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April 2006
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Anne Harris is the author of Inventing Memory, Accidental Creatures, and The Nature of Smoke. Accidental Creatures won the Spectrum Award for glbt science fiction. Her latest novel, Inventing Memory, made the long lists for the Tiptree and Spectrum Awards, and was a BookSense 76 pick. Her short story, Still Life with Boobs, originally published in Talebones Magazine #30, will appear in the Years Best Fantasy anthology for 2005. Anne is online at www.inventingmemory.com and annesible.livejournal.com.
What if dragons were real? What if they were domesticated by human beings and used as flying battleships during the Napoleonic Wars? This is the refreshingly original idea at the heart of His Majesty's Dragon, by Naomi Novik. Captain Laurence is a naval officer who finds himself in a predicament when the French ship he captures turns out to have a dragon's egg on board—a dragon's egg that is about to hatch. To be useful to the Crown as a fighting dragon, a hatchling must be harnessed by a human being before its first feeding. The bond is lifelong and unbreakable. For Laurence, harnessing the hatchling dragon means abandoning an honorable naval career for service in the Aerial Corps, whose officers are shrouded in mystery and disrepute. But all of Laurence's regrets evaporate when he meets the hatchling dragon Temeraire, whose intelligence, charm and loyalty win his devotion. His Majesty's Dragon is, above all else, a romance. It is a platonic romance between a man and a dragon, and Novik creates in Temeraire and Laurence a thoroughly likeable duo. This core relationship sustains the book throughout most of a narrative largely focused on life at the Loch Laggan training covert. Unfortunately, flaws of pacing and setting hinder the book, especially in the latter third, and the potential of Novik's innovative idea is not fully realized. Readers accustomed to the rich historical texture of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin series and Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell will find Novik's depiction of the Napoleonic era thin. The time period and its conventions, language and politics are not part of the warp and weft of the story, which could be set in any time or place that does not include aircraft. Novik's prose is for the most part modern, but natural, which is far preferable to overuse of a false style. More detrimental, however, is her handling of the characters' worldviews. Both Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and the Aubrey-Maturin novels include fascinating, active female characters who are very much a product of their times. The authors work with the strictures of Napoleonic-era social roles to produce characters who, whether they are in opposition or accordance with those roles, shine as full-fledged people. Unfortunately, the characters in His Majesty's Dragon seem to operate outside of their own era. Novik includes women in the Aerial Corps through the device of a particular breed of dragon, the Longwing, which will only accept female riders. It's a fairly transparent device but what really presents problems is the easy manner in which all members of the Corps, male and female alike, adopt attitudes toward sex and gender that are advanced even for our own time. The character of Captain Roland is the embodiment of this issue. She smokes cigars, can barely walk in a dress and engages in sex without emotional entanglements. She has one illegitimate daughter, also in the service, and offers to carry a couple more for Laurence, if he wishes it. For Laurence's part, though at first he is uncomfortable talking to a woman in pants—he can see her legs, for all love—he quickly casts off a lifetime of conditioning. Soon, like all the other members of the Aerial Corps, he comes to the opinion that all that stuff about the proper roles for men and women is a lot of bunk for stuffy outsiders. One is left with the impression that Novik has set her story in the Napoleonic Era mainly for the purpose of dismantling its mores and conventions in favor of our more modern, and by implication morally superior, way of doing things. Although we may agree with Novik on this point, her handling of the matter is dissatisfying within the frame of the story, because the world that we were expecting to explore has already been changed beyond all recognition. Pacing is the other area in which His Majesty's Dragon falls short. For a book about a fighting captain in the Napoleonic Wars, His Majesty's Dragon is light on action. Most of the conflicts are strictly interpersonal, which works fine at first, while Laurence and Temeraire are still adjusting to life at the training camp. But when the story reaches midpoint and the war is still happening in the background, interest fades. The biggest disappointment in this regard is Novik's treatment of the Battle of Trafalgar. This landmark battle of the Napoleonic Wars occurs off-stage while Laurence and Temeraire are involved in a subplot involving a traitor at the camp. This is a sad waste in a novel whose central idea is that of dragons being taken into battle like sailing ships, with gun crews hooked onto battle harnesses and cargo slung below their bellies in nets. There are only three scenes in which we get to see these magnificent dragons on active duty. And it is even more of a shame because in the final battle scene, Novik proves that she has the ability to vividly convey a dynamic fight: "Guns ready," Riggs shouted behind him, as Temeraire drew a deep, swelling breath and neatly turned back on himself in mid-air. No longer at war with gravity, he plummeted towards the French dragons, roaring furiously. The tremendous volume rattled Laurence's bones even in the face of the wind; the dragon in the lead recoiled, shrieking, and entangled the head of the second in its wings. Temeraire flew straight down between them, through the bitter smoke of the enemy gunfire, the British rifles speaking in answer; several of the enemy dead were already cut loose and falling. Temeraire lashed out and carved a gash along the second dragon's flank as they went past; the spurting blood splashed Laurence's trousers, fever-hot against his skin. Without a doubt, the star of the book is the dragon Temeraire. He is affectionate, playful and innocent, but possesses a strong intellectual streak. Novik creates a captivating creature, and one of the principle pleasures of the book is exploring the world through Temeraire's eyes. "Now that we have finished Duncan, I was hoping perhaps you could read me something more about mathematics; I thought it was very interesting how you explained that you could tell where you are, when you have been sailing for a long time, only through knowing the time and some equations." Laurence had been very glad to leave behind mathematics... "Certainly, if you like," he said, trying to keep dismay out of his voice. "But I thought perhaps you would enjoy something about Chinese dragons?" "Oh yes, that would be splendid too; we could read that next," Temeraire said. "It is very nice how many books there are, indeed; and on so many subjects." In the end it is a question of balance. Novik's dragons are enchanting and the book is successful in its depiction of the bond between rider and dragon. The story falls short in the areas of action and historical accuracy, however. A stronger emphasis on those elements would have made His Majesty's Dragon a fantastic book. |
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