Customer Reviews

His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)

5 star:		(233)
4 star:		(78)
3 star:		(35)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

"I understand you're a huge fan of Patrick O'Brian's books about the British Navy, and that you're desperately looking for something to replace them," said the shrewd, well-meaning editor who sent me an advance copy of Naomi Novik's first novel. "Give this one a few pages: I was instantly hooked, even though I've never been a reader of fantasy."
Neither have I - at least since I was 16 and discovered the dangers and delights of mysteries and thrillers. But this gent does put out some fine crime stuff, so I put "His Majesty's Dragon" on my to-be-read shelf. And guess what: I too was immediately hooked by the writing, the research and the sheer courage of the whole enterprise.
First of all, fantasy isn't the right category for this - although I can understand the publisher's desire to use that to tap into the Harry Potter explosion. Alternative history is better: I remember vividly Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South" about what might have happened at Gettysburg if the Confederate Army had automatic rifles. Novik's imagination is wider and deeper: she has added to Nelson's Navy a squad of dragons who can attack from above and bring down fire and poison on Napoleon's fleet as it tries to conquer England.
It's not just a mechanical gimmick, either: the dragons are intelligent creatures, loyal to their human trainers, vastly touching in their desires to prove themselves and be approved of by people and fellow dragons. When a young British sea captain, Will Laurence of the Reliant, captures a French frigate carrying a dragon's egg about to hatch a few months before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, he makes a friend for life in the form of a startlingly beautiful and highly intelligent jet black creature he names Temeraire after a ship captured from the French. Only gradually do we realize how unusual Temeraire is: bred by China's best as a gift for the Emperor Bonaparte, he could be the key to Napoleon's success or failure.
Laurence also changes the course of his own life in a way O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin could understand: Laurence's family is shattered by his giving up the Navy for the Aerial Corps, a largely secretive world where smart young women like Catherine Harcourt are in charge of female dragons, and jealousy rankles on every level. Along the way, we learn about training dragons and aviators; keeping the creatures' huge appetites sated and treating their battle wounds; how communications are achieved with high winds blowing words away.
It's a totally amazing performance - the first of three books to be published one a month through June, already a huge hit in hardcover in England where Novik is starting a new cycle. May her prodigious energy and imagination hold up. I know of one ghostly literary presence looking down with a hopeful smile.

I should preface this with the warning that I'm going to gush -- frankly, I haven't been this madly fond of a book in the longest time (hm, when did Connie Willis last publish something?), and I'm at the stage where I want the whole world to know how great this book is. I bought it Wednesday afternoon, read 200 pages of it that night, then went out the next day and all I kept thinking about was going home and finishing it, which I did, staying up very late (past my bedtime) and finding the ending very bittersweet. Bittersweet because the conclusion happily justifies all the promise of the beginning chapters, and yet I'm sad because I'm through with the book and will have to wait weeks (till April 25) for the sequel. I know that's nothing compared to the wait with most fantasy trilogies, the gap between books is usually at least a year, but I want the sequel right NOW in my hot little hands.

The novel takes place in England during the Napoleonic Wars, only with the added twist of dragons (which must be admitted, improve every scenario). In this alternate universe, dragons are tamed by most nations of the world as a fighting force, bonding to a handler at hatching, and trained in the Aerial Corps in the pursuit of warfare. So when Will Laurence, a British Naval captain experienced in battle, captures a French frigate with a dragon's egg that is very quickly going to hatch, he has no choice but to put himself and the crew up to bonding with the creature because even though England has France outgunned in the way of ships (think Admiral Nelson and the superiority of the British Navy), France is outgunning England 2-1 in the way of fighting dragons. Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire, are then thrust into the world of the Aerial Corps where things are done in a slightly different way than Laurence is used to in the Navy.

