His Majesty's Dragon

Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon is a blend of historical fiction and fantasy. It is the time of Napoleon and dragons are form a strategic part of the armed services of the major countries. In fact they have been bred for centuries for specific advantageous traits.

The story starts with Captain Laurence of the Royal Navy captures a French ship. On the ship is a large dragon's egg, which his advisers say is about to hatch. Knowing that the dragon will imprint on one of the first people it sees, he and his men draw straws to see who will approach it with a harness. Yet when the beast hatches it goes right to Laurence and speaks to him. Laurence has become the dragon's trainer, to his dismay, and he must give up his position as captain to become part of the air corps.

Laurence names his dragon Temeraire, and together they both learn about dragons and the air corps. They see a local expert who determines that Temeraire is an Imperial, a rare Chinese breed. The two of them are assigned to training. Most of the book is the story of their training as Temeraire gets used to flying in formations, Laurence gets used to a less regimented life, and they both get used to each other. Laurence makes some mistakes, such as interfering with another pilot's dragon, which causes some friction.

The story builds to a concluding battle, with a bit of suspense and treachery to make things interesting. The book is an interesting take on dragons and warfare in the Napoleonic era. There's not a whole lot of action, as a lot of it is exposition describing life as a dragon trainer at the dragon compound. But it works as a fantasy about dragons. The creatures themselves have personalities, and there is a good relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. There is also tension between some of the others, and Temeraire shows some awareness of his awkward position: being both owned by Laurence and having a mind of his own, he could foresee-ably have divided loyalties if either Laurence were to turn against the English or if they were ordered to separate. Overall a fun and amusing story. B+

Thunderstruck

Erik Larson's Thunderstruck is an account of the discovery of radio telegraphy intertwined with an intriguing murder mystery. Larson describes how Guglielmo Marconi invents a system to transmit signals through the air by a system of trial and error. The story of how a murder was solved and the murderer apprehended joins the story of radio in a case that made international headlines.

Marconi did not have any formal scientific training but was both confident in his understanding and obsessive in his tests. Through long hours of testing he was able to send a signal from one end of his lab to the other. Then he sent a signal over a hill. With his confidence high, he traveled to England to find financial backers. He found an immediate colleague in William Preece of the British Post Office. Preece was both knowledgeable and connected, and he saw promise in Marconi's invention. Unfortunately Preece let an agent of Germany view the invention, so the Germans acquire the technology. Marconi files for a patent for his invention and acquires investors. Yet he struggles to gain the one triumph he seeks, to send signals across the Atlantic wirelessly.

The other story follows Hawley Harvey Crippen, a homeopathic doctor who travels to London with his young vivacious wife to help run a patent medicine business. His wife Belle aspires to be an opera singer, though she soon abandons that idea to pursue a career in vaudeville. Despite his support and affection, she begins to resent him. He is short and soft spoken, while she is outgoing, boisterous, and tempestuous. Their marriage deteriorates, and he finds solace in his young assistant Ethel.

As the 1900's progress, Marconi faces difficulties. His devices are sold to shipping companies to allow ships to communicate while at sea, yet he faces competition from others and regulation from the British government. His investors are reluctant to keep financing his plans. He gets engaged, And his grand venture to prove that he can reliably transmit messages across the Atlantic has constant problems.

Harvey and Belle's problems get worse and she keeps threatening to leave. Her friends are shocked one day to discover that she is gone and Crippen says she has gone back to America. Then he tells them that she has died and begins showing up with Ethel, who wears Belle's clothes and jewelry. Some friends talk to Scotland Yard and an inspector comes to talk to Crippen. Crippen confesses that his wife has left him and he has been trying to avoid a scandal. But when he and Ethel disappear, the inspectors dig further and find gruesome evidence.

