General Information

Title:                  Empire of Ivory
Author:                 Naomi Novik
Read By:                Simon Vance
Copyright:              2007
Audiobook Copyright:    2007
Genre:                  Fantasy
Publisher:              Books on Tape
Series Name:            Temeraire
Position in Series:     04
Abridged:               No

Original Media Information

ISBN:                   9781415942444
Media:                  Library Download
Number:                 9
Source:                 Library

File Information

Number of MP3s:         9
Total Duration:         11:07:00
Total MP3 Size:         305.39
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 89dB
Noise Reduction:        None
ID3 Tags:               Set, v1.1, v2.3

Book Description

Description

Fourth book in the series starring Temeraire, the fighting dragon, and
Capt. Will Laurence. The series has been optioned by Lord of the Rings
director Peter Jackson!

An illness is striking down England's Aerial Corps dragons one by one.
Even many of the strongest have died, and the surgeons have no cure.
When Temeraire and his ragtag band of fellows return from their desperate
flight across Asia and Europe, they are kept sequestered for their own
safety?--but Izkierka, their valuable Turkish fire-breathing dragon,
is stricken. In desperate hopes of finding a cure before Napoleon realizes
that England is vulnerable, Temeraire, Laurence, and a small group journey
to Africa in search of aid.

Excerpts

From the book

Chapter 1

Send up another, damn you, send them all up, at once if you have to,”
Laurence said savagely to poor Calloway, who did not deserve to be sworn
at: the gunner was firing off the flares so quickly his hands were scorched
black, skin cracking and peeling to bright red where some powder had
spilled onto his fingers; he was not stopping to wipe them clean before
setting each flare to the match.

One of the little French dragons darted in again, slashing at Temeraire’s
side, and five men fell screaming as a piece of the makeshift carrying-harness
unraveled. They vanished at once beyond the lantern-light and were swallowed
up in the dark; the long twisted rope of striped silk, a pillaged curtain,
unfurled gently in the wind and went billowing down after them, threads
trailing from the torn edges. A moan went through the other Prussian
soldiers still clinging desperately to the harness, and after it followed
a low angry muttering in German.

Any gratitude the soldiers might have felt for their rescue from the
siege of Danzig had since been exhausted: three days flying through
icy rain, no food but what they had crammed into their pockets in those
final desperate moments, no rest but a few hours snatched along a cold
and marshy stretch of the Dutch coast, and now this French patrol harrying
them all this last endless night. Men so terrified might do anything
in a panic; many of them had still their small-arms and swords, and
there were more than a hundred of them crammed aboard, to the less than
thirty of Temeraire’s own crew.

Laurence swept the sky again with his glass, straining for a glimpse
of wings, an answering signal. They were in sight of shore, the night
was clear: through his glass he saw the gleam of lights dotting the
small harbors all along the Scottish coast, and below heard the steadily
increasing roar of the surf. Their flares ought to have been plain to
see all the way to Edinburgh; yet no reinforcements had come, not a
single courier-beast even to investigate.

“Sir, that’s the last of them,” Calloway said, coughing through the
grey smoke that wreathed his head, the flare whistling high and away.
The powder-flash went off silently above their heads, casting the white
scudding clouds into brilliant relief, reflecting from dragon scales
in every direction: Temeraire all in black, the rest in gaudy colors
muddied to shades of grey by the lurid blue light. The night was full
of their wings: a dozen dragons turning their heads around to look back,
their gleaming pupils narrowing; more coming on, all of them laden down
with men, and the handful of small French patrol-dragons darting among
them.

All seen in the flash of a moment, then the thunderclap crack and rumble
sounded, only a little delayed, and the flare dying away drifted into
blackness again. Laurence counted ten, and ten again; still there was
no answer from the shore.

Emboldened, the French dragon came in once more. Temeraire aimed a swipe
which would have knocked the little Pou-de-Ciel flat, but his attempt
was very slow, for fear of dislodging any more of his passengers; their
small enemy evaded with contemptuous ease and circled away to wait for
his next chance.

“Laurence,” Temeraire said, looking round, “where are they all? Victoriatus
is in Edinburgh; he at least ought to have come. After all, we helped
him, when he was hurt; not that I need help, precisely, against these
little dragons,” he added, straightening his neck with a crackle of
popping joints, “but it is not very convenient to try and fight while
we are carrying so many people.”

This was putting a braver...

Reviews
AudioFile Magazine...
Simon Vance is a terrific choice to narrate this series, in which Naomi
Novik takes a piece of history (Europe in the era of Napoleon) and adds
dragons, creating an interesting mix of epic fantasy and historical
fiction. Besides giving effective voice to the sometimes petulant dragon
Temeraire, Vance is superior in his portrayal of the honorable Captain
William Laurence of Britain. This is the fourth book in this series,
and it finds dragon and rider traveling the world looking for a solution
to a problem facing many of the dragons in Britain. Even though this
novel does not stand alone, fans will enjoy this book as a lead-in to
the next. S.D.D. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine