A Dragon and his Man

[bibliogramma]

His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik

Just a few days ago, Naomi Novik won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of science fiction in 2006. Coincidentally, just a few days ago, I finished reading His Majesty’s Dragon, Novik’s first novel. I see no reason to dispute this award.

His Majesty’s Dragon is a brilliant entry in the genre of alternative history/fantasy: the Napoleonic wars, with dragons. Novik takes the by-now familiar tropes of the dragonriders and turns them upside down. In the socially conscious, status-driven, family-centred world of England during the Napoleonic Wars, there’s nothing to gain and everything to lose in becoming an aviator – the rider of a dragon – isolated from proper society, unable to marry well or engage in a normal life.

More than that, the dragon Temeraire’s reluctant aviator, Will Laurence is no isolated and abused child with a dream of dragons, but a seasoned though still young, British naval captain, with a relatively noble and wealthy background and prize money of his own from several successful captures of enemy vessels.

As it turns out, the dragon in question is an extremely rare and intelligent Chinese dragon, intended as a gift for the emperor Napoleon, and ultimately reveals himself to be a valuable asset in the defence against Napoleon’s superior forces and well-planned attempt to invade Britain.

Novik’s conceptualisation of the society of aviators and their dragons allows for some very entertaining satirising of British society of the time, particularly with respect to the role of women. Some dragons, it seems, insist on female aviators, and aviators are officers in His Majesty’s Aviator Corps, which means that some officers are women, and men who deal with the dragons and their aviators must deal with that.

I was completely entranced by this book, and am looking forward to reading more about Temeraire.