Book Review - Temeraire by Naomi Novik: Part I
On a greatly cherished rec by deird1 I got myself the first book of the series "His Majesty's Dragon" and shortly after that first my boyfriend and then I got completely addicted to them. I've read the first five novels (the 6th has just come out in hardcover) now and since my friends can attest that I talk of little else literary wise these days I though I'd write a review of something I'm really enjoying.
This review got exceedingly long and detailed so I decided to split it into two posts. This first one is to give the folks who have not read the books (which I assume is the majority of my flist) a taste of what they are like, without spoilers.
The second post will be the more detailed review about all the big and small people and events that made me obsess about this story so much.
The series is set in alternate universe during the Napoleonic wars. The only (but still massive) difference to our world is that it is not only populated by people but also by a wide variety of intelligent dragons. When a dragonette hatches it can form a livelong bond to a human, which is used to make them take part in human conflicts.
Since Dragons are huge and scary, the people who fly them (aviotors) are not too highly regarded within the armed forces and society though they of course are a key strategic token in the war. Catpain William Laurence is less than thrilled when he first captures a valuable dragon egg from the French and is forced to quit his successful navy career to captain a dragon in the future. But that quickly changes, when he gets to know his dragon Temeraire and a deep friendship between them.
That's what you'd probably learn from the blurb, now on to why you should read this series and one of the millions of other fantasy books:
-) It's paradise for AU history geeks. If you like strategy games and obsessing over how this and that army got a leg over the other the books are brilliant. On one hand they are filled with real historic detail about society and historic personalities, on the other side lots of possibilities opened up by the existence of dragons are logically explored in their consequences. I love it when I can really emerge myself in a war set up instead of having it just be backdrop for character interaction.
-) which leads me to the next point: The characters. Because they don't suffer in the least from not being the only focus of the story. If anything it improves them that they live in such carefully crafted world.
In Laurence the books have a bit of a Dumas like main character (Edmont Dantes minus the jailtime), focused, intelligent, loyal to the crown and very invested into being a good moral person. But Laurence doesn't follow his principles blindly and is constantly forced to question them throughout the story.
Aside from the fact that he's just fun, because of his little quirks (like being a complete neat freak and rather easily embarrassed) Laurence is a character that evolves and opens up throughout the books, which distinguishes him positively from many other steadfast principled heroes for me.
And of course Laurence would be nothing without Temeraire. Temeraire is by know means just Laurence loyal familiar, indeed with the dragon characters in some cases the human is the one who's the sidekick. He is highly intelligent, more so than most other characters in the book in fact which leads him to often be frustrated because others don't follow logic as straight as he does. He spots injustice very easily and would like to change the world preferably yesterday and if wasn't for his love for Laurence he would not put up with authority at all.
He of course also has his quirks, like a love for mathematics, a huge possessiveness over Laurence and his crew and a very dragonish love for shiny things.
Those two characters balance each other perfectly and when disagree it's always hard to pick sides.
There's a wide array of other people and dragon characters and though the focus stays on Temeraire and Laurence I love the lot of them. There's never character that just doesn't make sense or is just black or white. Even the villains, such as Napoleon are not vilified if you know what I mean, their agenda just conflicts with that of the heroes.
Also the female characters, though they are a bit rare are a complete treat.
-) Then there is the plotting. Aside from the books being page turners even when there's not happening a lot, when they speed up it's glorious. If you like to fuzz about details, both in plotting and in the character's evolution those are the books for you because they never fail to satisfy. You never have to deal with an idiot's plot or things jumping the shark. The plot is just good, so there's no need for razzle dazzle.
-) It's also worth a read because of the intriguing international political make up of the world. In a series that builds on great adventure novels of the 19th century, with a somewhat patriotic English hero the danger of writing something that just focuses on an European POV is quite big. But it doesn't happen, every little thing is researched to perfection and the Chinese are every bit as evolved (if not more) as the Europeans are.
Though a lot of the stories play all over the planet the story never falls into the Karl May trope of having the white bloke saving the day all around the globe.
It's just immediately clear that those books are written by someone who has thought about things like white or male privilege and writes consciously of them.
-) and last but not least, though I'm bound to miss a lot of it as a non native speaker, the language. It's just fun, it hits this Jane Austen tune but without ever using words like betwixt (sorry I can't express myself better). Also as stormwreath pointed out when I first posted about the books, there's a lot of care in the character voices. You just know immediately when Temeraire is speaking, because of his speech patterns.
