His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jul 29, 2010 AH rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, zzread-dec-2010, first-in-series, own, dragons, kobo-freebies

Let’s go back to the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon was trying to conquer Europe and Britain. Now let’s just alter the history, just a tad, and imagine these wars fought aerially with dragons and imagine what an aerial battle would entail during this era.

His Majesty’s Dragon struck me as an original, entertaining read. A lot of detail went into this story and at times it was a little difficult for me to imagine a fully outfitted dragon flying off into battle carrying his harness, his avi Let’s go back to the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon was trying to conquer Europe and Britain. Now let’s just alter the history, just a tad, and imagine these wars fought aerially with dragons and imagine what an aerial battle would entail during this era.

His Majesty’s Dragon struck me as an original, entertaining read. A lot of detail went into this story and at times it was a little difficult for me to imagine a fully outfitted dragon flying off into battle carrying his harness, his aviator, his flagman, and the rest of the crew. But if you suspend belief, it’s kind of fun.

A lot of thought went into building this world. There is a myriad of different dragon breeds, each with different size and coloring. Each dragon species has different talents. There are the requisite fire breathers, dragons that can shoot acid, and dragons that can hover in mid air. Some dragons have incredible speed, others are good at evasion and other flight skills. Each dragon has the ability to choose their aviator – some breeds only choose female aviators. All the dragons were highly intelligent and spoke the languages they heard before they hatched.

Most of the dragons had pretentious Roman names like Maximus, Levitas, and Victoriatus. I really loved all the dragons, but Temeraire stood out. Captured from the French as an egg, Temeraire was an unexpected bonus to the British war effort. From his hatching to his unlikely choice of Will Laurence as his aviator, Temeraire showed that he was a good judge of character. Temeraire’s relationship with Will was endearing: they made a wonderful team. In fact, Will’s entire crew was extremely well respected. From his hatching, Temeraire was a very special dragon. His intelligence was superior. He enjoyed “reading” and he soaked up books on mathematics and physics.

The dragon training section was a bit slow, but the aerial fight sequences made up for that part. I was at the edge of my seat. Flying in v-formation like geese, flagmen waving their communication flags (no radios!), and whole crews attached to the dragons added to the excitement. Sadly, when a dragon was injured, other dragons flew to the rescue to assist the injured dragon back to camp.

The book contains a few appendices at the end with hand drawn pictures of the different kinds of dragons and notes on dragon observations. Fascinating reading.

I’ll have to take a look at the rest of the books in this series.
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Jan 23, 2014 Tash rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, war, read-in-2014, alternate-history, dragons, swordandlaserbc, read-in-2019

Basically the Napoloenic Wars but everyone has dragons.

The alternative history premise is interesting but I found it really difficult to feel attached to any of the characters. I think its the tone of the narrative that makes me feel so disconnected. However the tone works well for book in a thematic way, as it suits a story set in the nineteenth century, I just struggled with it.

I also found the pacing slow to begin with but then picked up in speed in the last thirty or so pages. This doesn't t ...more

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Jul 10, 2010 Karyogini marked it as to-read

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Jul 23, 2010 Amanda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-fantasy-series, read-at-least-twice, favorites, fantasy-dragons, fantasy-alternate-history, read-in-2012, best-of-the-best

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Aug 03, 2010 Monique marked it as to-read

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Sep 10, 2010 ~♥*Marianna*♥~ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, five-stars

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Nov 04, 2010 Ashley ~twisted_illusions~ marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: series-to-read, kindle, i-have, 1st-in-completed-series, got-in-2010, own-but-have-yet-to-read, series-starting-with-t, e-books, fantasy, dragons

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