There are certain kinds of book that my eyes no longer see on the bookstore shelf. For example, as soon as I realize that this is the fourth book in an epic fantasy series I’ve never heard of, by an author I’ve never heard of, involving plots and characters of the sort I’m all too familiar with, my eyes slide right on past. Similarly, though I’m very fond of dragons I have become suspicious about books or series involving dragons; the chance of finding anything really new is small, and the chance of finding something trite, tired, or painfully twee is large. Consequently, I’d never looked at His Majesty’s Dragon, never even spent a moment glancing at it.

A friend urged it on me again this summer, and I finally picked up a copy…and when I opened it was enthralled until late that evening, when I turned the last page.

The premise is almost too silly for words. It is the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the precise era of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. (Novik is also a fan of Patrick O’Brian.) England and France are fighting on land, on sea, and…in the air. On dragon back. Both countries have an elite aviation corps based on their nation’s breeds of dragon. There are many different kinds, from small, quick breeds used for courier duties to enormous breeds who fly with a full crew, carrying bombs and rifleman in addition to their own offensive weapons: claws, teeth, and (in some cases) fire or acid.

Our hero is a frigate captain who captures a French ship with a dragon egg on board. Securing such eggs is vastly important to the war effort: England needs every dragon she can get, and as it is likely a French breed it can bring new blood into England’s dragon-breeding efforts. However, the egg is about to hatch. The newly-hatched dragon must be “harnessed” immediately—”impressed”, in the language of Anne McCaffrey, though Novik doesn’t use that word—or it will be feral, and of no use except possibly for breeding. Naturally our hero is the one the dragon chooses, much to our hero’s dismay; now, through no choice of his own, he must leave his beloved navy and become an aviator.

This is not a deep or serious book, and Novik is no O’Brian. She occasionally slips in her knowledge of the age of sail; at one point she refers to a transport ship as being so enormous and drawing so much water that it cannot even enter the harbor; then she spoils it by saying the transport draws 20 feet. But I know from other reading I’ve done recently that Old Ironsides, the USS Constitution, draws about that, or a little more, and Old Ironsides is just a heavy frigate. But Novik spins a fine yarn, the perfect book for a summer evening, and I’ve lost no time in acquiring the two sequels.