Current writing status and SOS: His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War

[_lavinia_]

Have just noticed that I've been befriended by
harryhunting, which is apparently a journal associated with slashcast that watches random journals "looks around the Harry Potter fandom for up-to-date information on the books, the movies, and what everyone in the fandom is saying in relation to slash."  Am a bit bemused, as the only entry I have here that pertains to slash is, I think, my Remus/Sirius drabble.  Perhaps also my old analysations of the fifth book got noticed as well?

Anyway.  Current writing status: I really, really, really want to write and I currently have a million projects and it's even difficult to tell what's top priority (either nightmare-story or my Hellsing dungeon scene, I think).  Nothing has a frickin' title.  It's just a matter of getting around to it.

The real point of this entry, however, is an SOS over the first three books of the Temeraire series.  The reviews are rife with spoilers and quotes, so it's all going under a cut.

• His Majesty's Dragon:  I experienced such a wonderful, wonderful sense of euphoria reading this book, because it has been so long since I've been able to read a really, really good story.  And this was.  It felt so original and was so interesting and had wonderful characters and I just couldn't wait to read what happens next, and I have missed that feeling.
  
  Part, I know, of what made me so wildly happy is because the book's main relationship (between Laurence and Temeraire) had themes that seriously appeal to me, so I can't be very objective about it.  Sometimes I wondered if it was going too far, too over the edge (the "my dears" kind of weirded me out at first), but I honestly could not tell.
  
  Well, as for quotes, some of them cover a couple pages (since they're scenes that demonstrate the relationship particularly brilliantly), so I will restrain myself from typing those up.  Instead, there will be segments of them.
  
  "He said you did not like dragons, and that you wanted to be back on your ship," said Temeraire, very low.  "He said you only flew with me out of duty."
  
  Laurence went breathless with rage; if Dayes had been in front of him he would have flown at the man bare-handed and beaten him.  "He was lying, Temeraire," he said with difficulty; he was half-choked by fury.
  
  "Yes; I thought he was," Temeraire said.  "But it was not pleasant to hear, and he tried to take away my chain.  It made me very angry.  And he would not leave, until I put him out, and then you still did not come; I thought maybe he would keep you away, and I did not know where to go to find you."
  ...
  "If you would like to have your ship back," Temeraire said, "I will let someone else ride me.  Not him, because he says things that are not true; but I will not make you stay."
  ***
  [I also learned from the book a respectable synonym for "fangirl," seen after Laurence lists a number of Lord Nelson's achievements:]
  With some difficulty, he restrained himself and stopped here; he did not wish to seem an enthusiast.
  ***
  [when they jail a traitor among them, and Laurence goes in to hear his confession, and he's talking about how the French sent him to get Temeraire:]
  Choiseul shrugged and spread his hands.  "I thought perhaps if I killed him -"
  
  Laurence struck him full across the face, with such force as to knock him onto the stone floor of the cell; his chair rocked and fell over with a clatter.  Choiseul coughed and blotted blood from his lip, and the guard opened the door and looked inside.  "Everything all right, sir?" he asked, looking straight at Laurence; he paid not hte slightest mind to Choiseul's injury.
  
  "Yes, you may go," Laurence said flatly, wiping blood from his hand onto his handkerchief as the door closed once again.  He would ordinarily have been ashamed to strike a prisoner, but in this moment he felt not the slightest qualm; his heart was still beating very quickly.
  ***
  [When a dragon Levitas is dying, and his idiot captain, Rankin (who's slightly injured), won't come see him]
  Coming up to him, Laurence told him very quietly, "If you can walk, get to your feet; otherwise I will carry you."
  
  Rankin put down his glass and stared at him coldly.  "I bet your pardon?" he said.  "I gather this is more of your officious -"
  
  Laurence paid no attention, but seized the back of his chair and heaved.  Rankin fell forward, scrabbling to catch himself on the floor; Laurence took him by the scruff of his coat and dragged him up to his feet, ignoring his gasp of pain.
  
