Napoleon, but with Dragons

Last week was the birthday of one of my best friends' son. He's newly minted 13 and very into dragon books. Knowing this ahead of time, I started digging about looking for acceptable dragon books for a 13 year old boy.

This was a lot harder than seems necessary.

So much of the fiction with dragons these days is...smut. Really, that's the word for it. I would say likely not appropriate for the women who read it, let alone a 13 year old boy.

After a bit of back and forth with my friend, I ended up sending him the Harper Hall Trilogy from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books. Those are some of my favorites and they are geared to be middle grade, as opposed to the bulk of Pern which is definitely adult. (Super tame by today's standards, but as this family likes to avoid sexual themes and LGBTQ+ stuff (which works itself into all the MG and YA these days), Pern is still out for a while. Though I do plan to re-read The White Dragon. If I recall correctly, it should be acceptable, and given that the hero is a young teen, I think the son might really enjoy it, too.)

But in my searching, I also stumbled upon His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik and I was intrigued enough to grab it, thinking I'd read through it myself first to see if it would pass and then ship one off as a bonus gift if it passed.

It did.

It was also wonderful.

It centers around a Navy man aboard a frigate during the Napoleonic Wars -- except that this alternate world has dragons as air ships that are part of the fight. So, his frigate catches a French ship and a big part of their prize is a dragon egg. One that hatches before they reach a good port, and so the captain ends up becoming the dragon's captain. (There's more to it than that, but it's a bond between man and dragon that is reminiscent of Pern. Except these dragons speak aloud.)

Honestly, it's been so long since a new-to-me book brought such joy.

I also loved that the writing itself has the flavor and language of sea-faring books. In fact, it reminded me quite a bit of reading Master and Commander and others of that ilk. Just with the additional fun of dragons. Because really, who doesn't want a dragon?

I've already picked up book two of the nine in the series and am hopeful that the whole series will prove appropriate for my friend's son in addition to me.

As for historical correctness, I don't know enough about the history to say if it's accurate or not. Obviously, any battles where the dragons cinch a win are not historically accurate, but did Napoleon try to cross the channel and land on the shores of Great Britain? I know not. But I enjoyed reading about it as a possibility.

With dragons.