Black Powder War - Naomi Novik

Welcome back to the Temeraire train! Still winding my way through a re-read so that I can pick up the latest book in the series right on the heels of the last. In Black Powder War we continue Temeraire and Laurence's journeys, leaving China after Laurence's adoption by the Chinese emperor when the pair receive urgent orders from home to return by way of Turkey and pick up some dragon eggs on the way (a bit like calling one's spouse to get eggs and milk on the way home, but much longer and with more danger). A lot of time in this book is spent traveling, which again, common to the previous books, does not much advance in the way of plot. They employ a guide named Tharkay who appears to be half British and half Mongolian, and implies a certain amount of suffering in consequence by the chip on his shoulder. They cross deserts and mountains, instigate an avalanche and befriend a large group of ferals, reach Turkey only to be denied the agreed-upon eggs, steal the eggs and flee (dropping one in the process, which I'll be honest, is pretty heartbreaking!). They get caught up in the war between France and Prussia, and Granby rather accidentally graduates to captain of a fire-breathing Kazilik from their Turkish eggs. Finally they arrive home, battered and bruised and worse for the wear, to find that all of Britain's dragons save themselves and the ferals they've brought along are sick with a plague and Britain's war effort is in serious danger.

Again the plot often seems as if nothing in particular is happening--there's a lot of flying, a lot of traveling, some waiting, some eating, some philosophizing. But you don't get to the third book in a series without knowing ahead of time that's what you're getting into, and must be okay with it at that point. Novik's got a talent for making that work.

But is this book that gives me the most egregious examples of terrible sentences. I give you:

Maden, who in his trade often served as a factor for British visitors, spoke excellent English, and his family also; they sat to table five, Maden's two sons being already established in their own homes; besides his wife only his daughter Sara remained at home, a young woman well out of the schoolroom: not yet thirty but old to be unmarried with so good a dowry as Maden seemed able to provide, and her looks and manner were pleasing if in a foreign mode, dark hair and brows striking against fair skin, very like her elegant mother.

That is one sentence. One sentence with two semicolons, one colon, and eight commas. I run out of breath just reading the thing. Semicolons are that tricky punctuation that everyone seems to love but few manage to use sparingly enough that they don't become obtrusively obnoxious. Let's boil it down very simply: try not to use them at all, but if you must, use them as little as possible. Periods are not the enemy. Ending sentences does not diminish your work. A period is a breath point, an internal signal for the brain to pause and catch itself; semicolons and commas do not give you that. Look, I just used one! Once.

Incidentally I've been reading about the semicolon tattoos recently and as an amateur punctuation fan I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I appreciate the message, but the metaphor doesn't carry. "A semicolon is used where the author could have ended a sentence and chose not to," so also apply that to your life. It's hard to criticize, because I think many would take it as criticizing the message, which I emphatically repeat that I am not. That said, any writer worth their salt would end that sentence with "...but they probably should have ended the sentence after all, really, because periods are important and semicolons are overused and overvalued."

Sigh. The life of a pedant.

Anyway. Another solid entry in the Temeraire series. I will note that for all my criticism I did not find these kinds of semicolon issues in Novik's most recent release Uprooted--or at least, they were few enough that they weren't obtrusive, which is really the goal. A writer can certainly (and probably should) improve their writing skill with each book as they learn more and more about their craft, so I do not lobby this as insults against Novik herself by any means. I still envy her ability to weave a story and hey, she's certainly doing better than I am!

Overall: 4 stars

Amazon: Black Powder War

More reviews: Black Powder War on Librarything (Average 3.84 stars)

Black Powder War on Goodreads (Average 3.89 stars)