His Majesty's Dragon

"His Majesty's Dragon"
Naomi Novik
Temeraire Series
Historical Fantasy

Summary
In an alternate history where dragons are used in war as there own form of aerial combat. Napoleon is trying to take over all of Europe and England is one of the last countries standing against them.

Capt. Will Laurence commander of the ship Reliant captures a French ship on its way back from china. On board the french ship, Laurence finds a dragon egg, but unluckily the egg is about to hatch. If a dragon hatches and is not bonded to a rider at birth then it becomes wild.

Because of the war with France, England needs all the dragons it can get. So when the dragon hatches and chooses Laurence for his rider he accepts and most now rider his new partner Temeraire for king and country, but to do that he most leave everything he knows behind and fly for England.

As his life changes Will finds that he loves flying and he loves his dragon Temeraire and although he was not born to this life like most riders he finds that he is born to it.

Review
This book follows the Napoleonic wars and is historically correct up to the dragons part. The level of research and knowledge in the book makes it a really interesting read and helps to make the world more real and believable for the reader.

The way the dragons are described in the book and the combat used in the book by the dragon riders is not only cool but is also very believable. Throughout the book the writer pulls the reader with exciting events and interesting facts.

The writer does take a lot of time to explain things that are interesting but it does sometimes slow down the plot and makes the book move more slowly. Over all the this is the only weakness of the book and its not really a large weakness.

I would give this book an 8.25