Evil Editor said...Welcome, chatticts.
stacy said...Chatticts? Is that even a word?
Evil Editor said...I thought it was less offensive than chattel.
Dave Fragments said...A book with dragons and sailing ships. I always wanted a sailboat. Not one of those motorized stinkpots but a true sailing ship.
vkw said...sailing boats, napoleon, war and dragons. It's like cowboys and aliens.
Evil Editor said...I thought the dragons were a lot like dogs. Talking dogs. But smarter. And bigger.
vkw said...I was thinking the same EE about the dragons being like dogs but they talk and had an intimacy with their riders. I started to see them more like best friends, spouses or even like children.
Dave Fragments said...I thought that Temeraire grew up from young thoughts to older thoughts and there was a difference between human friendships and this dragon friendship/faithful bond that it forms with humans.
vkw said...There was a relationship difference between the riders/dragons than between friends/riders. However, there is a commitment and intimacy between individuals with their families as compared to individuals with their co-workers. I think Ms. Novik did well demonstrating that.
Dave Fragments said...There's a lot of old language in this. It's not filled with modernism and colloquial phrases. I like that.
Evil Editor said...Do you think the author read lots of books written in the time of Napoleon in order to perfect the style of the book?
stacy said...I imagine she reads a lot from that time period. Felt pretty authentic to me.
vkw said...I loved the voice. I read the author's bio and naomi novik has had an interest is napoleonic history for a long time. She combined her interest with this era and fantasy.
Dave Fragments said...I think she has a good set of BETA readers and lots of editing to get that voice. To remove the modern is as hard as using a consistent tone of gloom or cheery comedy.
Evil Editor said...If Novik knew how attached the reader would become to the dragons, she would have killed off Rankin instead of Levitas.
vkw said...Dragon lovers always understand how much readers love dragons. Fantasy became my genre of choice when I read the series Dragonriders of Pern as a young adolescent. I avoided dragon stories after that because I loved the way dragons and their riders were written in the series. Never thought an author could do better. Ms. Novik did a very good job, excellent. As for killing off Levitas, I didn't like it but it's reality. People/dragons we love, die.
Dave Fragments said...The relationships we see are ones that are all around us and we accept the differences without seeing the differences. Think of the contrast between movies like MASTER AND COMMANDER and TOP GUN to make it easy on myself. The airmen are brash and wild and rude. The seamen are principled and daring. Both are good but vastly different. We see the clash of two cultures - Air versus naval and upper versus lower class and duty combined with honor.
stacy said...I've often wondered how dragons even entered folklore. Makes me wonder if someone strayed across a full set of dinosaur bones in Cro-magnon times and came up with the idea.
Evil Editor said...Dragons are to dinosaurs as elephants are to mice. Maybe a Cro Magnon stumbled across a Boeing 747.
Dave Fragments said...In folklore, I would start in China where the legends go back to creation (I think) and then to the Vikings and (I think thor's hammer) where the final battle between the gods has this giant snake Jörmungandr and Midgard and the Rainbow Bridge. There's also a Mexican element with Quetzalcoatl that I can't speak to now.
vkw said...I've thought about that too Stacy. How did dragons come to be? But more importantly, where can I get one? :) I'm not kidding, although I imagine they are very expensive to own. That may mean that only the very wealthy could own dragons.
Evil Editor said...Having to feed your pet a few cows and sheep every day would get expensive. Although they could fly off to a ranch and feed themselves.
stacy said...That was one part of the book that made me a little uncomfortable. I mean, I know they weren't real cows and such, but I did feel a little sorry for them. But then, the dragons were just being dragons.
Evil Editor said...I agree, Stacy. It was like people who toss a hamster in the cage with their pet snake.
vkw said...Sure your dragon could feed itself, but no doubt the dragon would just go to the ranch next door. We would be warring with our neighbors all the time rather than the french. Our neighbors would shoot at our dragons and we shoot at their dragons. Very messy. I suspect that it would be better to have dragons under the care of the government who can care for dragons. This would be especially the case considering they live for centuries. Of course, if you owned a dragon, you would have to will it to your children or survivors. That could be the beginning of a novel.
Evil Editor said...If there were dragons in the real world, would they have been hunted to extinction by now?
vkw said...No, we tend not to kill off our children or dogs. Although sometimes we mistreat them and their are laws to protect them.
Dave Fragments said...My brother and a few of my neighbors keep horses and I've been around at feeding time. If you love the pet or take car of such a huge animal, you keep it healthy and clean.
stacy said...If there were dragons in the real world, so much about our world would be different. Would there have even been a WWII? If so, would the outcome have been different?
