Book club
Today's books are the Temeraire novels, by Naomi Novik.
So...if you took Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, and set them during the Napoleonic Wars, the result would look quite a bit like the Temeraire books. Ms. Novik does a pretty good job of getting the Napoleonic War-era English culture, as far as I am qualified to judge; the language and mores of the people aren't gratingly modern, and she does an O.K. Jane Austen impersonation. (Semi-random question: why are there never Napoleonic War novels written from the French point of view? Or are they all just written in French?)
But with DRAGONS!
Hooray dragons!
These dragons are physiologically ridiculous, of course, and psychologically even more ridiculous, considered from the "real-world" point of view. It's also jaw-dropping to think that the presence of huge dragons living and fighting alongside humans throughout humans would produce the same history as seen in our world. In a way this isn't a fair criticism, since it's a founding premise of her novel, not a consequence of her premises, but she's mentioned several alterations of history (China is a Great Power principally because of its great aerial/dragon strength, the Spanish failed to establish colonies in South America--the nature of the North American colonies hasn't really been explained), so she has considered it from this point going forward...
Anyway. That's the background premise. William Laurence, an English sea captain, captures a French frigate carrying an unusual and significant cargo--a dragon egg of an unknown and presumably extremely valuable type. The dragon egg is about to hatch; when this happens it will imprint on a person, to whom it will thereafter be psychologically bonded (told you it was like Pern). Being a dragon rider is...well, not the thing. They are notoriously bad-mannered vagrant libertines (by the standards of Georgian England) and not really company a gentleman deserving of the name would mix with, servants of the Crown though they be; but any dragon is valuable, and sacrifices must be made.
As it happens, the hatchling--of a type never seen before, and unusually intelligent--takes immediately to Captain Laurence, who finds himself bound to Temeraire (as he names his new charge), and the course of his life changed forever...
This falls into the "ripping yarn" category of book; exciting, engaging and competently written--no more, but no less. At times it has a little bit of a "travelogue" feel, as Narvik sends Laurence and Temeraire around the globe to display dragon-human society in different places, but the examination of dragon-human relations is one of the most interesting and deepest elements of the story; the comparison between dragon life and the slave trade is particularly important in this regard.
7 of 10 stars; those books are Temeraire, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory, with Victory of Eagles to come next year.
So...if you took Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, and set them during the Napoleonic Wars, the result would look quite a bit like the Temeraire books. Ms. Novik does a pretty good job of getting the Napoleonic War-era English culture, as far as I am qualified to judge; the language and mores of the people aren't gratingly modern, and she does an O.K. Jane Austen impersonation. (Semi-random question: why are there never Napoleonic War novels written from the French point of view? Or are they all just written in French?)
But with DRAGONS!
Hooray dragons!
These dragons are physiologically ridiculous, of course, and psychologically even more ridiculous, considered from the "real-world" point of view. It's also jaw-dropping to think that the presence of huge dragons living and fighting alongside humans throughout humans would produce the same history as seen in our world. In a way this isn't a fair criticism, since it's a founding premise of her novel, not a consequence of her premises, but she's mentioned several alterations of history (China is a Great Power principally because of its great aerial/dragon strength, the Spanish failed to establish colonies in South America--the nature of the North American colonies hasn't really been explained), so she has considered it from this point going forward...
Anyway. That's the background premise. William Laurence, an English sea captain, captures a French frigate carrying an unusual and significant cargo--a dragon egg of an unknown and presumably extremely valuable type. The dragon egg is about to hatch; when this happens it will imprint on a person, to whom it will thereafter be psychologically bonded (told you it was like Pern). Being a dragon rider is...well, not the thing. They are notoriously bad-mannered vagrant libertines (by the standards of Georgian England) and not really company a gentleman deserving of the name would mix with, servants of the Crown though they be; but any dragon is valuable, and sacrifices must be made.
As it happens, the hatchling--of a type never seen before, and unusually intelligent--takes immediately to Captain Laurence, who finds himself bound to Temeraire (as he names his new charge), and the course of his life changed forever...
This falls into the "ripping yarn" category of book; exciting, engaging and competently written--no more, but no less. At times it has a little bit of a "travelogue" feel, as Narvik sends Laurence and Temeraire around the globe to display dragon-human society in different places, but the examination of dragon-human relations is one of the most interesting and deepest elements of the story; the comparison between dragon life and the slave trade is particularly important in this regard.
7 of 10 stars; those books are Temeraire, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory, with Victory of Eagles to come next year.
Posted by sealionii on
Wednesday October 24, 2007 at 12:34am