Author Naomi Novik reports that, in addition to writing volumes five and six of the Temeraire series, she is learning Japanese in preparation for her attendance at this year's WorldCon. And in keeping with the Japanese theme, her Japanese publisher, Villagebooks, has provided their translation of the first chapter of His Majesty's Dragon (the first book in the series), which is available at the Temeraire website.
We remarked on it in our reviewof book 4, Empire of Ivory, but Novik notes that "at least one reader has described it as having a 'vicious cliffhanger of an ending' and, er, I can't argue. I know, bad writer, no biscuit. I'm sorry! That's where it wanted to end."
She does now have both a title and publication date for the fifth book in the series: Victory of Eagles will be released in June 2008. "The first chapter is not going into book 4, because there was just not enough time to get it done." She will instead make it available via the Temeraire mailing list (which is accessible from the web site), and from her LiveJournal blog.
She also provides a photo on her blog of her recently won Locus and Compton Crook awards framing the German, Dutch, Korean, Catalan, Spanish, and French translations of His Majesty's Dragon.
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