  "Laurence, what in God's name -" Lenton said in astonishment, rising to his feet.
  
  "Levitas is dying; Captain Rankin wishes to make his farewells," Laurence said, looking Lenton square in the eye and holding Rankin up by the collar and the arm.  "He begs to be excused."
  
  The other captains stared, half out of their chairs.  Lenton looked at Rankin, then very deliberately sat back down again.  "Very good," he said, and reached for the bottle; the other captains slowly sank back down as well.
  
  Rankin stumbled along in his grip, not even trying to free himself, shrinking a little from Laurence as they went; outside the clearing, Laurence stopped and faced him.  "You will be generous to him, do you understand?" he said.  "You will give him every word of praise he has earned from you and never received; you will tell him he has been brave, and loyal, and a better partner than you have deserved."
  
  Rankin said nothing, only stared as if Laurence were a dangerous lunatic; Laurence shook him again.  "By God, you will do all this and more, and hope that it is enough to satisfy me," he said savagely, and dragged him on.
  
  
• Throne of Jade:  As well-written as the first; only, it was filled with very sad events, in the beginning and middle and partway to the end.  I was afraid for Temeraire and Laurence's relationship.  But it all ended well, of course, and surprisingly easily as Laurence was adopted by the Emperor of China.  Quotes!
  
  "And I do not blame you for going, not in the least, but I am afraid we must turn back now."
  
  "No; I am not taking you back to that man," Temeraire said obstinately, and Laurence understood with a sinking feeling that he had run up against Temeraire's protective instincts.  "He lied to me, and kept you away, and then he wanted to arrest you: he may count himself lucky I did not squash him."
  
  "...Besides, if he tries, Maximus and Lily are there, and they will help me; and if that man from London tries to come and take you away again, I will kill him," he added, with an alarming degree of bloodthirsty eagerness.
  ***
  "I took Laurence away from London," he added triumphantly, in what he likely thought a confidential whisper.  "They were trying to arrest him."
  
  "Did he kill someone?" Maximus asked with interest in his deep echoing voice, not at all disapprovingly. ...
  
  "No," said Temeraire, "He only came and talked to me when some fat old man said he should not, which does not seem like any reason to me."
  ***
  "You there!" Barham shouted at the big Regal Copper, pointing at Temeraire.  "Hold down that dragon!"
  ...Looming over them all, [Maximus] drew his head back on his neck and peered into the clearing.  "Why do you need to be held down?" he asked Temeraire, interestedly.
  
  "I do not need to be held down!" Temeraire said, almost spitting in his anger, ruff quivering; the blood was running more freely down his shoulders.  "Those men want to take Laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and I will not let them, ever, and I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you," he added, fiercely, to Lord Barham.
  
  "Good God," Laurence said, low and appalled; it had not occured to him the real nature of Temeraire's fear.  But the only time Temeraire had seen an arrest, the man taken had been a traitor, executed shortly thereafter before the eyes of the man's own dragon.  The experience had left Temeraire and all the young dragons of the covert crushed with sympathetic misery for days; it was no wonder if he was panicked now.
  ***
  [a note Laurence wrote to Temeraire after a battle when he had been hit over the head and was extremely dazed:]
  Temeraire -
  Never fear; I am going; the Son of Heaven will not tolerate delays, and Barham gives me leave.  Allegiance will carry us!  Pray eat something.
  - L.
  ***
  [When they think there's a plot out to kill Laurence]
  "I do not care if we do not have any proof," he said angrily.  "I am not going to sit and wait for him to kill you.  The next time he comes out on deck I will kill him, instead, and that will put an end to it."
  
  "No, Temeraire, you cannot!" Laurence said, appalled.
  
  "I am perfectly sure I can," Temeraire disagreed.  "I suppose he might not come out on deck again," he added, thoughtfully, "but then I could always knock a hole through the stern windows and come at him that way.  Or perhaps we could throw in a bomb after him."
  ***
  The drums again rolled out their thunder, the nonise so vast it was almost like the shock of a blow, driving air out of his lungs.  Laurence gasped for breath, then slowly put a groping hand up to his shoulder and found a short dagger'shilt jutting from below his collarbone.
  
