Black Powder War

Front Cover
Harper Voyager, 2007 - Fiction - 341 pages
The dragons, used by the British for aerial support in battle, are fully sentient beings of wide-ranging variety, from small speedy couriers that carry a single man to behemoths whose crews and outfitting recall those of World War-era fighter planes. Their affection for their captains is fervent and undying, beginning from the moment when the dragon hatches and beholds the man—or, in some cases, woman—chosen to be his or her lifelong companion. Temeraire hatches out of a Chinese egg captured from a French ship by the British Navy. Captain Will Laurence knows how valuable such a dragon is and that it must be matched with a rider to prevent it going feral; boldly and selflessly, he gives up his Naval career to become Temeraire's captain and bring him into the Aerial Corps. Fortunately, this turns out to be an extremely smart decision. By British standards, Temeraire is a highly unusual dragon, almost a draconian Mary Sue: he's beautiful and brilliant, comes from a strange foreign land, speaks multiple languages with ease, and has martial abilities that no one in the Commonwealth has ever encountered.

About the author (2007)

Naomi Novik was born in New York on April 30, 1973. She received a Bachelor's degree in English literature at Brown University and a Master's degree in Computer Science from Columbia University. She participated in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. Her first novel, His Majesty's Dragon, was published in 2006 and was the start of the Temeraire series. She has won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her book, Uprooted, won the 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

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