by Naomi Novik

Did you enjoy the movie Master and Commander? This book is a lot like that, but with dragons.

His Majesty’s Dragon is set in the early part of the 19th century, during the Napoleonic Wars.^* Will Laurence is a captain in the British Royal Navy who captures a dragon’s egg from a French ship. When the egg hatched, the baby dragon attached itself to Laurence. He names the dragon Temeraire, after the famous ship. As far as Laurence is concerned, Temeraire has just ruined his life.

Why? Wouldn’t it be awesome to have your own dragon? Well, not exactly. The dragon becomes property of the British Empire, and since it seems to really like Laurence, he is forced to give up command of his ship and serve in the Aerial Corps. That means living out in the middle of nowhere, where the dragons have the space they need and won’t cause trouble. That probably means never getting married, since the Aerial Corps is no place for a gentleman. As far as Laurence’s wealthy family and friends are concerned, commanding a ship is fine. Commanding a dragon is so undignified.

Temeraire, as it turns out, is an unusual dragon. He isn’t one of the kinds of dragons you find in Europe. Instead, he seems to be some special breed from China. He is smarter than many other dragons – he enjoys being read to, and he questions the way dragons are treated in the military.

Laurence stands out just like Temeraire does in the Aerial Corps. As a former Royal Navy captain, he is very fond of rules and regulations and politeness. Nobody else in the Corps really cares about that stuff. They are misfits, isolated from regular society. Of course, one of the most shocking things Laurence finds is that the Corps allows women to be soldiers.

Laurence also stands out because, despite his obsession with making lower-ranking soldiers salute and call him “sir,” he takes way better care of his dragon than anyone else. Most people in the Corps like their dragons, but they treat them more like pets and horses than people. Laurence is very different – he treats Temeraire like a person, and he thinks all dragons should be treated that way.

A lot of the story is about Laurence loosening up, learning to fit in as much as honor will allow, and dealing with his family, who are not happy about his new position. We also get to see a lot about the daily life of dragons, and we get to watch Temeraire grow up. As you might guess from a book about dragons in the military, there is also some good dragon-to-dragon and dragon-to-ship combat.

If you like Master and Commander and you also enjoy fantasy, this should be the perfect book for you. Unlike Master and Commander, there aren’t many nautical terms in the book, so you don’t need to worry about what a bosun’s chair is or anything like that.

If you want to read the first chapter or so online, it’s on the author’s official website.

* This is also when the Master and Commander series takes place. It’s also when the Horatio Hornblower and the Bolitho series take place. Why? Because Will Laurence and Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower and Richard Bolitho and probably a dozen more fictional captains are all based on the same person, Thomas Cochrane. If you enjoy these kinds of books, you should really read about Cochrane.