The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

We’re Back—with Dragons!

January 6th, 2007

Apologies for The Ottery’s silence for the past couple of weeks. Holiday travels and the death of my grandmother (a wonderful woman and a creative inspiration for otters everywhere) kept me from writing.

However, travels also allowed me to do more fun reading than I usually manage. I’ve just finished Naomi Novik’s new novel His Majesty’s Dragon, the first of a series of at least five books about a dragon named Temeraire set in the era of the Napoleonic Wars. The first three Temeraire books hit the stores in rapid succession in 2006, and director Peter Jackson has already optioned them for film adaptations. (Of course, the Temeraire movie(s?) will have to wait until Jackson is finished with The Lovely Bones—and possibly The Hobbit, if that mess ever gets straightened out. Maybe Smaug could make a cameo in His Majesty’s Dragon?).

Novik’s dragons are of a very different sort from Tolkien’s—and, given the unusual 19^th-century setting, also very different from the plethora of copycat dragon fantasies. The Temeraire books are frequently compared to Patrick O’Brian’s “Master and Commander” books, only with dragons thrown in. There’s quite a bit of Jane-Austen-style social commentary, too. And something—perhaps the skepticism about war’s purpose, at the same time that battles are rendered thrillingly–reminds me of the fiction of Lloyd Alexander, as well.

His Majesty’s Dragon is really more about British Naval Captain Will Laurence than it is about Temeraire, whom he captures from a French vessel while the young dragon is still in his egg. When he hatches, Temeraire immediately latches onto Laurence, in a touching display that also dooms Laurence to a life as an “aviator.” Aviators, because they must tend to their dragons constantly, are a scorned social class, viewed as wild and somewhat reclusive. There is little chance of marriage, as few spouses would care to come second in priority to a dragon.

Laurence, of an aristocratic background, gradually learns to change his opinion of aviators once he leaves the Navy to train with them—though not without some initial character misjudgments worthy of any Austen heroine. Thanks to Temeraire, who has a mind of his own, Laurence also begins to think twice about principles he has never questioned: duty to the Crown, the justice of capital punishment, etc. The use of dragons as beasts of war also makes him more reluctant to engage in battle, for their wounding or death is far more tragic than the destruction of a ship.

Overall, His Majesty’s Dragon has a light tone with plenty of humor in the human-dragon interactions. However, the climactic battle was hard for me to read, because of the very real risk to the dragons. Sure, nature is red in tooth and claw, even dragon-nature, and I’m sure dragons fight each other in the wild, but it’s heartbreaking that these dragons must attack other dragons, for whom they hold no personal dislike, simply because the other dragons represent an enemy nation. It makes you think, more than human-versus-human battles, about how inhumane war really is. Whether that’s Novik’s intention or not (and I suspect that it may be), it’s certainly the effect, but it’s done without speechifying or over-the-top narrative condemnations of war.

I’ll definitely be reading the second and third Temeraire novels, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War.

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