Karen F. (cosmichomicide) reviewed His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Bk 1) on + 134 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 13
A wonderful alternate history, Novik manages to give a respectful nod to the whole of dragon fantasy while taking it to new heights. Both the dragons and their crews are fully realized, the action exciting, the history perfectly drawn. I am just sorry that I allowed this series to wait as long as I did to begin reading it - this first book stands comfortably in stature with the first Pern trilogy and is a gem within the genre. If there were six stars this book would deserve them.
Helpful Score: 10
This was so good! I love Temeraire!
I took this with me to read on a trip and finished it yesterday on the plane home. Overall impression - exciting story with lots of details and great dragons! The author did a wonderful job of incorporating dragons into the alternate historical setting. The characters were all very well done too. The humans weren't people with present day sensibilities who happened to be wearing old-fashioned clothes - they really fit the time period. And the dragons were fabulous of course!
(By the way, it seemed especially fitting to be reading about dragon flying maneuvers and aerial battles while flying across the country in a little puddle-jumping Embraer with a lot of turbulence. I did end up rereading a lot of sentences as the book jumped away from my eyes, but that's OK - they were pretty good sentences!)
I took this with me to read on a trip and finished it yesterday on the plane home. Overall impression - exciting story with lots of details and great dragons! The author did a wonderful job of incorporating dragons into the alternate historical setting. The characters were all very well done too. The humans weren't people with present day sensibilities who happened to be wearing old-fashioned clothes - they really fit the time period. And the dragons were fabulous of course!
(By the way, it seemed especially fitting to be reading about dragon flying maneuvers and aerial battles while flying across the country in a little puddle-jumping Embraer with a lot of turbulence. I did end up rereading a lot of sentences as the book jumped away from my eyes, but that's OK - they were pretty good sentences!)
Helpful Score: 7
This is the most charming book! Ms. Novik has an excellent writing style that succinctly recalls the time period her story is set in. I am not at all surprised that Jane Austin is one of her favorite authors. And I was extremely impressed by her use of vocabulary, how exciting to find an author unafraid of adjectives. The story itself is wonderful, and I love Temeraire. The whole concept Ms. Novik has created only deserves the highest praise!
Helpful Score: 3
Just finished reading this first book in the series, and it's actually very good! After I read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell I started looking for other Historical Fantasy and this one filled the bill so to speak. Her writing style is great and from the very beginning you're drawn into it. The relationship between dragons and riders and society is actually quite refreshing from the norm.
Helpful Score: 2
a really neat twist on the dragon rider theme. It combines a naval officer like one of the various fictional naval heroes [Hornblower, Bolitho, Drinkwater, etc ] and various talking dragons in a well written tale of naval air battles in Napoleanic times. This is a good one and I look forward to the rest of the series.
