Crucible of Gold

Loved getting back into the Temeraire series, especially after I was disappointed by the author's stand-alone book Uprooted. One problem I have with the series though is that I feel each book is driven by the author's wish to explore the dragons on different continents rather than being driven by plot and therefore the plot is not as strong as it could be. However, Temeraire and Iskierka more than make up for that

I enjoy the parts of this series that are travelogues exploring how dragons would have affected the age of colonization a lot more than I do the parts that are Napoleonic warfare with dragons. This book leaned heavily on the first, so I quite enjoyed it, and found myself very intrigued by the role dragons played in the Incan empire. If anything, I wanted more, not only in Incan-controlled territory, but also in the fascinating implications of dragons surviving in an ecosystem fairly devoid of megafauna (pre European contact, at least). It looks like that's not going to be addressed, what with the series apparently returning to Asia and Europe in later books, but it has given me something fascinating to think about, and what more can you ask for?