His Majesty’s Dragon, by Naomi Novik
June 25, 2007 by Charlotte
Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, starting with His Majesty’s Dragon, just won a Locus award for best first novel in 2006, and I don’t even know whether she’s excited. After Peter Jackson has bought the film rights to your debut, a handful of award nominations is just icing on the cake.
In this historical fantasy, Novik creates a detailed, thoughtful, and affectionate alternate world in which the Napoleonic wars include an air force of dragons. (Think very, very heavy bombers.) Captain Will Laurence of the British Navy finds himself responsible for a captured dragon egg, and, when it hatches, for the dragon, Temeraire.
Being an aviator in his majesty’s Air Corps comes with its own social stigma and a sideline of secrets (among them, that the dragons are sentient enough to have their own ideas about politics, and that some of them will permit only female captains), but Laurence adjusts quickly enough to the society of his fellow aviators, and he and Temeraire are in the thick of the country’s defense when Napoleon invades England, by air, at Dover.
It’s all great fun, and the dragons are charming. Although the novel invites comparisons with Anne McCaffrey, Novik has really done her own thing here. Try it if you’ve learned your sails from Patrick O’Brian and don’t mind suspending disbelief, or if you enjoyed Susannah Clarke’s blend of the fantastic with proper Regency tone and dialogue in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
The series continues with Throne of Jade and Black Powder War.