The ultimate crossing of these stories occurs on a ship on a trans-Atlantic voyage. With the use of Marconi's technology the captain is able to notify the authorities of his suspicions, and the international manhunt focuses on the ship. The case becomes a sensation, and the wireless device is the star. Larson is meticulous in his details and his digressions. I enjoyed the history of radio, especially how Marconi stumbled into his discovery. It was also interesting to learn about how his ideas were copied and became controversial when others said they had already made the same inventions. The story of Crippen and his wife is also riveting, a crime sensation of the early Twentieth century. A-

The Prestige

Christopher Priest's The Prestige is a mysterious thriller set in the late 19th century England, at a time when the popularity of magicians was on the rise. The heart of the story is the rivalry between two magicians, a rivalry that lasts their whole lives and expands to affect their professional careers. The form of the book is that of memoirs written by the two magicians and their descendants in the present day.

In the opening, a young man named Nicholas Borden tells about how he has always felt he had a twin brother out there somewhere. He could sense his brother even though he had always known that he was a single child and all evidence of his birth showed that he had no siblings. When he is sent on assignment as a journalist, he meets a woman named Kate Angier who tells him that she has information about his past. He learns that his great grandfather was Alfred Borden and her great grandfather was Rupert Angier, and that the two men had had a great rivalry over a hundred years earlier.

The story follows in Alfred Borden's memoir. Borden is the son of a cabinet maker and learns the family trade, which helps him make devices for his magical acts. He is an acute student of the art of magic. He assumes the stage name Le Professeur de Magie. Borden discovers that there are unsavory magicians who are holding seances and using magic tricks to fool bereaved families. He sneaks into one such seance and disrupts it, exposing the medium as a fraud. The medium is Rupert Angier, and this starts the bitter feud that will entangle their careers. With the clever use of the form, we do not discover until we read Angier's account why the episode had enraged him so much.

Borden's big trick for his finale is The Transported Man. It is an act where he closes himself into a large cabinet and then immediately steps out of one across the stage. When Angier sees it, he cannot figure it out, and this drives him to distraction. Angier is a premier showman, but he cannot always figure out how magic tricks work, depending on the help of others. The conflict between the two men drives the story, particularly Angier's obsession with Borden's secret.

Angier's memoir follows Borden's, and we learn the other side of the picture. Angier's family is wealthy, though his older brother stands to inherit the estate. He tells of his attempts to disrupt Borden's shows due to his anger, but also his fascination with Borden's tricks. The obsession leads to an affair and the breakup of his marriage. When his mistress tires of him, she tells him she will leave him but give him one last gift, the secret of Borden's trick. When she hands him the note, it has one word on it: Tesla. Thus Angier goes to America to entreat Nikola Tesla to help him create a great trick to match Borden's.

The theme of twins is a critical part of the novel. In addition to Nicholas, there is the question of Alfred Borden's secret. Is Borden's magic trick so all encompassing that he has changed his whole life to make it succeed? And when Angier receives his magic device, there comes the haunting effects of doubling that he must deal with. (I have seen the movie and it is great; though the book is a little different it is also great.) The mystery deepens and gets darker throughout the memoirs. It is truly haunting when you realize what Angier means by the prestige materials. The final section, narrated by Nicholas as he descends to the Angier crypt, is chilling even as it ties his life to that of his ancestor. The mystery of the magicians' secrets makes for an exciting story. A-

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

I've had a copy of John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on my shelf for years waiting for me to read it. With the release of the movie version I decided that I should read the book before going to see the movie. The story was published in 1974 and is a classic Cold War spy novel. But it is not like a 007 novel (I haven't read any Ian Fleming but I'm very familiar with the movies). There are no shootouts or daring escapes, no high stakes card games. The protagonist is not a debonair and sexy secret agent, but a pudgy and middle aged career agent named George Smiley. Smiley has spent time running operations in foreign countries, but was mostly a mid-level manager, and has spent his most recent time semi-retired. Smiley has also had recent marital trouble, which has affected his ability to do his job.

Smiley is called back to help solve a problem at the Circus (the name used for the British intelligence service). It has become clear that there is a serious leak, from a high-level mole they refer to as Gerald. Smiley and a few other old timers are the only ones trusted to figure out who the mole is. Smiley and his associates sneak documents out of the headquarters and try to piece together the movements of the various officials, and figure out what went wrong with failed operations.

