Clash of Empires

Battlesaurus #2

by Brian Falkner

In the wake of Napoléon's crushing victory at Waterloo,
the vicious French general Marc Thibault and his brigade of giant carnivorous battlesaurs have struck terror across Europe. England stands alone, but an invasion is looming. Its only hope is a secret attack deep inside enemy territory,
to the very heart of Napoléon's terrifying new army.
Deception and betrayal threaten the mission from its outset, leading to a clash of titanic proportions.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dinosaurs, Adventure

352 pages, Hardcover

First published July 12, 2016

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid book. I needed to know the end of the story since I really liked the first one, and I received a fairly satisfying ending. What more can I say it was dinosaurs and war so it was worth a read.

Obviously though, the first book was better as there was more suspense. It did feel like the author was trying to flesh out too many characters as well, I would have liked to see more illusion/slight of hand from Willem.

All in all, an okay book.

[Anthonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay a great YA novel in opinion. I never like Napoléon Bonaparte but the man was a genius in battle until his failures came into play. I like history but this book takes a new twist on where dinosaurs are used to fight wars, and battles. A lot of detail, fighting, issues, orders and choices that the characters in this book make and do. A must read.

[Paul Virgadamo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was interesting, but didn't hold my attention so couldn't finish it. May try again later.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's now been years since I last read Rampage at Waterloo, and I'll admit, I took my sweet time getting around to this sequel.

There's really no reason why I waited, I loved the first book. I think it's fantastic. A historical fiction of a quality I could never have imagined.

But eventually, quarantine diffuses all excuses, and the book was reopened, the first chapters reread, and the book, at long last, was poured over by an idiot with a waned reading addiction.

I think there's parts of this book I genuinely really like. And parts I do not.

I've never put much thought into the pacing of books, but more and more it's come up now where I struggle to find focus. I can't read pages that won't sing, and okay, maybe it's my lack of a sound sleeping schedule or healthy diet, because I remember enjoying much of what I read, but the experience at times felt... off. And the ending too was... off.

I didn't need a LotR-level epilogue, but I wanted to be satisfied, and for whatever reason, I was not. Having the final action set piece be a Saur-chase through a city works fine on film, but by the end of the book, after so many pages of relatively little dino action, the explosive climax somehow just didn't click.

It lost me, or maybe I lost it. Maybe I finished it for the sake of finishing, or because the two most interesting characters by chapter 3 were pure-of-heart soldier boy Jack and the unbreakable Cosette.

Willem's still the main man magician, but we rarely see him do anything aside from making plans and worrying about everyone. Thibault on the other hand, we get him scheming, sneering, murdering, massacring, and just overall being a damn terrifying presence. Thibault steals the show, and not by accident I think.

Willem very quickly becomes a hollowed hero; a "Frodo in Mordor," if you will. He's allied with the British because he's useful to them, with no guarantee they'll actually help him in his own quest. For a good chunk of the book, Willem has zero say in his own destiny, much less that of his family. This isn't a complaint, actually, taking away his agency works wonders for his angst. When Willem visits Bedlam and is forced to leave without Heloise, it rips him apart not being able to do anything. We finally get a taste of "Saur-wizard" Willem in action a whole third of the way through the novel, when he orchestrates the breakout. It's great, wonderful, classic. He's still got nothing but the tricks his papa taught him and a small team of soldiers, and even they don't stand a chance against a battlesaur ambush.

is characters like Jack who hold the torch of hope and courage. Jack stole my heart faster than any hero there ever was or will be.

If we're clinging to the Frodo metaphor in any way, I guess we'll call Jack the "Merry/Pippin" and Frost can be "Strider."

Forgive me, I cannot recall the names of any other officers. I know everyone dies and the Scottish dude squealed and the captain rode a tricorne saur into battle, and some Prussian general does a thing for 5 seconds.

They're awesome. they're epic. But Private Jack is the main character here and you can't convince me otherwise.

François had a great run in the first book, enjoyed his big betreyal scene at the end), and yet while his "crisis of faith" moment in the second book was satisfying, I otherwise found his inclusion in this second book feeling rather... vestigial.

He's boring, he barely does anything, and I am not terribly interested in his "soul searching" or lack thereof. It all comes off as too little too late, and even his "heroic sacrifice" came off as a bit... overperformed.

...Much like everything else in the finale. Thunderous titans tearing down cobblestone streets- it's wonderful, epic, jarring and bizarre. We are no longer in an alt historical-fiction novel. We are breathtaken, at the whim and will of ferocious, bone-shattering Dinosaurs in blinding daylight.

It's great, but for a book that's kept these monsters in the shadows, mists, and caves for so long, the tonal whiplash was less exhillerating and more... ok?

I question what it is I look for in a novel titled "Battlesaurus."

Do I not want dinosaurs in this dinosaur book? Of course I do! But for so much of the book, we've been getting the bare bones sighting of these Monsters in the mist, Tremors in the rain, Demons in the dark. Am I complaining that the finale was all chaos and cannon fire, heck no! The first book climaxed with a literal Rampage at Waterloo. And it was Great! The whole book was great!
Spinosaurus attack by night! Demonsaurs in the sewer! So much good 3rd person limited accounts of our heroes going toe to toe with these prehistoric titans.

This sequel has very little of that. Our heroes don't go toe to toe with any hot-blooded carnivores for a good 200 pages. The only accounts we get of Battlesaur attacks are from the 3rd person perspective of Thibault- which is great, those attacks are masterfully written, but they are limited by the perspective of Thibault. He isn't on the ground. He isn't experiencing the Battlesaurs the way we experienced them at Waterloo. While demonsaurs unleash carnage in the British fort, we focus instead on their cold-blooded commander.

Which isn't Bad.

