everything is better with dragons

(Real life is deeply, profoundly sucky. Do not wish to talk about it. Except to those people to whom I have talked about it at nauseating length, for which I am truly sorry, but grateful.)

In other news. Things everyone ought to do: read Master and Commander and Temeraire in quick succession. The thing is, this is totally not my genre at all. Despite my oft-expressed desire to run away to sea, I am actually not really on board with the whole piratical genre (is that a word? I think I've made it up) and did not really like Pirates of the Caribbean and its successors. And equally, I am not good with novels of the sea generally, or historical novels, mainly because I'm not entirely sure I see the appeal. I like spaceships more than history. But Aubrey and Maturin going to sea, and bickering, and Not Getting Drunk, and That Is Totally Medicinal Honest, and bickering some more, and sighing after each other, and then there being a nice digression into rigging! and masts! and topgallants! and mainbraces and the splicing thereof! and then suddenly a ship comes in from nowhere and there is a battle and a boarding and a claiming of swords, and then more sighing, and then someone drinks the wine out of Maturin's asp (Not A Euphemism Honest) and it is the most joyous 400 pages I have read in a long while.

In all seriousness, I don't think Master and Commander works as a novel, because although the characters are wonderfully drawn, Maturin particularly, quirks and nuances and interior monologues of joy and wonder, backstory and all, nothing much seems to be done with them. The plot is mostly sea battles and other diversions, and is great fun, but does not do much beyond immerse you thoroughly into the world. Which, it must be said, it does excellently - I don't think I actually am criticising here. I love the small details, the gleeful touches of humour, and probably if I had read the book at a more formative age I would be even more on board the running-away-to-sea bandwagon.

And then, of course, I had read this, and then I read the first chapter of Temeraire online, and actually understood what was going on: there was a ship, there was a captain, there was a boarding and a stealing of swords, it was all very swashbuckling and such, and then the mysterious prize turns out to be a dragon and all bets are off. (I devoured the rest of it in one go last night.) Why, I ask you, did no one make me read this before? Why did no one put it in my hands and say, "Iona, read this, read this now" in a kindly yet stern fashion? Because it is just wonderful. I guess it is an alternate history of some type, English history changed because both sides in the Napoleonic Wars have, as they have had throughout recorded history, enormous dragons crewed by aviators as part of their armed forces, and I suppose that is all very interesting, but mostly, they are great fun. The world is populated so well, and Temeraire, the eponymous dragon, is hilarious and kind of adorable, and his handler is one of those lovely instances of a POV character you actually like. And, as another bonus, the female characters are really well done, have clearly been actively considered and drawn with personalities that arise as a natural consequence of the world they live in, and I am just totally smitten with the concept.

Moving on. In other news altogether. One may remember that I am incapable of doing anything by halves. Which is to say, I came within a whisper of failing my European Union exam - thankfully not resit level of fail, but got a first in contract law. I'm not really sure what to make of this. Unfortunately my parents now think I could get a first overall, and I wish they wouldn't; it's just setting them up for further disappointment.

God, I wish I really could run away to sea. Or join the French Foreign Legion. Or start a circus with hathy_col and some lions poached from Knowsley Safari Park.

Edited to add I love hathy_col dearly and did not mean to imply she should be a circus exhibit.