not approve of it.