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The Fighting Temeraire
Apr. 12th, 2021 08:28 pmBook Review: Temeraire, by Naomi Novik
I'm not a big reader of fantasy novels, but somehow I came across this one a few years ago. It must have been after the TV adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which threw magic into the heat of the Napoleonic Wars. Never mind Oxford with Zeppelins, here we have the Napoleonic Wars with flying dragons. When the Kindle edition appeared on special offer late last year I snapped it up.
A dragon egg is the prize of a naval skirmish in the Atlantic, but it comes at a price: the egg appears close to hatching, and dragons can only be tamed in the first days of life - and their handlers must stay with them for life. This poses a problem for Captain Will Laurence, who will either lose the dragon, or lose one of his untrained crew to this task. It's hardly a spoiler to say that the task subsequently falls to him; he names the dragon Temeraire.
Like I Capture the Castle, there's a whiff of Pride and Prejudice to this, but this time from the perspective of Colin Firth's Mr Darcy, as Laurence's social position goes into free-fall, with Aviators being lowly regarded in comparison to Naval officers. Yet within the Aviators, he is also an outsider, not having been trained from a young age. Through training and into action against the French, Laurence and Temeraire must learn to fit in with the ways of others, while each maintaining their individual character.
I enjoyed the book, though I did find the array of dragon breeds a bit disorienting, and the dragons themselves seem both highly intelligent (some of them, at least), and yet also subservient. There are enough plot twists to keep the entertainment up, without being too heavy. It's the first of a series; for the time being I am not sure I would actively seek out the others, but I wouldn't avoid them either.
I'm not a big reader of fantasy novels, but somehow I came across this one a few years ago. It must have been after the TV adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which threw magic into the heat of the Napoleonic Wars. Never mind Oxford with Zeppelins, here we have the Napoleonic Wars with flying dragons. When the Kindle edition appeared on special offer late last year I snapped it up.
A dragon egg is the prize of a naval skirmish in the Atlantic, but it comes at a price: the egg appears close to hatching, and dragons can only be tamed in the first days of life - and their handlers must stay with them for life. This poses a problem for Captain Will Laurence, who will either lose the dragon, or lose one of his untrained crew to this task. It's hardly a spoiler to say that the task subsequently falls to him; he names the dragon Temeraire.
Like I Capture the Castle, there's a whiff of Pride and Prejudice to this, but this time from the perspective of Colin Firth's Mr Darcy, as Laurence's social position goes into free-fall, with Aviators being lowly regarded in comparison to Naval officers. Yet within the Aviators, he is also an outsider, not having been trained from a young age. Through training and into action against the French, Laurence and Temeraire must learn to fit in with the ways of others, while each maintaining their individual character.
I enjoyed the book, though I did find the array of dragon breeds a bit disorienting, and the dragons themselves seem both highly intelligent (some of them, at least), and yet also subservient. There are enough plot twists to keep the entertainment up, without being too heavy. It's the first of a series; for the time being I am not sure I would actively seek out the others, but I wouldn't avoid them either.