Scan barcode
A review by fantasticquest
Drachenbrut by Naomi Novik
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
Okay I hate dnf'ing this, because I have the next four books sitting on my shelf. But I have to.
My main reason is this book is just boring.
The concept of the book sounded so good, I hoped for a lot of battles and action scenes. Nope.
This book is very slow-paced, not much is going on. So far I'm 60% into the book: Laurence found a dragon egg after battle. You never see the sea battle itself.After some time they have to go to training camp, but also there are no real battles insight. Instead a lot of time in which Laurence either talks with other captains or Temeraire. I heard from other reviewers that there is only a tiny battle at the end of book 1.
Also the writing style does a lot of telling. Sometimes were are pages after pages of descriptions or dialogs between characters. Most of the dialog bored me out, it's written in a historical accurate manner.
The one thing I liked the most about this book is the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. I also understand the choices of Novik to make the dragons, especially Temeraire, very smart from the beginning. But I had a lot of problems with this aswell. I couldn't really understand how a creature could be this smart and speaking so well from day one. Next Laurence: I didn't like him at all. Either he could do anything without problems that other captains couldn't do or he showed some character traits I didn't like.
All other characters (humans and dragons) were a bit meh or had very bad character traits.I only liked the woman a bit, but probably because it was the only one.
I liked the critism of injustice in this book,that Temeraire is the only dragon who gets care and the others are more used as a war tool than seen as a living creature. And the feminist aspect.
One thing I had problems with as a fantasy reader is the little fantasy in this book. Beside the dragons it is just a normal historical book during the Napoletan war.
My main reason is this book is just boring.
The concept of the book sounded so good, I hoped for a lot of battles and action scenes. Nope.
This book is very slow-paced, not much is going on. So far I'm 60% into the book: Laurence found a dragon egg after battle. You never see the sea battle itself.
Also the writing style does a lot of telling. Sometimes were are pages after pages of descriptions or dialogs between characters. Most of the dialog bored me out, it's written in a historical accurate manner.
The one thing I liked the most about this book is the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. I also understand the choices of Novik to make the dragons, especially Temeraire, very smart from the beginning. But I had a lot of problems with this aswell. I couldn't really understand how a creature could be this smart and speaking so well from day one. Next Laurence: I didn't like him at all. Either he could do anything without problems that other captains couldn't do or he showed some character traits I didn't like.
All other characters (humans and dragons) were a bit meh or had very bad character traits.
I liked the critism of injustice in this book,
One thing I had problems with as a fantasy reader is the little fantasy in this book. Beside the dragons it is just a normal historical book during the Napoletan war.