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+

Ship of Destiny

Final installments of a series can be tricky. The author has to wrap up the storyline for multiple books and also provide a story enjoyable in its own right. Ship of Destiny is the third book in the Liveship Traders trilogy. Robin Hobb does a great job with this final book. The threads of the previous two books come together in delightfully unexpected ways.

At the start of the book, there are several new circumstances that have an enormous impact on the rest of the trading world. The dragon Tintaglia has hatched and discovered she is the last of her kind. The sea serpents have gathered together to look for She Who Remembers, who is the only serpent who can lead them to their hatching grounds where they can cocoon themselves and turn into dragons. Wintrow has been scarred by She Who Remembers and is in a coma, while the pirate Captain Kennit has discovered that he has a power over the serpents.

Meanwhile, Althea and Brashen are taking the liveship Paragon to look for Captain Kennit and rescue Vivacia and any crew aboard her. After a short stint in Divvytown where they try to bluff their way as pirates, they sail around near the port waiting for Kennit. Kennit, already warned, is ready for them. With a little help from the serpents, he handily defeats Paragon, then sets the ship afire with the crew inside. Althea manages to survive and get picked up by Vivacia. But Althea is unhappy to be on her ship. It is no longer the Vivacia that she remembered and had such a close connection to. The memories of the dragon, who had been cocooned in the wizardwood before it was cut up to make the ship, have awakened in her, and Vivacia has rejected her incarnation as a ship.

Althea's niece Malta starts the story floating down the poisonous Rain Wild River in a boat with the Satrap, the ruler of the land. When they are picked up by a Chalcedean boat, she accepts that she must serve the spoiled boy in order to survive. Like the first two books, there is character growth throughout this novel. In the first novel, Althea realizes how childish she has been toward her family. In the second book, Malta gets her comeuppance and starts to discover her inner strength. In the third book, Malta continues to grow and realize her skills as a negotiator while she maneuvers the Satrap and the pirates who capture them. The Satrap himself finally begins to emerge from his self-centered personality just a little, and realizes how he as been manipulated and how much Malta is doing for him.

The threads of the story come together in a final climactic battle. The Satrap is a powerful man but he becomes a pawn in the hands of the pirates as the tide of battle sways back and forth. The relationships shift as Wintrow and Kennit become closer, making Kennit's woman Etta jealous; Vivacia is a wild card, shifting between her dragon identity and her Vestrit memories. Kennit doesn't so much grow as reveal his true self. Wintrow becomes disillusioned with the man he has come to idolize. But the true reveal is the relationship between Captain Kennit and the mad ship Paragon. This secret history proves to be a central driver of the whole series.

My only displeasure with the book is the way characters get lost in thought only to be suddenly brought back by another character's words. Aside from that, the characters do explore their innermost thoughts and feelings. The struggles they feel are personal and social, reaching across their society. The book has the distinction of dealing with existing story lines while introducing fun surprises along the way. None of the surprises seem forced but are integral to the whole story arc. As a whole, the series is one of the best I've read. A

Mad Ship

Mad Ship is the second book in Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy. In this sequel, the Vestrit family's liveship Vivacia comes under the sway of Kennit, the pirate who captured her at the end of the first book. Instead of becoming resentful, Vivacia embraces her new captain. While Kennit and Vivacia come to admire each other, their emotions and memories entwined through the magic of the wizardwood, jealousy grows in Kennit's girlfriend and Wintrow--Vivacia's only family member on board. Though Wintrow is possessive of the ship, he comes to regard Kennit as a strong father figure, ironically with more compassion than his own father chained in a cabin. Wintrow urges Kennit to get rid of his father, and Kennit obliges by imprisoning him on an island. This part of the book is the most intriguing, with the characters growing and their allegiances shifting. Kennit uses his pirate tactics as part of a bigger plan to eliminate the slave trade and make the lives of refugees better, and Vivacia is drawn to him for that. Wintrow still sees him as a murderous pirate, but comes to see him more like Vivacia, partly thanks to the bond they all share.

Meanwhile back at Bingtown, Wintrow's sister Malta starts a journey from being a spoiled girl to a strong woman, much like Althea's transformation in the first book. At first she only wants her father to come home to give her everything that the rest of her family won't. When Althea come home on another liveship, Malta and the Vestrit family are scandalized. Althea agrees to live a more domestic life, but then Brashen comes to give the family the news that their ship has been captured and Malta's father and brother may or may not be alive. This is a wake-up call for Malta. At first she tries to use her feminine charms to convince her old beau to help her, then to convince the Rain Wild Trader man who has been courting her. She comes to realize the depth of the politics involved, and how little others can help her.

The Satrap of Jamaillia, who is nominally the ruler of Bingtown, is convinced by his platonic consort Serilla to visit the town to make peace. Serilla is tired of the Satrap's weakness and venality, and she hopes to escape from him in Bingtown. But on the voyage she discovers that the foreign ships he has escorting them are planning some sort of coup or attack. She manages to get the Satrap into Bingtown and in the care of the traders there, but a riot breaks out and the town is burned, presumably by the foreign forces. Malta's courter Reyn seizes the Satrap and takes him to the Rain Wild city up the river, though Malta is injured in the process.

Reyn has become under the sway of the last dragon in a wooden egg buried under the city. It is the dragon eggs that are the secret source of the wizardwood: the large eggs contain the memories of dragon ancestors, and they store the memories of Liveship families and crew then create an illusion of consciousness in the figurehead out of the memories. However, the serpents that track the ships and eat the bodies thrown overboard are in fact young forms of dragons that have lost their memories and their ability to transform into adults. But at the same time that Malta helps rescue the last dragon from her ancient egg, Wintrow rescues the serpent with memories from its prison.

While the story starts off slow, there is a lot of dramatic tension as the Vestrit family struggles even before discovering the fate of the ship. It is interesting to see Malta grow as her aunt did in the previous book, but even more dramatically. The relationship between Althea and Brashen continues to grow as they take command of the liveship Paragon, which has long been mad. We discover a clue to its madness in its creation: it was manufactured from multiple dragon eggs which must have added too many conflicting memories. There is a lot of interesting politics in Bingtown and between that city and Jamaillia, though the Satrap is not as interesting as he could be due to his weakness. It is good that Serilla is with him to be both stronger and more interesting.

There is a shift in power from the older generation to the younger, as Reyn starts to take some control and Malta takes charge of her life. As the story progresses, different elements start to coalesce to make a satisfying conclusion, as well as a strong hook to the next book in the series. B+