2012 Reading: Naomi Novik, His Majesty's Dragon
Well, that was enormous fun. It also bears the distinction of being the first book I have read entire on the Kindle!
(We grabbed it in Amazon's Kindle sale after Christmas, and on Friday evening we had a three-hour drive up to our in-laws in Cheshire, and it wasn't really practical to read my current paper tome while the Resident Geek was taking his turn to drive - so I clipped the reading light on the Kindle and started His Majesty's Dragon instead, and romped through it over the course of the weekend.)
Enjoyed it enormously - I love Hornblower-type naval sagas of the Napoleonic Wars era (Aubrey/Mathurin, yes, all that) and Novik catches the tone of those very nicely. Her Will Laurence wouldn't be out of place in a Jane Austen novel (think Persuasion's Captain Wentworth), and I mean that as a compliment. And like, I'm sure, many who've read it (and Laurence himself) I am hopelessly in love with Temeraire.
The Resident Geek said it reminded him of reading fanfic; I think I agree if by "like fanfic" you mean that the author's love of and enthusiasm for the fantasy world she's created shines through. It is, of course, also a kind of historical AU (which I'm a bit of a sucker for, though admittedly "...and there are dragons" is a bigger AU than one is sometimes asked to swallow!
I liked the sympathetic exploration of the aviators' culture, set against the initial disfavourable impression of it Laurence has had from the outside (couldn't help chortling that even in historical AU, the different branches of the armed forces continue to distrust each other at best!) And I was particularly pleased that a detail which I thought had been handwaved and which had been niggling at me from the beginning (I was prepared to accept that Temeraire could speak from birth, but if he'd learnt human language by hearing it in the shell, why didn't he speak French?!) was specifically picked up and dealt with later on.
Recommended as a thoroughly enjoyable read to any fans of the Napoleonic Wars and/or dragons who haven't come across it already (yes, I realise there probably aren't many left!) And made a pleasantly light change from my ongoing non-fiction read, which is just as enjoyable but rather more mentally stretching and which I will (eventually) review when finished...
[Cross-posted at both LJ and DW - feel free to comment at either...]
(We grabbed it in Amazon's Kindle sale after Christmas, and on Friday evening we had a three-hour drive up to our in-laws in Cheshire, and it wasn't really practical to read my current paper tome while the Resident Geek was taking his turn to drive - so I clipped the reading light on the Kindle and started His Majesty's Dragon instead, and romped through it over the course of the weekend.)
Enjoyed it enormously - I love Hornblower-type naval sagas of the Napoleonic Wars era (Aubrey/Mathurin, yes, all that) and Novik catches the tone of those very nicely. Her Will Laurence wouldn't be out of place in a Jane Austen novel (think Persuasion's Captain Wentworth), and I mean that as a compliment. And like, I'm sure, many who've read it (and Laurence himself) I am hopelessly in love with Temeraire.
The Resident Geek said it reminded him of reading fanfic; I think I agree if by "like fanfic" you mean that the author's love of and enthusiasm for the fantasy world she's created shines through. It is, of course, also a kind of historical AU (which I'm a bit of a sucker for, though admittedly "...and there are dragons" is a bigger AU than one is sometimes asked to swallow!
I liked the sympathetic exploration of the aviators' culture, set against the initial disfavourable impression of it Laurence has had from the outside (couldn't help chortling that even in historical AU, the different branches of the armed forces continue to distrust each other at best!) And I was particularly pleased that a detail which I thought had been handwaved and which had been niggling at me from the beginning (I was prepared to accept that Temeraire could speak from birth, but if he'd learnt human language by hearing it in the shell, why didn't he speak French?!) was specifically picked up and dealt with later on.
Recommended as a thoroughly enjoyable read to any fans of the Napoleonic Wars and/or dragons who haven't come across it already (yes, I realise there probably aren't many left!) And made a pleasantly light change from my ongoing non-fiction read, which is just as enjoyable but rather more mentally stretching and which I will (eventually) review when finished...
[Cross-posted at both LJ and DW - feel free to comment at either...]