Reviews with content warning for War - His Majesty's Dragon

Summary
Captain William Lawrence is fair-minded, duty-conscious, and entirely committed to his career in the Navy. Until he and his crew capture a French ship carrying a precious cargo. The English military are in desperate need of more dragons, and the egg aboard the French ship is about to hatch. If the young dragon is not put under harness immediately--imprinted to a handler who will remain with the dragon for life--the dragon will never be of use to the military for more than training. Duty is clear. They must attempt to bring the hatchling under harness. But it will mean the end of a Navy career for whoever is chosen.

My Thoughts
I saw this book while meandering through Barnes & Noble and recalled a bookstagrammer displaying it as part of a book haul. I bought it based on the brief mention and the interesting back cover blurb. The book was further recommended when one of my best friends saw me pull it out of my bag and began to gush about the series.

The story reminded me of the Horatio Hornblower movie series + dragons. It has all the honor and duty elements of most military-based historical epics, but there are also dragons. What lover of fantasy and historical fiction can argue with that?

Apart from the dragons--which are (to varying degrees) intelligent, can talk, and have varying abilities such as spitting acid--there are no other fantasy elements. The dragons are treated as a very natural part of the very normal historical setting.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed this book and intend to read more in the series, I will note that the plot was a little looser than I usually prefer. The main character has no true arc (he's a good guy, accepts and adjusts to his new lot in life quite pragmatically and quickly, and overall doesn't seem to have much to learn) and the arc of the story is also less dramatic than some as there is no real story goal other than a general "figure out life as dragon and dragon handler." The Writing Excuses podcast calls this kind of story the "elemental genre of wonder." The driving force of the story for the reader is, "This is a cool thing or place that I would like to enjoy through observation."

Content
Romance: A long-standing understanding is ended when the main character becomes a dragon handler. There are a couple of rather frank (though non-detailed) conversations about pr*stitution and producing children outside of marriage. It is implied that the main character is having physical relations with a female colleague, though to what extent beyond kissing is not spelled out.

Launguage: Minimal if any. It seems like there must have been a few d*mns or h*lls or at least bl**dys in a military novel, but if there were, they were so infrequent as to not stand out.

Violence: Several dragons are injured. Men die in battle. There is one execution. Nothing is graphic.

Religion: None that I can think of.

Content Warnings

susanatherly's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

panoply's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

forgottenwitch's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Naomi Novik said “Earth with dragons and set it during the Napoleonic Wars” and I was with her absolutely every step of the way (9 T^T)9

Content Warnings

ladypalutena's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It is truly remarkable that every one of Naomi Novik's series has a very different tone. Her two fairy tale retellings (Uprooted and Spinning Silver) are different from the Scholomance, and the first book in the Temeraire series reads like Jane Austen wrote it.

I have seen these books on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, and I've been interested because if you put the spines together, they make a dragon scene. I finally picked up this first book, since I finished the Scholomance earlier this year, and this is an excellent book.

It's a retelling of the Napoleonic Wars, but with DRAGONS. What more can you want? I will admit that it was a little hard to get into at first, because I had to get reacquainted with a way of writing I haven't come across since I took a graduate class on Jane Austen (that's my fault; I've been reading things written in the last hundred years or so, not from the 1800s). Novik does an incredible job of mimicking the Austen style, and my husband, who's a huge Master and Commander fan, may end up picking these up at some point as well.

I keep wavering on how to rate it, so I think I'll settle for the baseline of a four - it was an interesting story, there were some parts that felt rushed (it's a very short book!), and there were a few parts that were unclear (at one point, a character is hanged for treason. I had no idea he was killed until other characters were talking about it a few pages later. It's a poorly written scene. Gives me big "Wait, did Jet just die?" vibes). Overall, a very interesting retelling and enough for me to maybe want to buy the whole box set because they'd look great on my shelf.

Content Warnings

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