Temeraire

[erastes]

So, I've nearly finished Temeraire and I'm probably about to make myself really unpopular. 

I really liked the fact that it's just about "Hornblower with Dragons" that nothing has been changed except for that one salient fact. The customs, the language, the behaviour of the people, all that sort of thing has stayed consistent to the time. This leads to some of the truly hilarious sections, especially when it comes to Laurence's reaction to female aviators, Temeraire's innocent questions about whores and Captain Roland's offer to provide Laurence with a son--all of which had me snorting with the giggles.

I was touched by the love Laurence and Temeraire grew to have - and I love Temeraire's way of thinking, a veritable "Jacobin" as Laurence calls him.

But - and I do realise that this might be covered in later books, and I will continue to read, I'm not very convinced with the whole Dragon brigade thing.

I think that with Spec-fic if you are going to do something like this, you need to really think of all aspects and make it clear why--for example--the Roman Empire failed if they had dragons. Why Alexander didn't? Many wars were fought with dragons, so how is it - if england has the lesser stock, are we so powerful?  Give me some reason to believe your backstory, please.

If dragons had been domesticated since Roman times surely to goodness more would be known about them? It's not like the Galapagos where someone has just noticed that finches have all sorts of beaks, we are talking 1000s of years here. And why - if they do, as I say, this may be explained later - do they only fight over the ships? Surely if you've got some humongous creature of 30 tons or thereabouts, wouldn't it be good to land in the middle of - for example - Napoleons personal guard, or on Napoleons tent and eat him?  All I could think of was poor Sharpe and Welllington struggling their way across the Peninsular, and they could have done with a dragon. And that's not a euphemism.

There were also some Americanisms that I could have done without, which I was surprised that no-one had noticed, the dragon asks if he can go and wash up (wash his face, he meant) and I was chortling, because I was imagining how he'd look with his hands in the kitchen sink, cleaning up the plates and glasses, which is what it means in England.

Frankly so far (and I have 2 chapter to go, so things might alter) I'm finding Laurence wearingly dreary.  He's so bloody GOOD.  I mean - YES, make him the hero. Make him full of duty, make him loyal beyond reason - all of which is covered, he's all of that. But he's so bloody saintly, I just want to smack him around the po-face.  Where's the attraction in a pure stuffed shirt?  I look at Laurence, and then I look at Eddard Stark - who are quite similar characters on the surface but scratch that surface and you see the differences. Eddard is blinded by his love for Robert, trusting almost beyond belief but the mistakes he makes - and he makes so many! - are what he believes to be right, and it's his downfall.  I never feel any conflict or fear for Laurence - he's rolling in money, his dragon wuvs him, and vice-versa, and he's Gary Stu to the nth degree when it comes to How To Fight A Dragon, learning in six months what it takes six years for normal mortals to learn.  He's too bloody perfect, and just making him a bit embarrassed around more liberal minds doesn't make him appealing.  Eddard would never have left Levitas to suffer, no matter how dutiful he was, and I thought a lot less of Laurence for doing that.

Anyway - as I say, things might improve, so I shall read on, and get the next book and see what happens.

Talking of dragons! Campino doesn't need a click because he's grown, but just wanted to show him off.

Comments

[mzcalypso.livejournal.com]

What do their dragons eat? In the wunnerful-sweet-dragon genre, my disbelief is always unsuspended by the tonnage-on-the-hoof that would be required to keep an elephant-sized reptile alive. It was hard enough keeping food enough to feed a ship full of crew; where the blazes would they store the Dragon Chow?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Livestock - and now you've tickled a memory, I think Lamasu broached this query. The dragons don't live on the ships, they are bigger than the ships, they live in "coverts" on the shore. They breed cattle and sheep to feed them by the shedload.

Not sure how they follow convoys yet - that hasn't been explained - they have messenger dragons who fly from a ship/battle to call for help and then a "formation" sets off to assist.

[mzcalypso.livejournal.com]

ps .. Campino is a bit of a drag(on) queen, isn't he? I like the green toenail polish.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Isn't he just? I love the mane, too!

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

I won't spoil things for you but lot of your questions about history and the specifics of draconian warfare will be covered in later books. Laurence will continue to be an uptight arse to some extent, but he gets better, and you could argue that the development of the novels is basically How Laurence Learns To Be Less Of A Pompous Twerp. It's all kinds of fun. :)

One of the things I liked best about the later books is the way we are shown that this world is not quite familiar, although at first it seemed to have been.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh - that sounds promising - and it was her first book, so I'll carry on, intrigued! Thanks!

[aunty_marion]

Yes - I've got the first two books (and have read bits of book 3 while standing in a bookshop), and more is explained later. I'm looking forward to being able to afford to treat myself to the rest of the series, but thanks to Toothache, that may be a few months yet instead of for my birthday as I'd hoped. Looks like my 'birthday present' to myself this year will be several hundred quid of root canal treatment...

