His Majesty's dragon

A played-straight period naval thriller, but with dragons! I really enjoyed this one!!! I think the audiobook narrator I had was especially good, he really sold Laurence's POV. Likely to continue enjoying these but not to drop everything and read them all right away.

I absolutrly loved this book and really raced though it. It's a very easy read, beautifully paced and wonderfully well researched. I can't wait to read the next one, which I've already ordered.

The short of it: talking dragons—yay!

The long(er) of it: There was a lot of scene building, relationship forming, character building, etc. I suppose this is reasonable for the first in a series. I don't know if it was enticing enough for me to continue reading the series. There is some appealing humor.

The Temeraire series is one that folks have recommended to me for quite some time. Like so many books I want to read, it languished in my TBR pile for much longer than it should have. His Majesty’s Dragon is the first book in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik and while it hasn’t achieved the critical success of her more recent Spinning Silver it was absolutely a fun and engaging alternative history fantasy.

There were several things that truly stood out about His Majesty’s Dragon. The biggest of these was the setting itself. Napoleonic wars, with dragons. I mean…as alternate history goes, can you imagine anything more awesome? Not only is the setting fun on paper, but Novik does an exemplary job of making the setting quite believable. It feels very much like what the early 1800s would have looked like if dragons were commonly used in warfare. For those who enjoyed the movie How to Train your Dragon, this book is similar, but instead of Vikings you have Regency era English gentlemen (and women!) riding dragons. It’s…I mean it’s just ridiculously fun. As historical fantasy goes, I’m a bit of a sucker for anything with Regency manners. If a sentence like, “Reginald, see to my dragon’s feeding if you please, then I’ll take a light dinner in my rooms and a glass of port to follow,” could conceivably be uttered non-ironically, I’m totally along for the ride. If dialog that sounds like it’s lifted from a Jane Austen novel isn’t your thing, there’s still plenty to love about this novel beyond the setting. The aerial combat is interesting and quite tense at times, having the cinematic feel of both fighter dogfights and naval battles. Novik excels at the battle and action sequences in this book. As the plot progresses there is also an endearing cast of characters that we get to enjoy. Obviously, the main character, Laurence, and his dragon, Temeraire, are the most well fleshed out. But the entire cast grows on you throughout the novel.

With so much good to say about the novel, why only four stars? It’s hard to point to anything in particular that prevented this novel from creeping up into five star range. Yes, I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the motivations of some of the side characters. I think some of the specifics around dragons could have been fleshed out a little earlier in the novel. But these are minor criticisms. In the end, a five star rating for me means I absolutely loved a book and couldn’t put it down. This novel was a ton of fun, I enjoyed it, and I intend to continue the series—but for me it lacks that little something to take it to five stars.

If you haven’t treated yourself to His Majesty’s Dragon yet, you should do so posthaste. It’s a wonderfully fun Regency era romp with dragons serving in the role of skyships. It’s a very enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to making my way to the sequel.

4.25/5 stars.

5 – I loved this, couldn’t put it down, move it to the top of your TBR pile
4 – I really enjoyed this, add it to the TBR pile
3 – It was ok, depending on your preferences it may be worth your time
2 – I didn’t like this book, it has significant flaws and I can’t recommend it
1 – I loathe this book with a most loathsome loathing

historical fiction has never quite been my bailiwick. Mixed with some Sci-fi, as with the Time wars stuff of [a:Simon Hawke|41942|Simon R. Green|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1224555729p2/41942.jpg] I have enjoyed a little, but it's not a genre I've exhaustively explored.

I must therefore say I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying this debut novel from US-resident Novik a great deal.

The premise - introducing dragons into the Napoleonic Wars and so providing an Aerial Corps alongside the more traditional Navy - is a stroke of genius. I find it amazing that with a minor additional factor the horizons have expanded to such a degree that a whole series of books can be launched.

I've read books with more heart-pounding combat scenes, books with more of an emphasis on tactics and strategy, and books with a more political bent. The area in which this one particularly excelled for me was that of social ambience, though.

William Laurence is Captain of the HMS Reliant and through no choice or desire of his own is thrust into the initially unenviable position of "harnessing the beast". We can immediately see that this isn't something to be desired. "The Corps may not be the sort of life that any of us has been raised to," he says to his crew. that's putting something of a happy face on things, it seems. becoming an Aviator would mean "an end to any semblance of ordinary life", and "the prospect of entering their ranks could not be appealing to any gentleman raised up in respectable society." an aviator supposedly lives in "wild outrageous libertinage in small enclaves, generally in the most remote and inhospitable places" and dragons were "finicky" and "could not be managed by force". Much is also made of the sociological impact of such a thing - Lord Allendale, Captain Laurence's father is quite against the whole dragon thing and almost disowns his son as a result. A woman that Laurence had shown interest in is suddenly out-of-bounds and much is made of the almost ostracising effect being a dragon's companion instils in "polite society".

I am by no means as eloquent as the author, so it may not seem such a huge deal, coming from me. But the social mores of the time are very much in evidence, and Captain Laurence has many an adjustment to make.

there is a fascinating congruence which speaks highly of Laurence when he has been training and living with his dragon for six months, though. He ends up making a delivery to a seagoing vessel, and one of the crewmen happens to bring the matter up. "I suppose he is a valuable animal and we must be glad to have him, but it is appalling you should be chained to such a life, and in such company." For the reader, it seems that this isn't too wide of the mark of Laurence's thoughts at the opening of the novel. But his curt "I wonder that you could imagine such an address acceptable" shows us without doubt that his attitudes have radically shifted.

The language is exquisitely crafted - Novik makes room in her acknowledgements for those catching "out-of-period words". The precision, self-control, perhaps even snobbishness of the English upperclass elite is perfectly captured and expertly applied to create a sense of the time so inspiring that I want to turn all the electricity off and read by candle light.

As I said, the raw elements of this nonetheless outstanding novel aren't incredibly done in themselves. the aerial combat, seamanship, politics and detail are very good, but have been done better in works focusing more specifically upon them as individual themes. For me, the biggest and best part of this book was the social impact of having a dragon for a companion, alongside the titular characters growth, development and adaptation to the situations in which they found themselves.