Throne of Jade, by Naomi Novik, I enjoyed as much as the first, and perhaps more. This story certainly has much less direct action, but fills in much of the background history of this version of our world. 
As a negative it certainly doesn’t stand alone, with not enough explanation of how the characters came to be in their current situation. This is a pretty weak criticism to be certain, and the alternative is usually that annoying exposition that we find in some other series books to fill in what happened previously.
It’s nice to see the dragon main character expand a bit beyond the world of his Captain, but the obsessive nature of all of the dragons to their ‘partners’ borders on sociopathic. I guess this is our hero’s required fatal flaw, but to see it in most of the race lessens them a bit, I think.
There is enough back-reference into the first book’s story to remind us of humorous or noteworthy events in the previous story that they hold together nicely. On to the third: Black Powder War.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I read this on Saturday. It was good, but not great. I agree that it is not a standalone book. I also have difficulty picturing the Dragon Transport Ship. I can’t see how they would have built one big enough to carry as many dragons as they claimed. Long enough, maybe, but wide enough?