Now, as they return to the British Isles, Laurence and Temeraire and their companions—men and barely trained feral dragons—are attacked by a well-drilled French aerial patrol. Exhausted by their journey, burdened by refugees, the returning English force can barely hold its own as it waits for reinforcements to fly out from the Scottish coast. But the reinforcements never appear.

On land, Laurence and Temeraire learn why no English dragons rose to help: All are gravely ill, and many are dead. No one knows what the dragons' pneumonialike disease is, or what the cure might be. The Aerial Corps knows only that this disease must be hidden from the English people—and from the French. For, if Napoleon learns the British Aerial Corps is incapacitated, nothing will stop his invasion and conquest of England.

When Temeraire is accidentally exposed to the dragon plague, he proves immune, due to a cold he shook off in southern Africa. Is a cure to be found in that distant land? Is it something Temeraire ate? Did he even have the same disease? In a desperate search for an antidote that may not exist, Laurence and Temeraire, together with some of the stricken dragons and their captains and an ex-slave missionary and his family, take ship to the far end of Africa.

Reaching the Cape of Good Hope, the Aerial Corps labors to uncover the cure. And, finding it, they discover it is cultivated by an African people who have dragons of their own and hate the Europeans as slave-takers. Their force assaults the English, with deadly results. The survivors, including Laurence, find themselves prisoners, with no knowledge of whether Temeraire and the other dragons still live, and with no way to alert the Europeans settlers about this hostile, dragon-riding force. And—in another bitter blow—they have no way to send word to England or the Cape about the curative mushrooms they have found.

The Temeraire series continues to fly high

Naomi Novik's first novel, His Majesty's Dragon (U.K. title Temeraire), and its sequels, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War, made quite a splash when they appeared in three successive months in 2006. Revealing an alternate history in which the Napoleonic Wars take to the skies, the three books splendidly combined post-Pernian SF dragons with the mannered fiction of Jane Austen and the naval adventures of Patrick O'Brian. The Temeraire trilogy rightly earned its author not only critical and popular acclaim but the Locus Award, the Compton Crook Award and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author.

A year-plus wait brings their sequel, Empire of Ivory, the first book of a new Temeraire trilogy. It is worth the wait. Empire of Ivory builds on the strengths of the previous books: the skillfully wrought 19th-century-style prose; the well-researched, smartly altered history; the exciting, intelligent action scenes; the fascinating, nuanced relationships between the well-drawn human and dragon characters; and the insightful, thought-provoking treatment of bigotry and equality.

Temeraire has always wanted better treatment for dragons, who are intelligent, sentient beings feared by the British as dangerous monsters and viewed by the British government as flying ships. In Empire of Ivory, Novik explores the theme of the rights of thinking beings (human as well as dragon) in new and disturbing depth; and readers will squirm with increasing discomfort, if not outright pain, as the novel proceeds to its climax and conclusion. In Africa, Laurence (who opposes slavery) witnesses new slaves in an abominable situation, and, when he finds himself captured by Africans fighting the slave-takers, he can only agree with their feelings, though they may kill him as another of that ilk. Finally, he discovers his own government has embarked on an action so inhumane and appalling that he makes a decision that may doom him.

Captain Will Laurence's decision, and his behavior throughout Empire of Ivory and its prequels, point to the series's greatest strength: its human protagonist. A well-born 19th-century English gentleman, Laurence is keenly sensitive to duty and proper behavior. He knows the Aerial Corps is not considered a fit career for a gentleman and is disturbed by the fact that women serve in this force and can even rise, like his lover, Jane Roland, to positions of authority. He is uneasy with the other Corps members' casual manners and their easy approach to nonmarital sex. He is discomfited when others—including his father—assume that a girl of the Corps is his bastard.

Yet Laurence does not correct the mistake about his nonexistent illegitimate fatherhood. He became Temeraire's partner so that none of the men on his ship would have to give up his naval career. He not only obeys his lover/superior officer; he respects and (though he does not use the word) loves her. He adapts himself to the Corps' unusual manners. And, when he must choose between what is right in the eyes of his country and a greater good that may get him executed, he chooses the greater good. In short, Captain Will Laurance is a man of great decency and strong principle, and one of the most respectable and honorable characters to grace fiction. It feels almost like an honor to be permitted to follow his continuing adventures in Empire of Ivory.