review: empire of ivory

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Disclaimer the first: I’m a sucker for historical fiction.
Disclaimer the second: I’m a sucker for dragons.
Disclaimer the third: I’m incredibly ignorant of the Napoleonic Era
Disclaimer the fourth: I’m realizing now how poor my public school education was — I only know history as discrete events, not as a proper timeline across place at one time. I’m working to fix this but it’s slow going. [If you know of better timeline links please let me know]
Disclaimer the fifth: I “know” Naomi. In that I TA’d for her four out of the five times I was a TA. We’ve not kept in touch and I wish I was as “well read” (however poorly that still is) when we “knew” each other and interacted. One class had assignments to code Harry Potter spells.. I nodded and smiled and graded students based on their coding expertise (or lack thereof). I knew nothing of Harry Potter until I graduated in ’01. *sigh* opportunities missed..

Now to the book.

I tried to wait to read this book until the term was fully over. It kept beckoning to me as I had enjoyed the first three books. This past weekend I could not resist any longer and cracked open the blue cover and began to read. I finished over dinner this evening. Quite a few other things happened in that time period (work, sleep, &c) but in between the front and back covers I

• Category: books
• Tag: friends, scifi-fantasy