His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

His Majesty's Dragon

Temeraire – Book 1

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group as Del Ray (2006)

Author: Naomi Novik

Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Pages: 353

Price: $7.99

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature.

Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

Dragons and the Napoleonic Wars, sign me up! I'm a sucker for reimagining/retelling of historical events slanted in such a way as to accommodate some kind of fantastic element. As such I enjoyed many aspects of this story. Naomi Novik has clearly researched the time period very thoroughly and does a good job of bringing the social attitudes, manner of speech and sense of honor to life for the modern reader.

The best part of His Majesty's Dragon is the interaction between Laurence and Temeraire. Will Laurence is a somewhat stuffy gentleman with strong feelings of duty and honor. Temeraire is an uncannily intelligent being possessing the naivete and sense of wonder of a child. Despite his tremendous size and intelligence the reader is reminded that Temeraire is less than a year old during the course of this story. That mix of intelligence and curiosity make him a refreshing counterpoint to Laurence's more traditional views. Going forward I can see Temeraire's inquisitiveness and and fresh outlook exerting a change upon his master.

The action scenes are exciting. Some of the dragons are gigantic, accommodating crews numbering in the dozens. This is a most welcome change to what we've come to expect from dragon rider stories, gone is the concept of a single rider laying waste to armies with a dragon ally. The dragons here are immense airborne weapons platforms, not only rending with claws and teeth, but allowing their crews to fire on the enemy with rifles and destroy fortifications and large targets with bombs. The setting means that while dragons are still formidable, they are not indestructible, due to the prevalence of cannons and other gunpowder based weaponry. That fact serves to lend a sense of danger that would otherwise be impossible when speaking of beasts of such size.

This is Naomi Novik's first published novel. There are things I expect of seasoned authors that some debuting authors seem to have trouble with. With this particular story the difficulty comes from the advice your creative writing instructor would try again and again to drum into your head, “Show, don't tell.” While this seems like an easy concept to grasp, in reality it is anything but. Here in lies my one major problem with this story as it unfolded. The reader is told that bonding with a dragon is very selective and potential dangerous, that the rest of society looks down on aviators as second-class, and many other things throughout the course of the story. Going forward in her career I hope that Mrs. Novik relies more on her readers' intelligence, and counts on them to understand these kinds of things through the action and her characters' interactions; and not being told those types of things explicitly.

Conclusion: Not without minor flaws, His Majesty's Dragon puts a new spin on the dragon sub-genre of fantasy. The blend of history and fantasy feels fresh and has me interested in how Temeraire's world's history will differ from our own. The potential for growth from both main characters is an exciting prospect going forward.

Rating: 7.75/10