His Majesty's Dragon

I'm puzzled by this novel, which seems in some ways like a children's book, although it gets a bit more adult in its later stages. I don't think it's deliberately aimed at children, though it's hard to be sure. There are references to the sex lives of the aviators, but no sex scenes.

It's a story of bonding between man and dragon in the context of the Napoleonic Wars—an alternative version of the Napoleonic Wars in which all countries have dragons and use them as an air force.

The story makes pleasant enough reading, and I'd normally be willing to give it three stars, but I'm bothered by two gross implausibilities that the author expects us to swallow.

1. Partway through the book, we're told that the dragon Temeraire learned first fluent French and then fluent English by listening to the sounds outside his shell before hatching; so he hatches with full command of both languages. This is not just implausible, it's completely impossible. No-one, not even a dragon, can learn a language just by listening to the sound of it, without ever having seen anything of the world except the inside of an egg. You can't link words to objects and actions when you know nothing of those objects and actions, never having seen them.

2. The dragons clearly have human intelligence, or something very close to it. But they're surprisingly willing to be commanded by humans and to risk their lives in human wars. Temeraire shows traces of scepticism at times, but when needed he goes into battle with the rest. I'd have expected more organization among the dragons in their own interests—a dragon trade union, or perhaps a secret society of dragons, trying to organize a country of their own somewhere.