After reading a Naomi Novik book I'd somehow missed when it first came out, The Summer War, I was checking Libby for any other books by her I might have missed - and remembered that I never did finish the Temeraire series.

The reason was that I started the series listening to audiobooks on CDs, and after Book 5, the library no longer had them on CDs. At the time, I wasn't listening to eaudiobooks, hadn't downloaded Libby, and was skeptical of ebooks altogether. Well, the pandemic changed that by eliminating my commute for a few months. I discovered that listening to eaudiobooks on my phone could lighten not just my commute, but housework as well. I can even listen while posting reviews I've already written.

So I did go back and listen to the next book about Temeraire the magnificent celestial dragon - but other audiobooks that had recently come out or that I was reading for award committees got my attention first. But I listened to Blood of Tyrants, which is Book 8, and am happy to say there was no wait to check out Book 9, League of Dragons, which Libby says is the final book in the series. So I am going to finish this wonderful series at last.

The series is set in an alternate reality during the Napoleonic Wars - where dragons are very real and are used in battle something like ships were during our Napoleonic Wars, complete with crews riding in their rigging. The pattern of the books is O'Brien's Master and Commander series, but with dragons. Our protagonist, William Lawrence, was even a naval captain before a captured dragon egg imprinted on him. After Temeraire hatched, they became a pair. Since that fateful meeting, in the books they have traveled to every continent except Antarctica. Napoleon has been much more successful than he was in our world, since, after all, he has dragons.

Naomi Novik is no longer even pretending to write standalone books. This installment begins and ends in the middle of the action. Now, I had not remembered how the last one ended, but at the start of this one, Lawrence has washed up on shore after a shipwreck somewhere in Japan - and he has lost his memory of the last eight years and everything about Temeraire.

Now, I am not a fan of amnesia in fiction. I feel like it's a lot more rare in real life than it is in novels. That did help me with all I didn't remember about Lawrence's adventures as it slowly came back to him. But at the start, we're in two plotlines, with Temeraire desperately wanting to go find Lawrence, but needing to get the ship back in sailing condition and take care of the dragon egg they were transporting. Meanwhile, Lawrence is in a Japan that was closed to foreigners, and he wants to stay alive but get home - he thinks he should get back to his ship, having completely forgotten Temeraire.

Anyway, I won't say anything about the plot, because you should only read this book if you've read the seven others before it. As things continue, they progress to fighting Napoleon in Russia with the help of Chinese dragons.

I do highly recommend this whole series. Simon Vance reads all of them, and brings the world of an English naval gentleman to life. I know when Temeraire is speaking by the voice alone by now. And Naomi Novik has built an incredible world in these books. She's literally built the whole world, as Temeraire has visited every continent (except Antarctica) and found different kinds of dragons on each one. In fact, a new area of concern in this book is that the Russians treat dragons very badly. So Lawrence and Temeraire don't want to fight for them unless they stop abusing them - but that ends up in some feral dragons on the loose and a whole new set of problems. And winter is beginning in Russia.

This time I vow I'm not going to take as long a break before I tackle the next book, so hopefully I'll remember better what's going on. But I'm sure of one thing: Temeraire is going to continue to fight - both against Napoleon and for the rights of dragonkind. And he'll continue to try to get Lawrence to wear shiny clothes.