Read This! His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

The way I have been describing this book to everyone one is "the Napoleonic war with dragons" That captures the bare bones of this imaginative and exciting series but it doesn't really capture what I liked most about this book, but I will get to that in a minute.

Will Laurence is a captian in the British navy. His ship, the HMS Reliant captures a french frigate and seizes its cargo as part of the spoils of war. Fortunately for the British, part of the cargo is a very valuable and rare dragon egg. Unfortunately for the crew, the egg is very near to hatching. This is unfortunate because Capt. Laurence knows that the British desperately need more fighting dragons in the Aerial Corp. to help in their battle against Napoleon's forces. As soon as a dragon hatches, it must be put into harness, otherwise it becomes a feral dragon and unusable for the British Aerial Corp. Whoever is succesful in harnesing the dragon becomes it's master and a member of the Corp. To a Navy captain, and indeed most navel officers and men, being a part of the Arial Corp is almost a fate worse then death. But Capt. Laurence is not the sort of man to shirk his duty, however odious it may be or to step away from a challenge, and this turns out to be one of the biggest challenges in his life.

So now you know the set-up, here is what I liked about the book. I like that Novik takes real world things that I can easily relate to (because I have oh so much seagoing experience) and adds in dragons which makes everything more exciting. This brings me to what I liked most about this book, the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. Laurence's strong and deep connection with Temeraire is not just touching, it creates an intersting way to think about issues like class, rank, and bigotry. Having said all that, this book is action packed and fast paced. It was fun to read and I am definitley going to read the rest of the series. If you are interested in this book, you should also check out Naomi Novik's website http://www.temeraire.org/ The fan wiki and fan art are worth looking at. Novik has certainly sparked a lot of imagination!