Novik handles the world-building with startling grace, given that this is her first novel. One of the prime pleasures of the book is authentic feel of the world she's built -- you can tell that months of research went into correctly portraying 19th century English society, from the realities of the Navy to the manners of the drawing room. And best, none of it is done showily or in a lecturing way, it's all of it presented as naturally as possible. She doesn't let research intrude upon telling the story, and better yet, her addition of dragons into this world is so well thought-out (from their feeding, breeds, natural inclinations, personalities, levels of intelligence, size and temperment, mode of fighting and the innovative invention of aerial fighting) that it adds to the depiction of the historical period. She seamlessly grafts on her inventions to the known historical realities, and comes up with a beautifully realized fictional world that's meticulously detailed and worked out. I adore that there is so much thought given to how the dragons would fit into this society, and she succeeds in a way that few authors of speculative fiction succeed -- I really want to spend more time in her imagined universe. That's the highest compliment I can give.

But, there are other pleasures as well. Temeraire and Laurence bond, and even though it is not a telepathic mind-meld (ala Anne McCaffrey), it is a deeply emotional connection. There is palpable love between man and dragon, and their relationship is the emotional thru-line for the novel. It makes me sound like a 12 year old girl to say this (which I am not), but Temeraire is such a cool dragon. I totally want one like him for my very own, because he is so intelligent and logical and witty and also nuzzles Laurence affectionately and loves him. I mean, I know, this is gushy, but you can't blame me! Novik captures the sweetness and light of their bond, enough to give balance to all the colder, plot-driven elements of the story. It's primarily an adventure, a story in wartime, an exploration of dragons in this fascinating society, but she doesn't neglect the warmer side of things. There are moments of extreme emotion, of emotional distress, mostly due to the closeness that aviators develop with their dragons, and each moment played realistically for me. I'm very particular when it comes to moments of high emotion -- each one has to be earned in character, in story, in meaning, and I hate more than anything the feeling of being manipulated to respond. Novik very definitely earns each emotion she wrung from me.

I can't recommend this book enough. It has all the everything you want from good speculative fiction (meticulous world-building, a desire to step into the universe), well-defined, charismatic, understatedly human characters you care about (though Temeraire is perhaps my favorite personality of all), a confident and elegantly polished prose style, emotional depths, gorgeous and inventive battle scenes (and I'm usually the type of reader to skim written battle scenes, but Novik writes so concisely about aerial battles that they are some of my favorite scenes in the book). It's a great book, extremely fun, addicting, polished, exciting -- I can't wait to read the next one, and the one after that. The last book of such promise from a new author was Susannah Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", and then I think I prefer Novik's to Clarke's. JS&MN is almost too ambitious for its own good, and Clarke has a lesser insight into human personality than Novik, while "His Majesty's Dragon" has no weaknesses. I can't perceive any faults or flaws, and recommend it whole-heartedly.

There's a reason the publishing world is buzzing over Naomi Novik: this first book is worth the hype. In "His Majesty's Dragon" she shows tremendous talent for worldbuilding, drawing us easily into a version of our own history in which the Napoleonic wars were augmented by an air force piloting (not only sentient but highly intelligent) living craft. Just as Susannah Clarke (in "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell") depicted an alternate England in which magic was real, Novik shows us an alterate England (and China, and France) where there be dragons, and the results are dazzling.

What I like best in this book is the way the main characters develop over time. Temeraire, the dragon whose egg is discovered in the early pages of chapter one, is a compelling protagonist -- as is Will Laurence, the Naval captain who becomes responsible for him and who sacrifices his naval career to join the mysterious Air Force. Laurence changes dramatically over the course of the book, but he does so in a subtle and organic way.

This book made me laugh, made me think, and once or twice made me a little bit sniffly, too. I can't wait to read books two and three. Don't miss this one -- it's a pleasure.

I can't give a bad review to any story handled with such competence, but I can't give a good review to the same story if the characters are this one-dimensional and naive. The historical context & research coupled with the dragons themselves carry the book. Ms Novik is a talented writer in terms of structure and pace, but the human characters are shallow afterthoughts compared to their dragon counterparts. I would suggest this for younger readers looking for a straightforward story with happy endings and predictable plot lines.

Although I am a devoted reader of both fantasy and science fiction, it's been years since I've been interested in dragon stories. It seemed that dragon stories were either too fairy-tale or D&D pastiches. Naomi Novik's thrilling tale brings me back to my early days, when I fell in love with the dragons of Pern.

