General Information

Title:                  Black Powder War
Author:                 Naomi Novik
Read By:                Simon Vance
Copyright:              2006
Audiobook Copyright:    2007
Genre:                  Fantasy
Publisher:              Books on Tape
Series Name:            Temeraire
Position in Series:     03
Abridged:               No

Original Media Information

ISBN:                   9781415940228
Media:                  Library Download
Number:                 9
Source:                 Library

File Information

Number of MP3s:         9
Total Duration:         10:22:58
Total MP3 Size:         285.25
Parity Archive:         No
Ripped By:              A_S
Ripped With:            Easy CD - DA Extractor
Encoded With:           LAME 3.97
Encoded At:             CBR 64 kbit/s 44100 Hz Mono
Normalize:              MP3Gain, Track 87dB
Noise Reduction:        None
ID3 Tags:               Set, v1.1, v2.3

Book Description

Description

Volume three in the fantastically reviewed Temeraire series.

After their fateful adventure in China, Captain Will Laurence of His
Majesty's Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are
waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain.
Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire,
and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious
cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be
borne home before hatching. Yet disaster threatens the mission at every
turn—thanks to the diabolical machinations of the Chinese dragon Lien,
who blames Temeraire for her master's death and vows to ally herself
with Napoleon and take

Excerpts

From the book

Chapter 1

The hot wind blowing into Macao was sluggish and unrefreshing, only
stirring up the rotting salt smell of the harbor, the fish-corpses and
great knots of black-red seaweed, the effluvia of human and dragon wastes.
Even so the sailors were sitting crowded along the rails of the Allegiance
for a breath of the moving air, leaning against one another to get a
little room. A little scuffling broke out amongst them from time to
time, a dull exchange of shoving back and forth, but these quarrels
died almost at once in the punishing heat.

Temeraire lay disconsolately upon the dragondeck, gazing towards the
white haze of the open ocean, the aviators on duty lying half-asleep
in his great shadow. Laurence himself had sacrificed dignity so far
as to take off his coat, as he was sitting in the crook of Temeraire’s
foreleg and so concealed from view.

“I am sure I could pull the ship out of the harbor,” Temeraire said,
not for the first time in the past week; and sighed when this amiable
plan was again refused: in a calm he might indeed have been able to
tow even the enormous dragon transport, but against a direct headwind
he could only exhaust himself to no purpose.

“Even in a calm you could scarcely pull her any great distance,” Laurence
added consolingly. “A few miles may be of some use out in the open ocean,
but at present we may as well stay in harbor, and be a little more comfortable;
we would make very little speed even if we could get her out.”

“It seems a great pity to me that we must always be waiting on the wind,
when everything else is ready and we are also,” Temeraire said. “I would
so like to be home soon: there is so very much to be done.” His tail
thumped hollowly upon the boards, for emphasis.

“I beg you will not raise your hopes too high,” Laurence said, himself
a little hopelessly: urging Temeraire to restraint had so far not produced
any effect, and he did not expect a different event now. “You must be
prepared to endure some delays; at home as much as here.”

“Oh! I promise I will be patient,” Temeraire said, and immediately dispelled
any small notion Laurence might have had of relying upon this promise
by adding, unconscious of any contradiction, “but I am quite sure the
Admiralty will see the justice of our case very quickly. Certainly it
is only fair that dragons should be paid, if our crews are.”

Having been at sea from the age of twelve onwards, before the accident
of chance which had made him the captain of a dragon rather than a ship,
Laurence enjoyed an extensive familiarity with the gentlemen of the
Admiralty Board who oversaw the Navy and the Aerial Corps both, and
a keen sense of justice was hardly their salient feature. The offices
seemed rather to strip their occupants of all ordinary human decency
and real qualities: creeping, nip-farthing political creatures, very
nearly to a man. The vastly superior conditions for dragons here in
China had forced open Laurence’s unwilling eyes to the evils of their
treatment in the West, but as for the Admiralty’s sharing that view,
at least so far as it would cost the country tuppence, he was not sanguine.-

In any case, he could not help privately entertaining the hope that
once at home, back at their post on the Channel and engaged in the honest
business of defending their country, Temeraire might, if not give over
his goals, then at least moderate them. Laurence could make no real
quarrel with the aims, which were natural and just; but England was...-

Reviews
AudioFile Magazine...
BLACK POWDER WAR, the third volume in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series,
is a fantasy in a historical setting. Napoleon Bonaparte is on the move
in Europe, and so are his dragons. Simon Vance adds just the right touch
to the Englishman, Lawrence, and his companion dragon, Temeraire. He's
also called upon to perform several other characters and accents as
Lawrence travels in search of more dragons to aid his side of the fight.
An interesting touch occurs at the end of the audiobook. A scientific
discourse (dated 1806) discusses the question of whether or not dragons
can perform mathematics. S.D.D. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine