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jackI enjoyed Temeraire very much. "Napoleonic war with dragons" says it all, if you don't want to read it now, you never will[1]. However, it is carried by this premise: it's of calibre of fan-fiction.
So what are some people smoking? Go on, I dare your blood-pressure, go and look at the amazon reviews. "For the above reasons [fantasy being an overcrowded field, with lots of Tolkien plagiarism and lots of juvenile nonsense about Elves and Wizards] I am not a fan of Robin Hobb, and to liken Novik to Hobb is to demean Novik in my opinion."
Now, all good/great books are heavily flawed, and as I said, I enjoyed Temeraire. And books that just aren't good I just ignore. But I don't see how you can pretend it's well-thought out. And Hobb isn't perfect either. And I'm very very far from perfect. But things that other, good, authors, including Hobb, do and Novik doesn't:
* Characters. People who have motivations and opinions, and you care about. I like Laurence and Temeraire, but it's not like they had any dimension, and the other characters barely existed. I often wanted to slap Fitz, but I liked him for the same reason, and all the characters in that world were interesting.
* Eg. Celeritas, the the dragon training master. Right, great idea. And I like him. But personality, anyone? If you lived in a world where dragons ruled, and most humans were partnered with a dragon to be useful in war, and humans were bread to love their partners regardless of abuse, and you were in charge of a training school, with a free hand and authority over everyone in it, and one dragon consistently neglected his human, would you
(a) provide basic care and cleanliness to the human, and forbid the dragon from preventing other humans and dragons from helping and making friends with him?
(b) not?
Fine, not allowing someone else to do (a) can make sense, military discipline, etc, but for God's sake, do something! Don't make the protagonist run round your back to do the right thing.
* Any sort of suspense or doubt. I'm sure it's a spoiler to tell you that Temeraire turns out to be the most bestest dragon anywhere. If it weren't obvious from the first chapter. All the various risks, problems, danger, etc, just go away in a few pages, and it's obvious they're going to do so.
* I *like* fluff, but fluff isn't where you easily save the world. It's where, with much difficulty, you win a talent contest.
* Science. An appendix has a stab at explaining how dragons work, and all the various breeds, for which I'm grateful, and is written very well. It's superficially plausible, in that if you squint hard, you could imagine it could be like that.
But anyone who attended school to the age of nine or beyond should be able to spot the hand-waving. It's asserted that a large dragon might have an average weight of 10 tonnes, but have more like 30 tonnes of flesh, offset by air sacks containing buoyant gases. Which is a good idea.
But that makes 20 tonnes of buoyancy. Flesh has a density ~ 1000kg/m3 and air of 1kg/m3, being the maximum possible buoyancy. A reasonable proportion for the volume of a dragon devoted to air sacks might be 50%, but that implied is 60,000%. You'd think someone would notice.
[1] That's hyperbole, but probably a fair and accurate description: some of you won't want to read it now, and won't ever want to read it. See the next paragraph.
So what are some people smoking? Go on, I dare your blood-pressure, go and look at the amazon reviews. "For the above reasons [fantasy being an overcrowded field, with lots of Tolkien plagiarism and lots of juvenile nonsense about Elves and Wizards] I am not a fan of Robin Hobb, and to liken Novik to Hobb is to demean Novik in my opinion."
Now, all good/great books are heavily flawed, and as I said, I enjoyed Temeraire. And books that just aren't good I just ignore. But I don't see how you can pretend it's well-thought out. And Hobb isn't perfect either. And I'm very very far from perfect. But things that other, good, authors, including Hobb, do and Novik doesn't:
* Characters. People who have motivations and opinions, and you care about. I like Laurence and Temeraire, but it's not like they had any dimension, and the other characters barely existed. I often wanted to slap Fitz, but I liked him for the same reason, and all the characters in that world were interesting.
* Eg. Celeritas, the the dragon training master. Right, great idea. And I like him. But personality, anyone? If you lived in a world where dragons ruled, and most humans were partnered with a dragon to be useful in war, and humans were bread to love their partners regardless of abuse, and you were in charge of a training school, with a free hand and authority over everyone in it, and one dragon consistently neglected his human, would you
(a) provide basic care and cleanliness to the human, and forbid the dragon from preventing other humans and dragons from helping and making friends with him?
(b) not?
Fine, not allowing someone else to do (a) can make sense, military discipline, etc, but for God's sake, do something! Don't make the protagonist run round your back to do the right thing.
* Any sort of suspense or doubt. I'm sure it's a spoiler to tell you that Temeraire turns out to be the most bestest dragon anywhere. If it weren't obvious from the first chapter. All the various risks, problems, danger, etc, just go away in a few pages, and it's obvious they're going to do so.
* I *like* fluff, but fluff isn't where you easily save the world. It's where, with much difficulty, you win a talent contest.
* Science. An appendix has a stab at explaining how dragons work, and all the various breeds, for which I'm grateful, and is written very well. It's superficially plausible, in that if you squint hard, you could imagine it could be like that.
But anyone who attended school to the age of nine or beyond should be able to spot the hand-waving. It's asserted that a large dragon might have an average weight of 10 tonnes, but have more like 30 tonnes of flesh, offset by air sacks containing buoyant gases. Which is a good idea.
But that makes 20 tonnes of buoyancy. Flesh has a density ~ 1000kg/m3 and air of 1kg/m3, being the maximum possible buoyancy. A reasonable proportion for the volume of a dragon devoted to air sacks might be 50%, but that implied is 60,000%. You'd think someone would notice.
[1] That's hyperbole, but probably a fair and accurate description: some of you won't want to read it now, and won't ever want to read it. See the next paragraph.