A couple of months ago, my dear friend Anna - currently employed at Indigo Books in Montreal- sent me a grand just-because gift. It was a book, His Majesty's Dragon by former game developer Naomi Novik (Neverwinter Nights), and it came with a recommendation by Stephen King on the cover. Hello!
Novik's books - now totaling four, all of which I've read - take the Napoleonic Wars and set them in a world in which dragons exist, and are being used by the British and French as aerial war machines, with gun crews and bombs. It all sounds rather pedestrian, but this story shines due to Novik's full commitment to the popular Western dragon mythology: dragons are sentient. They talk. They are, above all else, hoarders, and selfish. Most importantly, they don't act or think like humans. Our hero dragon, Temeraire, has some just wonderful conversations with his loving and often frustrated crew captain, former naval man Will Laurence, in which Laurence tries to make him understand simple human conventions of morality and spirituality. The interplay between the two is always engaging.
Another intriguing thing she deals with over the course of the story so far is the abolitionist movement in Britain. After Temeraire and Laurence spend a year in China, where dragons are not sent to war and regarded as property but revered and honoured, Temeraire gains a desire to crusade for dragon's rights back home, making a nice parallel to Wilberforce's battle. And, because Novik is a good writer, she doesn't shy away from the role of Christianity in the fight to end slavery. This raises the question of whether dragons have souls, and leads to some hilarious theological discussions between Laurence and Temeraire, which the former eventually gives up because he becomes easily flustered when Temeraire often becomes, in the course of earnest questioning, rather (unintentionally) blasphemous.
Any half-interesting novel about the Napoleonic Wars must have good combat, and the aerial combat is solid, and generally takes up just enough pages at any one time. Combined with Novik's commitment to consistency in her characters - Laurence, for example, is no renaissance man; he has the sensibilities you'd expect of a 19th-century Brit - her books are a solidly entertaining and middling-quick read.
One note of warning: several of the capsule reviews of the books, including Stephen King's, compare them to Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander works. Though both series are set during the same war, and both series are good, I feel this comparison sets an unfairly high expectation. Patrick O'Brian was an extraordinary writer. Naomi Novik is not extraordinary - she is good. All I'm saying it, if you're familiar with O'Brian, ignore those comparisons, or you will likely be disappointed - because there is no comparison. There are (very) slight echoes of Aubry and Maturin in Temeraire and Laurence's relationship, but that's about it. If you want something hard-core Napoleonic with exceptionally strong dialogue, read O'Brian. If you want something solidly fun, read Novik. Personally, as they're so very different, I suggest reading both.
Another note of warning: Novik has essentially created a story that can run indefinitely, and with book four, that lack of fixed course to run is starting to show - it is markedly weaker than what's come before. I'll let you know if it picks up as soon as book five hits the paperbacks. :) But for now, you should read at least the first two, His Majesty's Dragon and Throne of Jade, which make up one well-played full-arc story.
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