Novik, Naomi. His Majesty's Dragon

[adult fantasy]

Naomi Novik hardly needs more glowing reviews, so I'll be brief, so as not to be too redundant. This is an alternate history of the Napoleonic wars, in which aerial battles are fought by dragons and their crews; it is the story of one man in particular, the navy captain Will Laurence, who finds himself accidentally attached to the newly-hatched dragon Temeraire, and accidentally sent into a life in the Aerial Corps. So it is part boy-and-his-dog story, part war story, and even a little bit of a comedy of manners.

And it is very, very good.

In watching movies, I usually don't pay much attention to the battles, just enough to find out the important stuff that goes on (who lives, who dies, who wins), because I don't parse them very well; it's the same here, and I don't suspect the author's at fault if the battle scenes aren't entirely clear to me. But the book's not principally about the fighting, and I don't think it would bother anyone who's not a big fan of war stories. It's a lot like I imagine Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin books to be, except that I haven't read those yet, and of course, dragons are cooler than boats.

What strikes me about this book is how assured and understated and dignified it is; it's not paced like a thriller, going frenetically from one thing to the next, and it doesn't show off its Good Writing, and it doesn't try a dozen different sentimental tricks in a gambit for the reader's affection. It just goes on quietly being a good book, and it lets me forget that everyone in the book is a fictional construct. I'm fond of Laurence, and fond of Temeraire, and surely that's one of the best things that can be said about a series book.