2) what are the logistics of dealing with all that dragon waste??? Novik goes into great detail about how they're feeding and kitting out the dragons, but who is shoveling all those mountains of shit??? I would have appreciated a single sentence addressing this!

This made me laugh a lot! It is also a fair point! I suppose we must assume this UK doesn't need to import any guano or something? Super-abundant production rates in agriculture all round, heh.

I read, I think, the first four Temeraire books, and while I enjoyed them, I did feel it got a bit of a case of diminishing returns for me. But mostly I'd have had to work to obtain the others, while those just fell into my hands, and I wasn't up to putting the effort in, ahem.