-) And in addition to all this Naomi Novik is a fandom writer and reading her stories lately I find she's one who can spin virtually everything into gold. She's the perfect example for the fact that you don't really need good canon to write great fanfic. She just picks out the intriguing stuff, writes an exciting well crafted plot around it and voila there it is and works better than the base material. It's fanfic at it's best, when it is a true evolution from the source material not just an imitation.
This review got exceedingly long and detailed so I decided to split it into two posts. This first one is to give the folks who have not read the books (which I assume is the majority of my flist) a taste of what they are like, without spoilers.
The second post will be the more detailed review about all the big and small people and events that made me obsess about this story so much.
The series is set in alternate universe during the Napoleonic wars. The only (but still massive) difference to our world is that it is not only populated by people but also by a wide variety of intelligent dragons. When a dragonette hatches it can form a livelong bond to a human, which is used to make them take part in human conflicts.
Since Dragons are huge and scary, the people who fly them (aviotors) are not too highly regarded within the armed forces and society though they of course are a key strategic token in the war. Catpain William Laurence is less than thrilled when he first captures a valuable dragon egg from the French and is forced to quit his successful navy career to captain a dragon in the future. But that quickly changes, when he gets to know his dragon Temeraire and a deep friendship between them.
That's what you'd probably learn from the blurb, now on to why you should read this series and one of the millions of other fantasy books:
-) It's paradise for AU history geeks. If you like strategy games and obsessing over how this and that army got a leg over the other the books are brilliant. On one hand they are filled with real historic detail about society and historic personalities, on the other side lots of possibilities opened up by the existence of dragons are logically explored in their consequences. I love it when I can really emerge myself in a war set up instead of having it just be backdrop for character interaction.
-) which leads me to the next point: The characters. Because they don't suffer in the least from not being the only focus of the story. If anything it improves them that they live in such carefully crafted world.
In Laurence the books have a bit of a Dumas like main character (Edmont Dantes minus the jailtime), focused, intelligent, loyal to the crown and very invested into being a good moral person. But Laurence doesn't follow his principles blindly and is constantly forced to question them throughout the story.
Aside from the fact that he's just fun, because of his little quirks (like being a complete neat freak and rather easily embarrassed) Laurence is a character that evolves and opens up throughout the books, which distinguishes him positively from many other steadfast principled heroes for me.
And of course Laurence would be nothing without Temeraire. Temeraire is by know means just Laurence loyal familiar, indeed with the dragon characters in some cases the human is the one who's the sidekick. He is highly intelligent, more so than most other characters in the book in fact which leads him to often be frustrated because others don't follow logic as straight as he does. He spots injustice very easily and would like to change the world preferably yesterday and if wasn't for his love for Laurence he would not put up with authority at all.
He of course also has his quirks, like a love for mathematics, a huge possessiveness over Laurence and his crew and a very dragonish love for shiny things.
Those two characters balance each other perfectly and when disagree it's always hard to pick sides.
There's a wide array of other people and dragon characters and though the focus stays on Temeraire and Laurence I love the lot of them. There's never character that just doesn't make sense or is just black or white. Even the villains, such as Napoleon are not vilified if you know what I mean, their agenda just conflicts with that of the heroes.
Also the female characters, though they are a bit rare are a complete treat.
-) Then there is the plotting. Aside from the books being page turners even when there's not happening a lot, when they speed up it's glorious. If you like to fuzz about details, both in plotting and in the character's evolution those are the books for you because they never fail to satisfy. You never have to deal with an idiot's plot or things jumping the shark. The plot is just good, so there's no need for razzle dazzle.
-) It's also worth a read because of the intriguing international political make up of the world. In a series that builds on great adventure novels of the 19th century, with a somewhat patriotic English hero the danger of writing something that just focuses on an European POV is quite big. But it doesn't happen, every little thing is researched to perfection and the Chinese are every bit as evolved (if not more) as the Europeans are.
Though a lot of the stories play all over the planet the story never falls into the Karl May trope of having the white bloke saving the day all around the globe.
It's just immediately clear that those books are written by someone who has thought about things like white or male privilege and writes consciously of them.
-) and last but not least, though I'm bound to miss a lot of it as a non native speaker, the language. It's just fun, it hits this Jane Austen tune but without ever using words like betwixt (sorry I can't express myself better). Also as stormwreath pointed out when I first posted about the books, there's a lot of care in the character voices. You just know immediately when Temeraire is speaking, because of his speech patterns.
-) And in addition to all this Naomi Novik is a fandom writer and reading her stories lately I find she's one who can spin virtually everything into gold. She's the perfect example for the fact that you don't really need good canon to write great fanfic. She just picks out the intriguing stuff, writes an exciting well crafted plot around it and voila there it is and works better than the base material. It's fanfic at it's best, when it is a true evolution from the source material not just an imitation.