Temeraire

[sawyl]

Another take on the Napoleonic naval novel, but this time it's Naomi Novik's fantasy, Temeraire.

On boarding the Amitié, the crew of HMS Reliant are surprised to find a reinforced compartment containing a dragon's egg. When the ship's surgeon announces that the egg is close to hatching, the officers draw lots to determine who amongst them is to be the dragon's handler, something that will require them to give up the Navy for the Air Corps. All of this turns out to be moot, for when the egg hatches, the dragonet rejects it's appointed handler in favour of Captain Will Laurence. When asked to name the dragon, Laurence immediately thinks of a venerable British ship of the line and decides to call him Temeraire.

After making Madeira, Laurence is eventually confirmed as a member of the Air Corps and dispatched to a training covert in Scotland. On the way, he stops at his family seat, where he is snubbed by parents house guests, rejected by his young lady and all but disinherited by his father. Upon arrival in Loch Laggan, Laurence's over-correct Naval manners chafe against the less formal attitudes of the Corps — he is particularly startled by the presence of female dragon captains.

With Temeraire up to size, he is assigned a crew and set to train with two other young dragons: Maximus, a Regal Copper under Captain Berkley, and Lily, a Longwing under Captain Harcourt. All three acquit themselves well and Lily's flight are soon dispatched to Dover to allow the existing coastal flight, lead by Excidium under Captain Roland, to aid Nelson attempts to deal with Villeneuve.

Just as news of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar arrives — despite being set alight when a French dragon doused HMS Victory, the vice-admiral has survived the battle — Air Corps scouts report observing heavy French air patrols on the other side of the channel. It clear that Napoleon is about to go on the offensive but it is far from clear how he means to go about it.

Temeraire is a thoroughly enjoyable novel. Laurence is an immensely likable lead character, with his rather stiff Naval manners and his experience of being a man apart as captain of a ship, and Temeraire, with his enquiring nature and quick intelligence — at one point, he asks Lawrence to read him Newton's Principea Mathematica and Pierre-Simon Laplace's Mécanique Céleste — balances Laurence, encouraging him to unbend somewhat. The plot rattles along at a rapid pace and even if it does have something of a deux ex machina ending, it's an easy thing to forgive.