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senevilla 's review for:
Empire of Ivory
by Naomi Novik
Overall I really liked this one! A few critiques about how race/slavery was handled below.
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I think Novik could have given a little more care to avoid the 'savage native' stereotype, but I appreciated that at the very least Novik included a lot of praise for how ingenious the prison they were held in was. I also thought it was interesting that the missionary's wife chose to stay, commenting that she and her daughters would never be truly free in England because of their race and gender. I also really liked that Novik forced Lawrence to be actively anti-slavery by choosing to risk his friendship by taking the missionary family abroad in the first place and freeing the captured people after escaping himself. Prior, he's just said he was against it, but never really did anything about it. I love the character arc, and I think the ending (choosing to do what's right even at the cost of going against his government) is a great example of how his character is slowly becoming more active and less passive in what he claims to believe. I hope that theme continues with the 'rights for dragons' arc too!
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I think Novik could have given a little more care to avoid the 'savage native' stereotype, but I appreciated that at the very least Novik included a lot of praise for how ingenious the prison they were held in was. I also thought it was interesting that the missionary's wife chose to stay, commenting that she and her daughters would never be truly free in England because of their race and gender. I also really liked that Novik forced Lawrence to be actively anti-slavery by choosing to risk his friendship by taking the missionary family abroad in the first place and freeing the captured people after escaping himself. Prior, he's just said he was against it, but never really did anything about it. I love the character arc, and I think the ending (choosing to do what's right even at the cost of going against his government) is a great example of how his character is slowly becoming more active and less passive in what he claims to believe. I hope that theme continues with the 'rights for dragons' arc too!