There's no denying these are well-written, well-conceived books. There's also no denying that no matter how cute and radicalised the dragon is and how stalwart and sympathetic his officer is, I still sneakily want Napoleon to win. I'm not proud of it, I would have thought myself above such primal nationalist urges, but there it is. The Wild Geese are in there somewhere fighting for liberty! What was left of them at that point, which wasn't much. Oh well. I swear I didn't have this problem with Patrick O'Brian. But throw in a dragon, apparently, and the blood of Wolfe Tone stirs. Weird.