Dear Naomi Novik, First of all, Java is located in Indonesia. Most importantly, there was no Indonesia yet during the Napoleonic Era. Using the name Dutch Indies would be more appropriate.Secondly, is this just a filler between Victory of Eagles and the next book? It surely feels like it. *sigh*Thirdly, could you please stop writing about long tedious journeys? Going through the Silk Road in book 3 and Africa road trip in book 4 were exhausting enough. Fourthly, thank you for bringing fresh new

Reread Oct 19 - I enjoyed this a lot more second time round! Maybe it was because I listened to the audiobook. I'd say 3.5 stars. It definitely picked up from about half way through. For the first 100 pages or so though nothing happened...

October 2010Tongues of Serpents brings William Laurence, his dragon Temeraire, their friends Granby and Iskierka, and three dragon eggs, to the colony of Sydney in New South Wales--but not for long. The governor of New South Wales has been overthrown, but Laurence is in no mood for politics. Instead, Laurence and Granby agree to take their dragons, along with the first egg hatched to one of Laurence's old rivals, Captain Rankin, on a simple mission into Australia's interior. There, the second eg...

These books are still a joy to read, though I've pretty much accepted that none of the sequels in this series are ever going to come close to being as good as the first book again. At least this one was better than the last, which sees Laurence and Temeraire back on an adventure again in a faraway exotic place.This time, the crew finds themselves in Australia, with Laurence having been banished to the prison colony of New South Wales after being convicted of treason. The British Aerial Corps has...

Wow... boring. Pretty sure I could have skipped this one and not missed much at all. I still love Temeraire though.

I have been a pretty good fan of this series, but unfortunately, I've grown tired of it by now.This isn't dragons against Napoleon anymore. This isn't an intrigue in China. This is exile to Australia. Long treks, dragon eggs, and filler await us. Maybe it's because I took almost a decade to return to the series or I burned out, but this didn't capture my imagination. Almost at all. No hope for glory, just establishing a colony? For dragons?This is how the world ends. With a whimper, not a bang.

[3.5/5 stars] I’m not sure yet how I feel about the series as a whole, but I’ve found myself picking up these novels for a very specific Temeraire “fix,” if that makes sense. The books are all fairly similar but the highlight continues to be the dragons. This novel had them exploring the Australian Outback… basically on the periphery of the Napoleonic War (again), and even though not much happened, per se, I still enjoyed the interplay between the dragons and humans. I’m not getting a lot of sub...

I have said previously that Naomi Novik hasn't hit a sour note, nor made a wrong step throughout her Temeraire series. I guess this is what I get for speaking too soon. Naomi Novik is still an extremely consistent writer, and whenever I've picked up a Temeraire book I've had a remarkably accurate idea of what to expect from the novel. Simply put, however, this one was the exception and it proved to be a bit of a disappointment. It's the smallest Temeraire book, yet it felt like it was the longes...

This is as well-written as the earlier books, with great dialogue, and I very much enjoyed the characters. But the story is a little dull, particularly in comparison with the previous book. Our heroes spend most of the time traipsing around in Australia in the middle of nowhere.I didn't see much point to the plot, and the Aviators seemed disorganized and unprofessional; an impression I don't remember getting from the earlier books. It's also beginning to seem odd that Europe is the only place in...

3.5 stars.This will be quite a short review as I am honestly running out of things to say about this series. And at 6 books in I feel like people are either committed to reading the series till the end so my opinion will probably make little difference or they’ve already abandoned the series already and so are probably not even looking at reviews anyway.Although I still enjoyed this book it felt a lot like a ‘filler’ in the series. I think the author decided that Temeraire and Laurence had to sp...

A fun easy read and a continuation of the story of Temeriare without too much happening. But getting us ready for the decisions to be made in the next book.

I don’t have much to say any more. It’s become a pissing contest on GR. I’ll add reviews if I feel like it for myself. Don’t much care any more. I love Temeraire and Laurence but I’m not feeling it like I did the first books. I do want to finish the series though. Also, Simon Vance is everything! Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

This was 90% filler, 8% talking and 2% action.Laurence and Temeraire are exiled to Australia, along with three dragon eggs and I'm guessing the weird assumption that Temeraire won't somehow corrupt the eggs on the way with potential members of the aviation corps? I don't know. The reasoning behind it seemed really loose and more of an excuse to get them on another adventure to Australia.As for Australia itself, I was looking forward to viewing something that was a whole lot different than the pl...

Rankin and Caesar were predictably insufferable, and it seems like Laurence and Temeraire are stuck in Australia for the foreseeable future. I very much liked seeing Demane take charge of Kulingile. And gosh but I missed Simon Vance's voice.

Let's get this out of the way: I was disappointed in this book.It's the sixth in a series that's been losing steam and going adrift since book three or four. And I hate to say that, but Tongues of Serpents was downright boring and this was more crushing than I expected because it could have been great.The Temeraire series follows Laurence and his dragon Temeraire as they fight for England in the Napoleonic Wars. Previous adventures have taken them from England to China and Africa, and in Tongues...

This was just so boring. I just don't understand where this series went wrong--the first one is so funny, and it's about DRAGONS fighting NAPOLEON. But they've gradually stopped being funny and have turned into dragons visiting all the continents. For some reason. This one is just the dragons flying across Australia and accomplishing nothing. Seriously, just chapters and chapters of them flying around for a purpose too flimsy to support a months-long journey across uncharted territory; a purpose...

How can you possibly make a story about the first days of Australian colonization boring? Well, ToS is how... The beginning of Tongues of Serpents was dreadful: slow paced, political in the most uninteresting ways, and action that falls short of it's rich setting.I mean, come on! This is the wild and untamed Australia!! And all the characters spend doing for half the book is chasing people across the vast landscape. Sure there are some killer earthworms, but even then, it was just so hard to car...

Earlier books in this series have left me feeling like I would follow the adventures of Laurence and Temeraire just about anywhere on the planet. Here comes the sixth book in the series to prove that there are limits to that belief. An exile to Australia did not have to be boring - indeed, it could have been inherently the opposite of boring. That's not how it works out, though.The problem here is that this book is the series trying to go again to the same well it has gone before, only in not as...

Actual review: 2.5I can feel myself gradually losing interest and I’m not happy about it. ♦ THE PACING:This… was… so… painfully… slow. I found this to be the weakest of her books so far and it is based solely on the pacing of this book. There were pages where it dragged on and on and on… and nothing happened. Usually, I’m not picky about these things. Historical fiction is rarely as fast-moving as other genres, but this was clearly a stretch. This was so clearly a filler in the series that it co...

Honestly this was more like a 2-star book for me, and admitting that hurts my soul deeply. I love this series and I adore Temeraire. The problem was, in this book he was given nothing to do except fly across Australia on comparatively low-stakes missions, and he had no growth. The book was a filler episode, and I can remember only one or two chapters where I was truly interested in the events.Nothing really happened until page 176, and I thought to myself, "Aha, here we go!" But after that chapt...