Book Review: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik is an alternate history novel set in England at the time of the Napoleonic wars. In alternate histories, the novelist changes something about history; in this novel, the start of the Temeraire series, the change is that there are air forces. The air forces are composed of dragons.

The hero of His Majesty's Dragon is William Laurence. At the start of the novel, he is a captain in the Royal Navy. His boat, the Reliant, captures a French boat. On board is a dragon egg. When dragons hatch, they often choose a person to be their captain, and when this egg hatches, the dragon chooses Lawrence. Now he must give up his life in the Navy and become an aviator. This dismays his parents and friends, because aviators live relatively isolated lives, but Lawrence quickly grows to love the dragon, whom he names Temeraire.

Lawrence now has to cram years of training into a short span; he must learn a very different culture, and various shocks are in store for him. In His Majesty's Dragon Naomi Novik does at least two things, and she does them quite well.

First, she tells a good tale of the military sort. His Majesty's Dragon has training scenes and fight scenes, and these are well depicted. She knows the Napoleonic period, and has interesting ideas about how dragons would change things.

Second, Novik introduces some modern ideas into the Napoleonic period (such as women as soldiers) and plays with how that could work, and what problems it would cause (certain dragons will only accept female captains). This makes His Majesty's Dragon more than just an adventure story.

Warmly recommended, and I look forward to the rest of the series.

Naomi Novik has a [website http://www.temeraire.org/] about the Temeraire series. You can also read more at this [Wiki site http://www.temeraire.org/wiki/Main_Page].