Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I haven't noticed that there hasn't been any real action in this book as of yet.   Even the capture of the French ship at the beginning was anticlimactic, and Novik has Laurence point out that it was so multiple times.   When people try to elevate the French ship, making it more well armed than it was, or act as if the crew were healthy rather than staved, dehydrated, and sick as they were, Laurence admits that this was not so, and that the French crews bad luck was, in turn, his own good luck. 

There was a rescue mission with some action, some tension, but no enemies in sight.   

That being said, they are heading off to actual action.   They have been training, accommodating themselves to life in the Corps, and, um, bathing and eating?   My point is when you list out the things they do - sleeping, reading, chatting, talking war tactics - it doesn't sound like compelling reading.   I'm reminded of a conversation I had with friends about Fringe, in which they got bored by the predictability: someone came back from Walter's past, things went sideways, they found out who it was and that they were from Walter's past, fixed things, and then hid it from the world in general.   Wash, rinse, repeat.   Wistfully, I mentioned it was true, but that Walter was such a compelling character I couldn't help but be charmed by him. 

Everyone agreed: Walter as a character carried them past the point they would have watched otherwise. 

That being said, I wouldn't tolerate this nonsense from other books.   "Stop bathing!   Hey, you, yeah, you, I don't need to hear about you washing off so damn much!   Get to it already," I'd be yelling.  "What the fuck?   You're reading again?" I'd ask, baffled.   "Primus, will anything actually happen?   Anything at all?" I'd ask, goggling at any book, wondering, with an askew glance, if I should toss it across the room and watch it bounce with satisfaction.  Or in this case, grumble that I might if it were not on my laptop.   

But, no, we have the Walter effect here.   Temeraire is so charming, so pleasant to read about, that I don't mind that there were *cough, cough* that many*cough, cough* scenes of them literally washing off gunk.   (Mostly blood.)