The author's straight-forward narrative makes the concept of dragons fighting in the Napoleonic wars wholly believable. Well researched, but not overweighted by historical fact - the relationship between the dragon and his rider, as well as the other dragons, riders and support personnel is what makes this book (and hopefully the two others soon to be published) so delightful.

As enjoyable a book as any other I've read in the last year. Highly recommended.

I'd been told this was slash fiction, which I don't care for, and there are certainly slashy elements in this story. That said... I have to be fair... it's really a damn good book.

People call this series fantasy, but it isn't; fantasy is defined by magic, and this fictional world has none. It is simply an alternate Earth in which dragons exist in many variations, and Novik's charter is to explore the way the world has developed in their presence, up to the time of the Napoleonic Wars. That's a great and original premise.

Writing any novel is a difficult symphony to orchestrate, but it seems to me that Novik hits the right notes in the right order. The opening sequence is logical, fresh, and engaging (in fact, the reason I bought the book, after standing in the store for about 20 minutes flipping through it), and the middle sequence, though slower by half, is still interesting and surprising. I would not have expected dragon pilots to occupy a low social strata in Regency England, for instance, but they do, and Novik explores both the rationale and consequences of that situation very effectively.

And the prose is fairly clean -- uncluttered, expressive, close enough to Austen to charm but not so close that it feels forced. Novik doesn't have Susanna Clarke's extraordinary sense of prose rhythm, but on the other hand, she's a great deal more attentive to plot and pacing than Clarke. While the ending of this novel was foreseeable, I didn't care because it was also the one I wanted (right down to a particular surprise about Temeraire) and it was balanced reasonably well with the overall story.

If the second book hadn't been such a surprising clunker, I'd still be reading the series. I have the impression that (as is often the case) the first book of this series was edited more heavily than subsequent ones, and a good thing, too. I think I like the editor/Novik team better than Novik flying solo.

This book is one of the best, most entertaining, books I've read in quite awhile. Dragons, guns, naval warfare, clash of empires, all built around the central storyline of a man and his dragon. Often when I find a book I truly enjoy, I ask, where is the rest of the story. I need more. There was no exception in this case. Its normally very unfortunate when this happens, as due to the glacial pace of publishing, these wonderful sequels usually aren't published for months, or even years. Leaving me to hope that when the sequel comes out I'll remember who the author was, and how much I enjoyed the original book.

We are fortunate that in this case, we will not have that problem. The next 2 books have already been written and submitted for publishing. They will be released within months of each other. Leaving us to hope that the author will quickly be able to write and have published her 4th book.

Novik deserves a lot of credit for coming up with a fairly novel concept to write about. The idea that dragons could exist as a natural creature is good, but the way that she explains it is logical. I like the fact that she has given the history of the species enough thought to figure out how they would become a part of the society.

Her characters are good, but a little flat. By that I mean that they seem to go through the motions of being who they are without understanding them really. The main character should be a poster boy for the duty-bound soldier of the day.

The story is fun and I am really looking forward to the next book to see how she keeps things going. Hopefully the Main character will be something more human and less of a cardboard character.

Get them now. Peter Jackson will be adapting these into successful blockbuster motion pictures soon (it's true). So get them before it'll be just another bandwagon, and the covers get replaced with less imaginative film tie-in covers.

I realize this isn't a helpful review, but you can lie and say it was, right?

This is an astounding book. Full of action with well developed characters and an amazingly new approach to dragons. Totally unlike any book with dragons I have ever read and it makes so much sense you wonder why it's never occurred to anyone before. Truly wonderful!!!

Temeraire is a wonderful character who grows from an egg to a young adult dragon with some nice twists and turns. And the people around him are equally engaging.

On top of that Ms. Novik's portrayal of the Napoleonic Wars is very imaginative! I love alternate history books and Ms. Novik creates a world where dragons and Napoleon co-exist very nicely. And she gets the real portions of the history right which gives voracity to to the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who likes dragons, alternate realities or fantasy SF - actually I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good, well written story. And then buy the next two and wait, like I am, for the fourth!