His Majesty's Dragon: Book 1 / Throne of Jade: Book 2 / Black Powder War: Book 3 (Temeraire Box Set)

This is the beginning of an intriguing fantasy series set in the Napoleonic era. The history is well done but with the added bonus of dragons. The characters, both human and dragons, are so clear snd settings so vivid that one likes them more and more. Strategic battles are well written; the reader believes there must certainly have been dragons. The books have been optioned for the movies, one can hope they will be filmed and filmed well.

On His Majesty's Dragon- As I have done my first half century of reading, I have found it rare that a read is so compelling as to spark tears. Exceptional characterization of the dragon "Levitas". Found the book extremely compelling to read, unfortunately I lent it to another and am just coming around to the series. It is well thought out. Personally, I would have a longer interlude for growth experience in characters, before the final battle.Problems: tons are tons, and air sacks will not make the tons any less in weight. Believe me, years of working cargo aircraft. Ridiculous, pg. 305. "If they sling hammocks he can fit as many as two thousand men apiece, for a short journey, if he means to carry no provisions". 2000 men means 40,000 pounds minimum. That is 20 tons extra weight for 4 dragons to carry, not to mention the load will be extremely unbalanced. Carry a stretcher on land and imagine the extra problem in the air. Maybe 200, but I can NOT conceive of enough soldiers being compelled to 'volunteer' for an armada to do it. One accident, and they would have seen "air casualties" before, and NO one is going to do that kind of stunt. Besides, cross channel at 6 mph is a long, long ride.Throne of Jade. A 4 for good, quick read and a little less for length and continuity of some parts. Here is where the series turns downwards, it quickly becomes a vehicle for opinions and the Dragons move from friendly individuals (mostly) to a second sentient race without real rights, except in China. One big plus in the "55 Days at Peking, semi-recast" the author (one of very, very few) acknowledges that actual battle is tiring. Now cast your mind on all those heroic female warriors that go on, and on and on, etc. Sword and musketry is tiring, and not the romantic adventure too often cast in books and films.Problems: I do NOT personally care a whit for Draconic Rights. I appreciate characterizations and though that continues, it is becoming diminished. Adventure not current/past political intrigue. Face it most of us just travel through our years without being the center of everything and everytime. I now expect the Dragon to become Dragon Emperor of Earth, instead of the lovable, likable companion in adventure, which he started at.Black Powder War. A 3 1/2 for quick read, but highly improbable action. Trek the silk road, but guide choice was very strange. Let's choose the courier who brought the message from India to Macao to guide us along the Silk Road. Apparently, he did know the route, but what is the chance. Find feral dragons and the language of dragons, okay, but recruit them not once but twice. Charge straight from the "stan" areas of Asia to Instanbul, foil a plot, steel two dragon eggs and fly away to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Swell! Now let's wander around till we find the Prussian Army, join them and then get beat like an old drum continually, by no less than a white dragon who stole the gold in Instanbul and now literally chauffeur's Napoleon in his victory. Wander continually and then join a besieged garrison, rescue it.My problem, the dragons are doing way too much continually. Almost think the series is getting way too corny.Answer: As a set it was a good choice, but the publisher should have used a number system unique to the set.Thanks, Harry!

I can't believe it, but I actually liked another book! This is something that stuns and amazes me, because the quality of books have seemed to diminish daily.The Temeraire Series is amazing; The plot has a few rough bumps here and there, but for me, they're easy to overlook. Does it take away from the story? Somewhat, but even authors are only human, and you can't expect someone to write in the way you want the story to go. All of my grievances are set aside and I keep an open mind when going through the story, even though there are times when I really want to scream at a particular pace, constant recount of an event, or the death of a character I really wanted to see more of! However, there aren't too many books that I've read with a rather unique take on history and/or dragons, but what really made me fall for this series was the lack of overwhelmingly nauseating romance.Is there romance? Yes, but it does not focus on it. In fact, romance is a back burner to everything in here, and I have currently read (and purchased) all of the current books! Therefore, you won't have to worry about people suddenly deciding to have sexual relations in the midst of an intense battle, bath scenes or accidental peeping (and, if such a thing should happen to occur in any future titles, rest assured that I will happily drop all previous claims of realism for this series), and you can focus on the actual story. You won't find constant damsels in distress either, or an overwhelmingly unbelievable amount of attractive women (who would inevitably be attracted to the main character) that need constant saving (or even need a man to live).Here be people. Real people, who likes different people, and won't always be alive to live that happily ever after that plagues so many books out there now. You'll find good men and women with bad flaws, racism and skepticism with unfounded basis, surprising differences between how each country treats their dragons and military units, unwarranted bigotry, spats, pettiness, jealousy, and the ugliness of death and war.Is Temerarie the series for you? Who knows?! Not everyone likes their tea hot! So before you decide if you want to actually buy the series for yourselves, I would suggest searching for a free ebook online to read. That's how I came to love this series, and it was good enough for me to want to support the author and actually buy it too!Can't wait for the next installment!~Happy Readings!~

Just started second book. I'm enjoying these a lot so far. Basically Samuel Hornblower on dragons. Main characters very well developed.

Je suis tombé un peu par hasard sur cette série et je ne le regrette pas.L'histoire est passionnante et mélange habilement le contexte historique et le fantastique.Chaque tome nous entraine dans de nouvelles aventures pour le dragon Téméraire et le capitaine Lawrence.Une fois la lecture commencée, il est difficile de s'arrêter tant les histoires sont bien conçues et nous tiennent en haleine.Je conseille ce roman à tous les amateurs de Fantasy.

Love it!

Je ne recommande à personnehistoire d'heroic fantasy mais placée dans un contexte pseudo historique (celui des guerres napoléoniennes mais du côté britanique).Le style est plat. Pas beaucoup d'éléments de surprise.Je me suis tellement ennuyé que je n'ai lu que les deux premiers livres à 1 an d'intervalle et que j'ai renoncé à lire les 2 autres.

The book took a few pages to become normal to me, I felt that at the start I had to read it in a pretend old english accent because the sentence structure was strange like the author was trying to show off. But that disappeared after a few pages and it became a very fun story about a dragon being hatched on a naval ship. I'm enjoying it quite a bit and would recommend it to other readers.