His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik | 2006 | Del Rey | Paperback $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 his ship 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.
Again with the dragon books, I know. I CAN’T HELP IT, I’M GOING THROUGH A PHASE OR SOMETHING.
Anyway, I picked this book up at just the right time, because the final book in the series is coming out in just a few days. I’ve been madly reading the rest of the series over the past couple of weeks, and it’s been gloooorious.
TBH, I’d heard about this book a couple of years ago but the blurb didn’t sound all that interesting to me at that time) so I skipped it. But then a friend of mine mentioned it and I just had to try it. The mass market paperback box set of the first three books was going for pretty cheap, so that’s what I started with; right now I’m working my way through book six, so obviously it turned out to be worth the investment.
The main human character, Captain Laurence, starts out as, let’s be honest, a bit of a snob. He’s a stiff, rather elitist upper-class Englishman who is suddenly thrown into a very different life when a baby dragon, Temeraire, adopts him and forces him to leave the Navy in favor of the dragon-based equivalent of the Air Force. To complicate matters, his young be-winged beastie is a tad bit mutinous and begins to grow into some kind of early 1800’s version of a teenaged social justice warrior. They’re quite a pair!
I wavered between four and five stars for this one. The book by itself feels incomplete, more like a set-up for the storylines that follow than the kind of series starter than can stand all on its own. But I’m giving it five stars because it was ultimately so enjoyable that I immediately wanted to go on reading the rest of the Temeraire books, which have not (so far) disappointed me.
Links:
- Naomi Novik’s official website
- Author interview with NPR
- Highlights from the author’s Reddit AMA at Tor
- The Temeraire series re-read at Tor
Publication information: Novik, Naomi. His Majesty’s Dragon. New York: Del Rey Books, 2006. Print.
Source: Purchased for home library.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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