Take me for a ride on your . . . dragon?

kw: book reviews, fantasy, historical fiction

William Pitt the Younger is Prime Minister of England, Napoleon is gearing up for his assault at Austerlitz, and all the nations involved are striving to increase their respective armies, navies, and air corps. What? Redcoats aloft! Yes, and bluecoats plus a host of other liveries, including the Chinese, purportedly neutral.

In Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik and her other Temeraire novels (one published previously and one in the works) air transport need not wait on technology. Humans have domesticated native dragons, and most nations use them much as airborne horses, though some breeds are big enough to carry several horses. Dragons awake to intelligence in the egg, and hatch already knowing the rudiments of any language they have been hearing...or all of them.

The prior novel, which I plan to read soon, details the gift by the Chinese of a very special dragon egg to the French. The British capture the ship carrying the egg, and Captain Will Laurence is given custody. He soon has the onus of raising the hatchling, and they bond. Young Temeraire and his human crew have had much to do with saving the British forces during the battle of Dover, when this novel opens.

All is not well, however. A delegation from China has arrived bearing a demand from the Emperor in China for custody of Temeraire, now that the French cannot have him. However, a dragon-human bond once formed cannot be sundered, and Capt. Laurence is now in big trouble with his government for refusing to lie to Temeraire so as to coerce him to return with the Chinese. Eventually, both go to China, where the plot takes more turns than a dragon in aerial combat.

Of all the variety of dragon mythology I've encountered, Ms Novik's is the most original and entertaining by far. The story has an undercurrent of civil rights, particularly once Temeraire and Laurence see that in China dragons are citizens rather than property, and the various species dwell together in a complex dragon-human society. It raises the question, one I've had before, what if one or two—or several—other human species had survived to the present. In which society, if any, would all species capable of communication be equal citizens? That's a good question to ask someone who has conversed with Koko...