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

He's a lovely dragon indeed. Sort of like a red, leafy zebra : )

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

By the time you get to the fourth book, the world has proved to be hellovalot strange and different from ours. And while Laurence remains both stuffy and ultranice, he gets some really serious moral issues to deal with, and some, y'know, personal conflict.

Your Campino looks like a Christmas dragon, the child of a holly ornament and a striped cane (obviously not candy canes in the UK, can't remember what they are), and rather like a hippogriff. Cute!

Icon is my personal dragon.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Laurence is probably my biggest problem with this series too. I think I'm in a minority in hoping they hang the stinking traitor at the end of 'Empire of Ivory'. But she hasn't really let anyone else develop enough so that I can transfer my affection and allegiance to them, and enjoy the books for their sake. It's very much the Laurence or nothing show.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Stinking Traitor? OMG!

I've been thinking about him and ..is he Lord John's son or something do you think? He's certainly doing the Bland Dance as far as I'm concerned. The only time he came alive was when he shouted at his lieutenant for being discourteous. then it all went bland again.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be too excited. He's a stinking traitor because he's just too noble and humanitarian to allow enemy dragons to die, despite the fact that they are goddamn huge killing machines, in a state of active war against the people he has sworn to protect, and his own country's stock of dragon defenders have been decimated. Way to hand victory to Napoleon, you total arse!

(Sorry - I believe that we are supposed to admire Laurence's fine principles at this point. But the part where he's handed victory on a platter to the man who wants to invade my country kind of put a crimp in my objectivity there.)

I loved her Nelson, though, even if he is set up as the villain of the piece in comparison to Laurence.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

stop spoiling me, already!!!!!

is it explained why someone hasn't eaten Napoleon? You can spoil me about that, if you like. If Napoleon can sneak French dragons into Scotland then why can't English dragons (e.g. Temeraire because that's what he wants, already) sneak into France and scoff the Nap? *crunch*

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

*g* Sorry! I was as general and vague as I could be, though I admit that isn't much.

I kind of assume that Napoleon has air cover wherever he goes, though I can't remember if it's actually stated anywhere.

Also: warning - Prussian troop movements in volume 2. There's obviously something about writing about the Napoleonic wars that leads good authors to spend half a book being really boring about Prussian troop movements.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's so TRUE!! Cornwell did it, and my mother studied the Austrian-Prussian wars for her thesis and GOD was that BORING.

I would have liked a lot less description of hooks and harness and aerial movements and a bit more explanation of the crew positions - one minute there was no crew and suddenly there was lots of people riding Temeraire and no explanation as to the hierachy.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

And also, this is a problem with many things, I find. The author loves their creation SO MUCH that she forces them down the reader's throat LOVE MY CHARACTER HE'S LOVELY not seeing that we're not really very impressed. R T Davies did it with Rose, Gabaldon does it with John Grey. We buy into the series, whether book or tv because the plot is interesting, but lose heart when the character doesn't evolve, although that's unfair because I havent even finished book one yet. I just don't like a Stu, and brother, is he one, so far, at least.

Fitz from the Farseer books is, for me, a much better character because he's fatally flawed in so many ways. He has a lot of good points, but sheesh, he makes so many mistakes and that's perfect because that's real live. He's got UBER gifts and can't use them properly, and never does - fucks up left right and centre. I really applaud Hobb (for all that I dislike much of what she posts about) for creating a real, HUMAN man with all the good and the bad.

I've just seen your icon and am falling off my chair.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I think that's a real problem with this series. I liked Granby, but he gets much less airtime in the next books to the point where he loses any personality he might have had. I liked Riley (?) too (Laurence's 2iC in the Navy?) but in later books he gets down-played as the voice of stupid prejudice and everything nasty. And none of the other characters gets enough air-time to present any sort of challenge to Laurence as *the* hero, which makes the fact that Laurence is so very bland and modern and perfect so much less easy to work around. I love the idea, and I love many of the things she's done later in world-building terms, but there's something very plastic-history/modern right in the centre of it all, and as far as I can see it's Laurence.

*g* I've been constructively using my last day of holiday to upload new icons :)

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought that about Laurence, but you are right. The problem is that I do love the world and the world-building quite a bit (particularly when we see China, and how the dragons live there! compared to England) and Temeraire is just such a cool character, as are all the dragons we get to meet, in their own ways. I admit that I kind of skim all the land-battle stuff, so even though I have the new novel (the fourth one) I haven't read it through totally (though I AM hoping Napoleon gets eaten, too!) -- just enough to know that the series will continue. I'm VERY curious to see if Laurence will change with his actions and the consequences, though.