num_pages: 274
description: A dazzling blend of military history high-flying fantasy and edge-of-your-seat adventure Naomi Noviks Temeraire novels set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which intelligent dragons have been harnessed as weapons of war are more than just perennial bestsellersthey are a worldwide phenomenon. Now in Tongues of Serpents Naomi Novik is back along with the dragon Temeraire and his rider and friend Capt. Will Laurence.Convicted of treason despite their heroic defense against Napoleons invasion of England Temeraire and Laurencestripped of rank and standinghave been transported to the prison colony at New South Wales in distant Australia where it is hoped they cannot further corrupt the British Aerial Corps with their dangerous notions of liberty for dragons. Temeraire and Laurence carry with them three dragon eggs intended to help establish a covert in the colony and destined to be handed over to such second-rate undesirable officers as have been willing to accept so remote an assignmentincluding one former acquaintance Captain Rankin whose cruelty once cost a dragon its life.Nor is this the greatest difficulty that confronts the exiled dragon and rider: Instead of leaving behind all the political entanglements and corruptions of the war Laurence and Temeraire have instead sailed into a hornets nest of fresh complications. For the colony at New South Wales has been thrown into turmoil after the overthrow of the military governor one William Blighbetter known as Captain Bligh late of HMS Bounty. Bligh wastes no time in attempting to enlist Temeraire and Laurence to restore him to office while the upstart masters of the colony are equally determined that the new arrivals should not upset a balance of power precariously tipped in their favor. Eager to escape this political quagmire Laurence and Temeraire take on a mission to find a way through the forbidding Blue Mountains and into the interior of Australia. But when one of the dragon eggs is stolen from Temeraire the surveying expedition becomes a desperate race to recover it in timea race that leads to a shocking discovery and a dangerous new obstacle in the global war between Britain and Napoleon.
language: English
title: Tongues of Serpents
publisher: Del Rey Books