Review: "His Majesty's Dragon"

After the craziness of the spring has ebbed, I finally had time to return to Naomi Novik's "His Majesty's Dragon." Needless to say this series has everything a reader could want, not only an intriguing, well developed, and utterly different concept for dragonriders, but also set during one of my favorite time periods, the Napoleonic Wars. While in middle school, my dad introduced me to the iconic Dragonriders of Pern series and to the historical fiction series about Richard Sharpe, a rifleman during the Napoleonic Wars. It is as though Novik looked into my formative literary years and blended these two genres into one richly nuanced and cleverly layered story. Though, to be fair, since the main character Laurence is a captain in Nelson's Navy, it might be a touch more accurate to equate this series with the Horatio Hornblower series, than Cornwell's Sharpe's. Novik considers the ramifications of dragonriders on the early eighteen hundreds not only only on the military conflicts, but also on the social and political structure of Britain, as well as the rest of the world. She lends an authenticity to its historicity by making reference to actual military battles, but adds how they might have gone differently with the inclusion of the Aerial Corps (dragonriders) as military resources. She references people like William Wilberforce who during this time relentlessly fought for the abolition of the slave trade. Those Jane Austen fans out there will also recognize the aspects of British society central to her novels within this series and how it clashes with the society of the Aerial Corps. To say nothing of the dragons themselves would be a great disservice to any potential reader, but, alas, all I will say is that you will not be disappointed. Temeraire might be my favorite fictional dragon in all of literature. Go, pick up a copy, and exlpore this world and meet him for yourself.