One of those failed operations was Operation Witchcraft. It involved the search to acquire a Czech general as an informant. During Operation Witchcraft, career agent Jim Prideaux was shot and captured. Prideaux was questioned and released, but has spent his time since in retirement, teaching at a boys school. Smiley must investigate his own organization and people that he has worked with and trusted for a long time. There's also

Aside from one tense scene at the end when Smiley and his friends are waiting at a safe house for the arrival of the mole, there is little action in the book. Much of the story is told in flashback, as agents and operatives relate to Smiley their pieces of the puzzle. The story has a good feel for Cold War attitudes between East and West and the workings of the foreign intelligence service. But it also has the mood of an older man who is facing the twilight of his career. Smiley is often reflective and we learn about his past through his own flashbacks. The writing is pretty good if a bit dry. While there's little action there is a building sense of suspense as Smiley learns more and more about what's going on at the Circus. The suspense is dark and foreboding, not sharp and thrilling. I think it would be tricky to make into a good movie, but I am eager to see the result. B+

Atonement

I finally got around to listening to the audiobook of Ian McEwan's Atonement. The story begins in 1935 England, at the Tallis estate. Briony Tallis is a 13-year-old girl who is imaginative and outgoing, though a bit naive. Her sister Cecilia is five years older and has been away at Cambridge for the year. Their friend Robbie Turner is the son of their servant, and their father has supported his education ever since Robbie's father disappeared. Robbie has also been at Cambridge, but has barely acknowledged Cecilia, due to the separation of the genders as much as his strong feelings for her and his awkward and unequal relationship to her family. The issue of class is not a major issue in the book, but nevertheless it has its negative effects that are a dark thread throughout.

When Briony sees Cecilia and Robbie in the courtyard acting mysteriously, she invents her own explanation for what she has witnessed. She does not have a positive view of Robbie, and this worsens when she reads a letter that Robbie has given her to give to Cecilia. Robbie has accidentally given her a letter with a crude description of his feelings for Cecilia, so Briony becomes convinced that Robbie is a pervert. Later, when Briony sees her cousin Lola with a boy in the night, she assumes the worst and accuses Robbie of rape. Robbie spends years in prison based only on Briony's invented testimony, and becomes estranged from the whole Tallis family. Only Cecilia, seeing through Briony's mistake, maintains his friendship.

The story jumps forward five years to Robbie in the army in France, retreating to the coast with the German army on their heels. Robbie witnesses death and destruction, and he must make choices regarding his survival and his duty. One such choice is when he and his two friends rescue an English pilot who is being mobbed by angry soldiers accusing him of not protecting them. Here Robbie's actions stand in stark contrast to the actions made against him when he was falsely accused. He seems determined that others will not suffer needlessly. Robbie makes it out of France and back to England where he reunites with Cecily. Briony, now eighteen and a nursing student, must suddenly take care of a flood of wounded English soldiers. She takes a moment to visit Cecilia and spends an awkward time with her and Robbie. Briony is contrite about her role in Robbie's suffering but does not know how to make amends.

The last part is where the novel goes from being a good story to being an inventive literary novel. It is sixty years later and Briony is a successful author. She is looking back on her life and the wrong that she did to Robbie and Cecilia. She still does not know how she could fix things, but at least she understands the circumstances and what led her to her incorrect assumptions. In her wish to make it up to Robbie, we see that the novel itself is her creation. It is more than a need to air the truth after decades: the novel becomes an alternate story for Robbie with a better ending. The story is reflective and reflexive, the author McEwan has inserted Briony as another author between himself and the text. Briony stands in as the author's alter ego, and is able in the text to comment on the text itself. It is the finest form of paying back to the characters, as she actually rewrites the story to create a happy ending that never could have been. We see Briony's transformation from a naive and self-important girl to graceful woman who has not forgotten her biggest mistake. McEwan's writing is already good enough; we live inside the three major characters and feel their emotions and understand their point of view. The story is filled with scenes and characters that all contribute to make a complete story. The reflection at the end is more than a summary or commentary of the rest of the story; it creates a new sense of what is possible. The novel is book-ended by a play within a play--Briony's creation--providing the lens with which to view the story. It is enjoyable on all layers. A