I picked up this book because I walked into a bookstore and just needed to read a book with a dragon on the cover. It does indeed have a dragon. I also flipped through it and one of the reviews said that it was this year’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and that’s one of my favorite books ever so I knew I had to pick it up.
This book is (similar to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell) a fantasy alternate universe story that takes place during the Napoleonic Wars. The captain of a ship in the British navy, Laurence, takes a French ship that ends up having a dragon egg on it. It quickly becomes clear that the dragon is going to hatch before they make it to land, so the sailors draw lots for who gets to harness the dragon. (A quirk of the dragons in this universe is that they have to be harnessed immediately or they fly away, and whoever harnesses the dragon becomes the dragon’s rider and caretaker.) Laurence manages to not have his name pulled, but when the dragon hatches it chooses him anyways. He names the dragon Temeraire. They travel up to Scotland to begin their training for the British Aerial Corps, a group of dragon handlers that fight from the skies.
There they meet many more characters, there’s Lily the Longwing who spits poison and her female handler (the Longwings only have female riders). And while Temeraire grows and develops, they get sucked into a few battles. It quickly becomes clear that Temeraire is no ordinary dragon, they knew that he was a Chinese dragon but during battle he roars and splits a boat apart, revealing him to be a Chinese Celestial dragon, one of the rarest and most highly prized.
I had a lot of fun reading this book! The characters are entertaining and the world being built is highly inventive. I love seeing the dragons incorporated into the world, there’s talk of wild dragons and dragon breeding programs (English dragons are bred for speed and Chinese dragons are bred for intelligence). Temeraire and the other dragons also talk and are well-formed characters themselves, there’s a dragon that runs the training program in Scotland even. It’s a fun world to be exploring in which definitely keeps me turning pages.
This book also focuses on the dragon handlers themselves. There’s the Longwings which have female characters and allow the book to not just be men only which is so nice to see. Women are allowed to fly around and fight, but to keep to the time period they usually hide it from the rest of society, and it is pretty clearly only because the Longwings prefer women. So it integrates rather well.
There’s also the interesting case of a poor dragon who is continually ignored by his handler. It really shows how the dragons are not lesser beings, but have full sentience in that this beast stays loyal to his handler, but suffers mightily when ignored. Unsurprisingly, this is due to nepotism in the Corps as well, and shows that they aren’t an idyllic group in the slightest. Laurence does try to intervene but is eventually told off and can’t help the dragon any longer.
I’m very excited to read the rest of this series, I already
put in a request at the library! It truly is the ideal dragon series for me,
with the dragons talking and flying and excellent world building. I can’t wait
to see what comes next!
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