(no subject)

[ginny_t]

"They may still choose to be quarrelsome about it; their regard for the laws of other nations is very small and vanishes entirely where it conflicts with their own notions of proper behaviour." --Sir Edmond Howe on the Chinese in His Majesty's Dragon

Excuse me, WHAT?!?!

Also, the only formation not under the command of a woman is Our Hero's? Hmph. Harcourt is young, eh? Well, maybe someone ought to've been more conscientious in preparing her for command, eh? She's a couple years past 16 (when she went to a concert). Kids go to the arial corps at 7… that makes at least 9 years that the officers knew it was a good chance she'd be in command of a formation. Not enough time to start preparing her? hmph!

Oh yeah, and the French traitor. Good job, there.

That's not even getting into the small matter of the dragons' choice. They're sentient beings being used as warhorses. You can't have that in a story and not deal with it.

*sigh*

Comments

[shiroiko.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... maybe this is not the book for you.

Oh... on a side note, I'm really enjoying the Sandman comics you lent me (aside for the art in the early volumes that is so... traditional North American comic... that it hurts my eyes and heart). Thanks again!

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is I had been enjoying it as lighthearted fluff, until I got to Dover and Laurence assumed Emily wanted to go into town and was all worried about a girl going in alone, not a 10-year-old child, and then there was the conversation about whores and then it really started getting to me. *sigh*

I'm always extra sad when it's a book from a friend who loved it. *pout*

Glad you're enjoying Sandman! ^_^ Some of the art is indeed bizarre, but an interesting story and cool concept.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

It may or may not help to know that the second and third books deal extensively, and deeply, with the fact that sentient beings are treated as warhorses. Watching the protagonists see the Chinese culture of that world is highly entertaining, and interesting, in many different ways.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

I did see that in a synopsis. I might give the second book a chance. But not for a while yet. I need a break.

It does get dealt with--

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

Laurence does not much *like* being confronted with his - and his society's - prejudices and hypocrisies, but he increasingly can't avoid it. Which keeps putting him in increasingly unpleasant positions where he has to choose between principles and friends and his own welfare, because even avoiding choosing is a choice. (The French traitor is *major* foreshadowing, which is all I can say without major spoilers, frex.)

Re: It does get dealt with--

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

Now I'm intrigued. I'd already figured I'd return to the series after a break, but now it's looking more certain. Thanks. ^_^

cool 8D

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it's perfect, or that any of the criticisms of the series are *invalid*, but it *is* written by someone trying to confront the non-shiny bits of the Napoleonic Naval/Regency Romance paradigms as well as the ships and uniforms and ballgowns squee - one thing I keep thinking "if I were a historian I should tackle this in a novel" (except that I'm not) is the Austen family's connections with colonialism - there's this bizarre intersection between all kinds of things which I crashed into reading her bio, because altho' every Austen scholar worth his or her salt *knows* that her brothers were in the Royal Navy, and this gets mentioned as background to books like Emma, it doesn't seem to sink *in* - and yet, here is the point where the worlds of Patrick O'Brian and Forester collide with Sense & Sensibility!

And we *know* that RL naval officers on British ships were *reading* Jane's books aboard ship and guessing madly who "A Lady" was, because her brothers wrote back to her about how hard it was for them to keep a straight face at such times- so much for them being "Chick Lit" But along with the Hearts of Oak/Admiral Nelson aspect, heroism at Trafalgar etc, there's a darker side: at least one of her brothers was going on secret missions in Asia for the East India Company as part of his naval duties - blurring the lines between military and paramilitary in the earlier days of the Raj.

So I found the Temeraire books to be almost the Novel I've Been Wanting To Write for the last ten years...