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Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleanic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain's defense by taking to the skies...not aboard aircraft but atop the might backs of fighting dragons.

When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future -- and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarefied world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

I loved Naomi Novik's dragons. It is always interesting to see a different author's take on the fabled creatures. She wrote hers with grace. Novik's dragons are strong, intelligent (well some are anyway) and incredibly charming. However, I feel like she spent so much time creating these dragons who interact in this war-time environment that....well, she didn't have enough time left over for other development. We get to know both Captain Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire, well. Beyond them, there is little-to-no character depth. The fight scenes are slightly hard to follow in the minute military details, but they are still exhilirating. It is such a fresh perspective to imagine dragons used as legitimate means of war. I also felt that those same fight scenes were over as quickly as they began. I am not sure I would actually want them to be any longer, but the feeling I had was that they were very abrupt encounters.

I thought that the rigidity with which Laurence adhered to codes of honor was beginning to get old, but seemingly at the right moment it was brought up less often. He was hard to enjoy for how quick he was to defend his honor and that of others, but he does relax some.

I feel like Ms. Novik wanted to write Temeraire as a female dragon, but for her self-imposed limitation that female dragons want female riders, and a male protagonist had been chosen. Too often I felt like I read exchanges between Temeraire and Laurence as male-to-female interaction only to be reminded of Temeraire's gender a moment later. It might have been how frequently Laurence called him "My dear."

It may just be the dragon lover within me that enjoyed this new take, but the book was still entertaining. It is the inaugural installment in a series that I will continue to read. I am hoping for additional character development and maybe some closure in my battle scenes, but I won't hold my breath.

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