Evil Editor said...Would Hitler's dragon have been attached to him or would he have dropped Hitler in the middle of the ocean?
vkw said...I am not sure about Hitler. Sure he was beyond cruel. Had no conscience. No moral compass. Ok he was a psychopath - however, I bet he would make sure his dragon was well cared for. Probably chop off the head of anyone who didn't care for his dragon.
stacy said...I don't know. Hitler was pretty freaking mean. Chances are he would have mistreated his dragon. I vote his dragon would have dropped him.
vkw said...Hitler's dragon would have attached to him, just like children attach to horrid parents and dogs worship their owners without fault.
stacy said...Maybe, vkw. I'd have a hard time believing a dragon would accept mistreatment from a handler. This hypothetical discussion is getting a little surreal.
Evil Editor said...If you were Laurence's girlfriend, would you have been willing to stick with him, or would you have been too jealous of Temeraire?
stacy said...I think if I were Laurence's girlfriend, I would have accepted Temeraire, possibly even loved him, too.
vkw said...I think Laurence was better off without the girlfriend. It didn't seem like a very committed relationship to begin with. I think Laurence was unconsciously pleased he didn't have to settle for her. I would have dumped Laurence just because he was away for long periods-years as it was. I didn't like the manner that the parents were depicted. They were rather cold fish.
stacy said...vkw, I agree the parents were cold fish. But I think it was consistent with their class and breeding from that time. I did feel that the aviators could have been more lively and roguish in the beginning. I felt like that was a bit more explained rather than shown. For the first half of the novel or so, everyone seemed so damned polite, even the dragons. Not quite halfway through, I was thinking a dragon mistakenly or not so mistakenly eating a person would liven things up.
Evil Editor said...Levitas should have eaten Rankin. I don't imagine he'd have tasted any worse than a live sheep.
vkw said...I think Levitas dragon friends should have accidentally stepped on Rankin. And Rankin's "friends" should have seen to it that he "slipped" in the tubs and drowned. After, of course, they warned him that people that don't treat their dragon well - slip in tubs of the time. Rather sad, but too bad.
Dave Fragments said...Laurence's girlfriend is true to the Victorian era. Laurence was a young man who had seen action at sea and was in line to be Captain of a prestige ship, a big one, possibly one of he 78 or 90 gun ships of the line. Being the wife of a ship's captain would make her a Lady to Contend with at all levels of society. Being the wife of an airman who kept a carnivorous beast in the back yard and might be found whoring and drinking with his buddies did not mover her up in society. It did not make her a lady. One of the more telling lines that Laurence thinks or says, is that not even the lowest mate on a ship would leave the decks strewn with dirt and garbage. they clean the decks every morning and function in relative cleanliness.
Evil Editor said...The Temeraire series has something like seven books in it. So far. Anyone read beyond this one?
Dave Fragments said...I haven't read any more yet. I might buy them for myself for Christmas. I like that Naomi Novik didn't blow the entire storyline in the first novel. Temeraire has barely come of age in this story. I had some bad thoughts when I realized that we were starting with the hatching of an egg but there is sufficient story and culture clash to hold the novel together. That's one thing that writers struggle with in the stories and novels I read. What is one episode for a chapter or short story or how broad a sweep of history is appropriate for how many words.
vkw said...I do think I may see about reading more in the series.
Dave Fragments said...This story is very much like that Victorian romance we read a few months ago. It is a novel of manners and airs.
Evil Editor said...The Iron Duke had mechanical airships instead of dragons. It's easier for the reader to get attached to a dragon. But the premise is the same: alternate history in which air travel was available in earlier times.
vkw said...I agree with Dave. This book was very good because of the manners and airs and the time period it was set in.
stacy said...I get that, but I think in a novel with dragons and ships, I would have liked to have seen a little more action throughout. Just seems to me a world with dragons would be a little more roguish. I dunno. Maybe that's the writer in me coming out. "I would have done it this way."
Evil Editor said...I thought Temeraire was a little TOO smart when he hatched. All he'd heard through his egg was stuff like Avast ye lubbers, and Holy crap! A French frigate! Yet he was fluent in eight languages. Or whatever.
stacy said...Yeah, EE, and I think I would have liked to see him start off a little feral. Not to compare to something completely unrelated, but one of the things that made the love between Buck and his owner stronger in THE CALL OF THE WILD was that Buck was so wild prior to meeting him. I think, for me, a less polite and wilder Temeraire—something that Laurence would have had to reign in and protect—would have been more ... satisfying. Then again ... maybe that would have been cliché.