This book has a lot of war. From Thibault's perspective, it's all chess moves and screaming Brits. From Jack's perspective, it's Jurassic Hell on Earth all over again, alongside some super cool spy stuff he quickly attributes to Willem, being too dang modest for his own good. Jack's the superstar of this Euro-invasion and no self-proclaimed Saur-wizard can take that well-deserved spotlight from him.

Anyways...

Third Act arrival of the Tricorne Battlesaurs-Great!
Tricornes versus Greatjaws-Great!
Dinos racing through the city-EPIC!
Thibault's Saur getting its head blown off by Françoi-???

Maybe I wanted a beefier finale? How much beefier can you get??? Maybe I wanted Héloïse to have a proper and fitting send-off rather than a final-word afterthought? Maybe I wanted Héloïse to have something better to do in the finale than spook François into martyring himself?

Don't get me wrong, I understand why those characters meet up at the end. Both pining for people already taken. Both otherworldly-minded and thus, isolated. Both "children of the trees."

It's not a terrible stretch to say they're kindred, and at the very least they're neighbors, but I think I speak for everyone when I say we all want François dead and Héloïse finding herself a proper gentleman prince Tarzan to woo.

OK, rant over. I've stepped away from my computer for a good minute, and I think I've figured it out.

The first book has microsaurs, phoenix saurs, vulture saurs, etc. Europe's got its native dinos; plenty harmless, but a good amount of deadlies all the same. Now, the second book has a few new dinos; the imported Asian herbisaurs used in training, and the battle-ready tricornes so shamelessly marketed on the front cover. And call me ungrateful, whiney or lame, but that's not enough. I'd like some more dinos for my sequel please.

Do I mean there's no variety in my dinos? Well yes, but also... in book one, we start out in this one village somewhere, surrounded by the Sonian forest (which I've looked up is somewhere in Belgium. Cool!), and that forest is simply full of native dinos. And we get to explore some of that. And it's oh so terrifying. And that's even before the big boys get loose and start eating people.

This sequel has very few "wild dinos." In fact I'd go so far to say it has zero. Obviously none of the Battlesaurs are by any metric "tame," but they are controllable, and are for the most part, controlled.

Which really takes a lot of the bite out of the beast, if you catch my drift.

If anything, the most terrifying monsters in this book are men, which - ok, duh - but also, well, expected. I wasn't surprised by any dinosaurs in this book, with the exception of the Tricornes, which only show up in the final stretch of the book and I honestly kind of forgot they were showing up at all until OH HELLO, and there they are.


And here's also what I mean by "lack of fresh dinos" - When we're London, England, we hear about these great "Saur-walls" surrounding the city, built in ancient times to keep the creatures of hell at bay, but we don't see anything more than that. And sure, it's a big city, big walls, not a whole lot of room for big saurs. But it's essentially a saur-free bubble. So no microsaurs scavenging in alleyways, no floral shops with saur skull vases or saur-inspired door carvings or pterosaur nets or anything. And I get that the focus of the London segment of the story was breaking Héloïse out of Bedlam in all its God-damned historic infamy, but

I still feel there was a lost opportunity to throw a little more alt- into this alternate-history novel.

And maybe some illustrations by Greg Call . I think a little of his magic might go a long way in a reprint. That's all.
/Rant over/

[Claudia Sorsby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine sequel. The cliff-hanger from the first book is addressed promptly, which I always appreciate, and the rest provides a satisfying solution to the fundamental problem the first one set up, which was "How to deal with Napoleon having killing-machine dinosaurs?"

On the one hand, some of the characters seem to have matured awfully quickly (I'm looking at you, Willem). Then again, that famously happens in wartime, so I'm inclined to let it pass.

The pacing was also better; the slow intro and set-up of the characters had been done, of course, so the story gets off to a faster start here and stays that way.

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the pleasant surprise of Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo, Clash of Empires was sitting in my Kindle chambered and ready for the moment we hit the beach, and I’m happy to say it has delivered. It cannot, of course, recapture the magic (and the aforementioned surprise) of the previous book, but it does continue nicely right where we stopped, with Napoleon readying his dinos for an invasion of Britain and our plucky heroes plotting to thwart him. The only thing left for us is to ponder which dinosaur would we choose to ride into battle?

[Saleena Longmuir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clash of Empires finishes out the alternative history begun in Rampage at Waterloo. Now the author can lose the historical accuracy and just dig into the story and it gets really good very quickly. This is another surprisingly dense but quite enjoyable historical alternative fiction novel....it feels like historical fiction but reads like SF...really nicely done.

[CaitieZz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like the first book, it is slow but gripping.
Again my favourite character was a sub-charater, luckily he had a lot of scenes and it was a very good read.
The ending was satisfying and well done.

[Umar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice author nice book

[KIM GEARING · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting & different. Combines historical based story with fantasy.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

What if Napoleon had developed a secret weapon? “Battlesaurus: Clash of Empires,” is the sequel that picks up after “Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo.” Falkner has written an alternative history in which Napoleon Bonaparte turns dinosaurs into formidable war engines. Still reeling from his ignoble defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon and his vicious general, Marc Thibault, unleash battlesaurs on Europe. Only England continues to stand free, but invasion is imminent.

England’s only hope lies in Willem, a magician’s child. Willem is chosen to lead a sneak attack deep inside enemy territory. The sequel picks up after “Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo.” Willem’s courage and determination are key to a raid that pitches Willem as the “saur killer,” in a battle of epic proportions. The historically accurate battle scenes, combined with terrifying dinosaurs and strong cast of characters, will engage reluctant readers, as well as fans of military history and historical fiction.

[Melinda Szymanik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another action packed story that provides a satisfying conlusion to the adventure started in Rampage at Waterloo.