Blood of Tyrants

Blood of Tyrants is the eighth novel in the Temeraire series by the American writer Naomi Novik, published by Voyager Books in August 2013.

The series reimagines the Napoleonic wars with an air force of dragons, and by this point the story has moved away from Europe: Laurence's amnesia removes his knowledge of the war, his commission and his companions, so the reader watches a competent man rebuild himself from nothing while the dragon he left behind goes looking for him. The amnesia also makes the eighth book readable on its own, since its captain has to be introduced to his own service, his rank and the politics of the aerial corps at the same time as the reader is. The action moves between Japan, the coast of China and Russia in 1812, and the plot is about searching for allies in a war that the British are losing. Novik's dragons are characters with their own opinions about law, treasure and rank, and the relationship between a captain and his dragon is the emotional centre of the series; losing that relationship for a hundred pages is this volume's method of testing it. The series began with His Majesty's Dragon in 2006 and this is the eighth of nine novels.