All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #136 (February, 2008).
The Napoleonic Wars have long fascinated gamers. In fact, the first true gaming book, H.G. Wells’ Little Wars, is essentially a set of rules for wargaming the Napoleonic Wars. At any given general gaming convention a few tables a sure to be covered with Napoleon’s armies marching against Lord Wellington, or with Nelson’s warships sailing to victory at Trafalgar. Along with the American Civil War and World War II the period sits at the top of the war gaming heap.
And why should it not? The period is bright, colorful, and melodramatic. Brave men face lethal technologies with naught but their courage only a heartbeat away from being shot by a musket or skewered on a sword blade. It has some of the very best works of fiction in multiple tongues, including Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, C.S. Forester’s superb Hornblower novels, and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.
The period has drawn fantasy and horror writers alongside myriad alternative history works in both games and fiction. Flintloque, a fantasy miniatures skirmish game imagined the English as orcs and the French as elves, while the instant classic novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke posited the war if English Magic were rediscovered and restored to its rightful place of power. Seth Grahame-Smith imagined a Napoleonic Britain overrun by Zombies and good manners in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Naomi Novik breaks similar ground with His Majesty’s Dragon, in which she imagines an Earth where dragons are real and powerful, albeit rare, creatures. The historical past is unclear, but in broad outline seems to have followed our own world’s timelines. The introduction of dragons seems to have relatively little impact on British society and the war between Britain and Napoleon’s France seems posited on the same root causes. Though divided into breeds, dragons are rare and powerful. They seem to have little role in society beyond military service (though later books apparently adjust this concept somewhat) but are large, powerful flyers. Individual dragons bond with individual humans, though they are longer lived. This is very similar to the way Anne McCaffrey’s Pern dragons bond with humans, but lacks the telepathic impressment. Novik’s dragons and their riders interact much like McCaffrey’s but lacking the telepathic ties the pairings feel more like a pair of humans falling in love.
The novel charts the course of the dragon Temeraire and her human captain, Will Laurence. Laurence is a frigate captain in the Royal Navy, who wins a grand prize, a dragon egg, from a French vessel. Unexpectedly chosenas handler by Temeraire, he enters the Aerial Corps as an outsider, and he and Tremeraire work together to thwart Napoleon’s plans to conquer England.
Full disclosure, in addition to wargaming in the Napoleonic period for years, and reading a great deal of period historical fiction, including some of the expected Bernard Cornwall Sharpe and the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey–Maturin series, my professional work has been hyper focused on the Age of Sail over the last seven years. I am writing a history of U.S. Marines from 1798-1859. So, perhaps I am being overly critical with the next bit. Nonetheless...
In combat, the Novik's dragons fight in an odd style that is clearly an attempt to merge McCaffrey’s thread fights with the nautical conflicts of C.S. Forester or Patrick O’Brian. The dragons carry crews of a dozen or so, using muskets, bombs, and even boarding actions against each other. The dragons are highly intelligent yet they need "handlers?" The result is oddly unconvincing, were dragons real it seems highly unlikely that they would be used as Novik imagines, certainly not if they intelligent creatures. If they allowed themselves to be used as beasts of war they surely would have a better understanding of aerial combat than any human would have. The dragons fail to inspire the sort of awe that Tolkien's Smaug brings, and her world building falls flat when compared to the precise science fiction underpinnings of McCaffrey's Pern, the most obvious comparison.
A lack of authenticity bedevils her dialogue as well. Novik betrays an incomplete grasp of the period’s style that is particularly noticeable those who have read Clarke’s magnificent Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell. It is obvious that she imagines the British Aerial Corps’ officers as non-traditional precisely so she can free herself of the period restrictions which would have elevated her novel’s style and accomplishment. Novik is so busy trying to merge two distinct genres (fantasy and historical fiction) that the seams of her novel occasionally fail to meet neatly.
Despite merging disparate styles into a single pastiche, His Majesty’s Dragon is a fun, enjoyable read. The flaws are glaring, but the two main characters are engaging and the premise intriguing. There are far worse ways to spend time than reading a failed but noble experiment, and game masters will undoubtedly gather many excellent ideas for using dragons in their own campaigns. There is, moreover, always the hope that the subsequent volumes will improve in style. (although, I have to admit that 16 years after I first read this novel, I still haven't been inspired to read the others despite my immersion in the period)
Still, for a first novel, it is quite an achievement and readers lacking my historians obsessions will enjoy the work even more.
All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
.jpg)