Dave Fragments said...Look at the differences in breeding -- Temeraire was bred for intelligence, speed and maneuverability. It loved learning and reading. The other dragons were much simpler in outlook and made to be beasts of burden in some cases. Even in the climactic battle, Temeraire is different from the others and its weapon is not one of blood but of air.
vkw said...Dave is right about the breeding. In this way, the dragons were like canines and bred for specific puposes. Breeding leads to some unwanted characteristics like being a bit soft in the head. I've known a few dumb dogs.
Evil Editor said...Why is the title His Majesty's Dragon? Aren't all the dragons his majesty's dragons?
vkw said...Because the dragon is pressed into his Majesty's service as is his rider? Because the egg was stolen from a dictator and when hatched the dragon is pressed into the monarchy? Perhaps it's just a good-sounding title?
Dave Fragments said...I read a bit that bears on the title. You have to look up the origin of "Temeraire" as a ship of the line. IT is a real ship that the Brits sailed. The source of the name is of importance. The original Temeraire was a French ship, captured by the Brits. Now in the British Isles, this book is titled "Temeraire" and being a seafaring nation to this day, they know the history where us landlubbers in the middle of the colonies, don't. I know a pile of crap about Napoleonic era and the culture of ships at sea. MOBY DICK, THE PERFECT STORM, Hornblower and Master and Commander, and go back to Shogun all fascinate me as being of other times and the gaps in my learning.
stacy said...I've started both MOBY DICK and MASTER AND COMMANDER. But I'm having a hard time NOT seeing Russell Crowe in the M&C book in my mind. Not that I'm complaining.
Evil Editor said...Are all dragons pressed into military service? Levitas was more courier, but still, for the military. Seems like someone would have started a FedEx-like company if dragons were available to more than the air force. Or dragon rides at the faire.
stacy said...Right on, EE. Maybe there's more of those things in subsequent books.
vkw said...I wonder if there can be a fed/ex delivery service. Again the cost of caring for a dragon may not make a delivery system cost efficient. I think perhaps that only governments can afford to keep dragons. Perhaps citizens are not allowed to have dragons and if they become a rider of one are pressed into service?
stacy said...True, vkw. That FedEx company might find itself in the same position our Post Office is in now.
Dave Fragments said...Can we ask the question a different way? Were all sailing ships part of the war fleet during Lord Nelson's time? What was the role of merchant vessels? I think dragons are like that.
Evil Editor said...Dragons did deliver the mail to ships as I recall. They'd be a great pony express-like service. One of you write a book in which dragons exist in the old west and put the pony express out of business.
stacy said...They would get that mail delivered fast.
vkw said...The dragons did deliver the mail to the ships. But that still makes them government employees.
stacy said...I think the ponies would get eaten.
vkw said...Didn't the pony express last a year? Just over a year? Short book.
Evil Editor said...The discussion never would have veered off like this if the author had shown up. Let that be a lesson to future authors chosen for chats.
stacy said...We're so great at the hypotheticals, though.
Evil Editor said...BTW, two of our next three authors have agreed to attend.
stacy said...I'm guessing one of them is not named Michael Chabon?
Evil Editor said...Good guess. Just couldn't find any contact information.
Dave Fragments said...Ms Novik leaves a bit of the care and feeding of dragons to the unexplained. The feeding is mentioned once because they speculate how Napoleon could assembled forty (I think) dragons together to fly the troop transports across the channel. Feeding logistics is particularly mentioned.
vkw said...Imagine for a moment how difficult it is to feed and move an army and how often this was the downfall of many armies. Now imagine the logistics of feeding forty dragons every day, on average two cows each. that is eighty cows per day and in a week that is 560. I am not good with math or economics but that's a lot of cows. Are slaughter cows about $300, today? Wonder how much they cost back then?
Evil Editor said...I think a cow costs closer to $1000 these days.
Sarah Laurenson said...Chiming in way late, of course.
I loved this book and have devoured the rest of the series except the last one. But I also cut my reading teeth on Horatio Hornblower and I collect dragons (of the pewter variety).
This series is more similar to Horatio Hornblower than to say Alexander Kent's Richard Bolitho series. Hornblower is more about philosophy and dealing with internal fears. Bolitho is more action oriented.
So I got a very Hornblower voice from this series, but the dragons added a deeper element and the wider philosphical debate on slavery. She ticked almost all of my interest boxes with these books.
As for the title, I think it's the main issue for Temeraire since he isn't sure he wants to be one of His Majesty's dragons.
And the reason he spoke so many languages had to do with what was said to him while he was still in the egg in China and being transferred to the French.
When you get deeper in, you see a lot of differences in the Chinese and how they handle dragons as a part of society.
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