His Majesty’s Dragon

Summary: Temeraire by Naomi Novik is a combination of Fantasy and Historical Fiction. The book follows Captain Laurence and Temeraire, his dragon, whose egg he captures from a French Ship. Laurence is forced to give up his Naval career and join the aviators, who have a reputation as a rough bunch, set apart from the rest of the military. The consensus from people he knows is that he has had to make a dreadful sacrifice for King and Country, but as Laurence comes to know Temeraire, he not only comes to terms with his changed circumstance, he dives in whole heartedly.

Thoughts: I enjoyed the book a lot, already ordered the Book 2 in the series(though I have gotten Mistborn Book 3, and The Alchemyst Book 2 on the To Read pile). Both Capt. Laurence and Temeraire are interesting characters. Laurence’s reactions to events that are inconceivable in the time and place are what really makes him such an admirable character. He meets a Dragon who is his instructor, he finds out women in the aviators are captains too, his reaction to a fellow captain who neglects his dragon, all of these sequences inform his character, and its a tremendous character. He is moral, but not unbending, he is a proper prig, but only till he is comfortable with someone. Temeraire the dragon on the other hand is more like our typical fantasy hero, who is uniquely gifted(at least in the western world), picks up things very quickly, asks the questions about society at large, that normally a fantasy hero asks, such as why do they fight for duty, an has mysterious powers that come into play at a very convenient time. He could easily be Belgarion, Rand al’Thor or Paul Atreides.

Another aspect of the book that really makes it compelling is the time period. The Napoleonic Wars are the perfect setting for this story. It gives us the British Army Officer with the stiff upper lip, who is in constant danger because of the tense times, but comes through in grand fashion.

One final point. This book is incredibly visual, and its tough to imagine the scale at which these dragons are imagined. Some of the lager dragons are as high as a 10 story building, and require huge crews to be able to fight. They are used as messengers, bombers, transports, fighters, or all at the same time. I really enjoyed the similarities between the way fighting and working on a dragon is similar to fighting and working on a ship. I’ve never read the Aubrey-Maturin Series(Master and Commander with Russel Crowe was based on them) but am now pretty keen to look through those.

Amit Verma was one of my favorite columnists when he was writing for Mint, and his blog India Uncut is probably the only blog that I have been reading regularly for the last five years. So when his debut novel came out I knew I would be reading it even if it’s not the kind of book I normally read.

I’m glad I did. This was one of the funniest, most poignant, stories I have read.

It’s the story of a journalist who gets what should be a dream assignment. A long profile of an encounter victim, and his life. To get started he meets with his daughter Muneeza, who was nicknamed Sancho by her father. She talks to him about her and her father’s life. I’m not going to say more because its probably best to come to the story with few expectations on where it will lead.

Its short, I finished it in 2 sittings, the first time I got about 20 minutes into it on a weeknight. And than on Sunday evening I picked it up at about 7pm and by 930 I was finished. It’s a quick read which will appeal to readers who don’t like the epic books. It is however not a simple book. The story hits on class, caste, religion, globalization, urbanization, mall culture, journalism, the media, freedom and so many other things. Abir and Muneeza are fully fleshed out three dimensional characters, there is a naturalness to their meetings that I’ve found rare. The Police Inspector is also a very interesting character, and I like how Abir comes to really understands this guy. The final important character in the book is Bombay. Amit Verma does a fantastic job of showcasing the city, both its frustrations and its promise.

I highly recommend this book.