I finished the book in the beginning of January, so I was a little late. I was really surprised that I enjoyed the book - I've never been a huge fan of dragons, especially talking ones. But Temeraire won me over pretty quickly. The human character's were likable, too. I didn't think it was an amazing book, but I didn't expect to like it and enjoy it as much as I did.

This was just the reason I joined this book club - to try out books I would never otherwise pick up.

I wonder how much history would have changed just from having aerial reconnaissance & a faster method of communication? I'm not a good enough student of history to really know, but I have a feeling that the knowledge gained would have warped the history of the world considerably.

Alvin Toffler points out in Future Shock that one of the huge changes in our civilization was the speed of land travel. For centuries, the 5 - 7 mph speed of the horse or camel was it. One of the most shattering changes is our new mobility & communication speed. We can cross continents faster than men used to be able to cross a small country. Communications between villages used to take longer than it now takes to any point on the globe.

How many battles would have turned out differently with the knowledge of opposing forces? Airlifted supplies would have relieved many trapped forces & enabled them to hang on. Exploration would have gone further, much faster. Marco Polo wouldn't have been nearly the sensation.

I can't think about this any more. I really enjoyed the book, but the suspension of belief is becoming a burden. Dragons would have had to be fairly new or Troy would have won the war with Greece & India would have taken over the Middle East or something. Languages, customs & cultures would all be different & a lot of clashes may never have happened while others would have.

Air travel using mechanics is another thing that would have unavoidably evolved differently. Since dragons would have had people in the air early (what would Da Vinci have been sketching instead?), and probably been bred to fulfill multiple functions (high speed couriers we saw in Novik, but why couldn't the big guys do jobs like the Boeings and Airbuses? Especially if bred for high efficiency long-distance flying).

But the political and social clout of the dragonriders and their organizations would probably have slowed mechanical development considerably. Would we have made it to the moon by 1969? Probably not...

I've read all of them so far in print, and expect I will read the others unless the series goes seriously downhill. I had to do a lot of flying last year and they were just about perfect airplane books, fun and absorbing but not so absorbing I'd miss my connection.

I just got the next two books via a swap site. I'm going to try to get to them shortly, but I'm wrapped up in 3 (was 4 as of last night) other books right now. The first was a good read. I hope the next two live up to my expectations.

Now that I've had a little time away from His Majesty's Dragon, I have to admit that I doubt I will carry on with the books. I expected that I would, but Novik really didn't light a reading fire in me. I can see myself crafting my own idea about Dragons in our world in a short story or two (come to think of it, I already did years ago. I need to revisit that, perhaps), but I can't see myself carrying on with Novik.

It feels strange because I fully intended to a week ago. Is anyone else feeling the same way?

Oh I want to play too! I can think of all sorts of fun things you could do by adding dragons to different events - if they are a recent discovery, if they've been around for ages, if they've recently changed in some way, become more intelligent for example, or less aggressive... Oh the fun to be had!

I am fine with what Novik did too. I know I sound like I am nitpicking, but I really did like what she did, especially the Aubrey/Maturin homage.

And I really do feel like I want to play. I like the bringing together of dragons and our world, and the period she uses makes it even more fun. The criticism I have been engaged in is motivated, I think, by a desire for Novik to have succeeded even more. If I have any disappointment it is that she was teetering on something of real greatness and fell short. But her first book, at least, is absolutely worth the time.

Future books include that debate. Wm Wilberforce who was an abolitionist in our history is also a campaigner for dragon rights in Noviks.

Seems to me that in putting dragons into an alternate history NN had a genuinely novel and interesting idea. Part of the evidence for it being a really interesting idea is how much of the discussion of this book has been about people wanting to take the idea and write it differently. Different people see what can be done with this notion and they want to play too.

Personally I'm fine with what Novik did with it. I like the light touch, I like the Aubrey Maturin homage, I like the tone. Sure she could have written an entirely different book based on the same idea, but this is the book she wrote, and it has its own virtues.

You touch on something I've been thinking about as well, BunWat: "how does the culture treat sentient beings who aren't - by their rules, people?" Temeraire seems to be indicating a move in that direction -- almost a burgeoning demand for rights -- and if future books include this debate, it would increase my desire to move on. I got a real sense that many of the dragons, particularly the Celestials, are superior to man. But even if they aren't superior they are certainly equal, so treating them as dumb beasts (when they are not) is something I can't see intelligent beings sitting still for.

Excellent points all around, Richard, but number three is the one that bothered me the most, particularly in a Europe where the tide of revolution was everywhere. If the dragons were reserved for the Kings or the Emperors there would never have been a Napoleon. Barricades don't work in the streets of Paris when a dragon can fly over, drop bombs and slaughter revolutionaries at will. Hence, King Louis wins, Robespierre brings no terror and Napoleon never gets his shot. And that is just the big question. You're absolutely spot on about the little questions. Dragons would be convenient in countless ways for aristocrats, and would likely have been used as gifts to a King's own aristocracy, not just as diplomatic gifts between nations. It just doesn't make sense that Dragons are reserved for warfare, particularly with the economic systems of the day (which Novik did nothing to alleviate with her writing; had she addressed this issue, even a little, it might not have been so hard to swallow).

I did enjoy the book, absolutely, but the longer I sit and think about it the more I wish it had been different.

One caveat is I think Novik is at least as interested in how relating to the dragons challenges assumptions about the social and emotional rules of the culture as she is in how the dragons change the rules of war or commerce. In some ways the analogy is to ships, whether you want to draw the analogy to sailing ships or zepplins or bombers. But in other ways the analogy is to the way Regency society treated people of other cultures. Because dragons aren't inanimate, they aren't even dumb beasts - they are sentient. So how does the culture treat sentient beings who aren't - by their rules, people?

Ya know, the more I think about this book the more disappointed I'm getting.

Moral: don't think about what you are reading! Treat it like TV...

1) Air supremacy goes to fighters, not bombers, even those with fore-and-aft machine gun turrets (or the ability to spit acid or fire). Giving pride-of-place to the heavy bombers makes sense when they are crucial for taking out ground targets, such as ships or fortresses. But when the important battle is air-to-air combat, the lumbering heavies are sitting ducks.

2) They'd consider killing off 'surplus' dragons during peacetime as too expensive to maintain. But history provided other solutions: force the Colonels to pay for their own cavalries, whilst making military rank so prestigious that gentlemen were tempted to ruin themselves financially for the honor. 'Reserving' dragons to the king isn't plausible until taxation becomes much more advanced and the state much larger.

3) They'd been breeding dragons for centuries, yet only the military had them? I'd have thought some dumbed-down ones would be used by the aristocrats instead of carriages -- what better way of avoiding muddy roads and highwaymen?

4) I'm worried about where this is going to go in the next book (which we've been warned was rushed). The paperback had a 'sample' excerpt, and her treatment of the Chinese appears, at first impression, to be really poor.

As Brad said in the "Initial Thoughts" discussion, Novik just "plops" the dragons into her world. She only explores how they would have changed society in ways convenient to the story she has chosen to tell. That's kind of lazy.

I still think it's a four-star read, but she could have really taken this places...