Crucible of Gold continues the grand tradition of Temeraire adventures: seeing our heroes adventure to new parts of the world so that we may explore more of the author's alternate-history where dragons are real. It also continues the tradition of being very, very far from black powder military fiction, which is not how the series is marketed, and we also know the author is capable of delivering in the superb Victory of Eagles.

Worse, this book is a retread of many things we've seen in the series. The worldbuilding has stopped showing us new ways dragons have impacted human society. The journey to South America feels just like the adventures in the sea from Throne of Jade. And perhaps if the destination was interesting, this is all acceptable. But alternate histories are interesting in their deviations from what we know. Sadly, modern 21st century humanity know very little about the Incas. So ironically, the descriptions of the Incan Empire are fantastical and lack the impact when exploring similar scenes in Colonial Africa or China.

On a positive note, Crucible of Gold improves on the disappointing Tongues of Serpents by having a much more enjoyable extended cast. Humour is also back, something I didn't realize had been missing, but the naive and good-hearted dragons used to cause a lot of funny scenes and that had ceased for several books. Still, this is still a below-average Temeraire novel.

Recommended to fans only.