  "Laurence!" Hammond said, reaching for him, and Granby was shouting at the men and thrusting aside the chairs: he and Blythe put themselves in front of Laurence.  Temeraire was turning his head to look down at him.
  
  "I am not hurt," Laurence said, confusedly; there was queerly no pain at first, and he tried to stand up, to lift and his arm, and then felt the wound; blood was spreading in a warm stain around the base of the knife.
  
  Temeraire gave a shrill, terrible cry, cutting through all the noise and music; every dragon reared back on its hindquarters to stare, and the drums stopped abruptly: in the sudden silence Roland was crying out, "He threw it, over there, I saw him!" and pointing at once of the actors.
  
  The man was empty-handed, in the midst of all the others still carrying their counterfeit weapons, and dressed in plainer clothing.  He saw that his attempt to hide among them had failed and turned to flee too late; the troupe ran screaming in all directions as Temeraire flung himself almost clumsily into the square.
  
  The man shrieked, once, as Temeraire's claws caught and dragged mortally deep furrows through his body.  Temeraire threw the bloody corpse savaged and broken to the ground; for a moment he hung over it low and brooding, to be sure the man was dead, and then raised his head and turned on Yongxing; he bared his teeth and hissed, a murderous sound, and stalked towards him.
  
  
• Black Powder War:  A complicated book, and unlike the first two, there is no great resolution - it is settling more into the series.  I grew to strongly like Granby, Roland, and Keynes, the surgeon - I will be devastated if they die now.  The first chapter of the next, at the end of the book, is simply horrifying - I do not know what they can do, except try to send a dragon over to the French to contaminate all of them.  And Maximus and Lily must be sick, too! 
  This book has the smallest number of quotes, as Temeraire and Laurence's relationship was not under danger in it:
  
  [When Laurence wants to go on a dangerous mission, Granby tells Temeraire:]
  "Temeraire, you are not to let him go, do you hear me?  He is sure to be killed; I give you my word."
  
  "If the party are sure to be killed, I am not going to let anyone go!" Temeraire said, in high alarm, and sat up sharp, quite prepared to physically hold anyone back who made an attempt to leave.
  
  [When there is a dragon hatching that will be given to Granby:]
  "Laurence," Kenyes said in an undertone, "I ought to have thought of this before; but you had better draw Temeraire away at once, as far as you can; he won't like it."
  
  "What?" Laurence said, just as Temeraire said, with a flare of belligerence, "What are you doing?  Why is Granby holding that harness?"
  
  Laurence thought at first, in deep alarm, that Temeraire was speaking out against the harnessing of the dragon in principle.  "No, but Granby is in my crew," Temeraire said, obstinately, an objection which disqualified every man in sight, unless perhaps he had not yet formed an atttachment to Badenhaur or the handful of other Prussian officers.  "I do not see why I must give it my food and Granby."
  
  [After Laurence has attempted to explain to Temeraire why it's okay to steal food when they desperately need it, and Iskierka, the fire-breathing dragonet, has woken up the owners:]
  "Only now look what she has done," Temeraire said self-righteously, and jumped aloft to snatch the dragonet and her cow in one claw, a second cow in the other.  "I am sorry we have woken you up, we are taking your cows, but it is not stealing, because we are at war," he said, hovering, to the white and frozen little group of men now staring up at his vast and terrible form, whose incomprehension came even more from terror than from language.
  
  Over all the books:  All well written and fascinating and I WANT MORE.  And the author has a livejournal (
  naominovik) and gave thanks to her "beta-readers," so I love her even more.  I think above all, she handles characters in original ways extremely well - Rankin in the first book totally surprised me, Hammond and Sun Kai in the second, and Tharkay was very cool in the third.  Also noticed that she has a fondness for colons and semicolons.  And it makes me want to research the Napoleonic Wars so I can figure out better what's going on and is about to happen and how dragons are making differences. 

On the whole, I recommend them to EVERYONE.