everything is better with dragons

[raven]

(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.

Comments

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Am about to run off. But! Apparently there is, or soon will be, internet at home - I won't be back til lateish but can snuggle you on gchat/phone after that. Also squee about the total total love of Jack and Stephen.

*noms your face*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You can has internet *big soppy ex-wife grin* And omg their love, it is SO PURE.

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

Whee dragons! \o/ Isn't it exciting? Wait till you get to books 3,4 and 5 and Laurence's further awkward homosocial adventures! And Tharkay! There is much porn that needs to be written about these characters. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I am halfway through book two now, and the study of the law is sadly suffering...

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on passing both exams, and especially on the contract law result. Perhaps your parents should be sent a Chill Pill will a side order of Reasonable Expectations?

I have never read either Master and Commander or Temeraire, so can't comment beyond the general 'yay dragons!' level.

I am, however, now trying to work out what performance name hathy_col would use were she a circus exhibit.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

"See Lady Lazy, the amazing girl of procrastination! MARVEL as she avoids all form of work but has a very clean house! GASP IN WONDER as she uses her powers of persuasion for evil to tell tutors that she's done her reading! BE AMAZED that she hasn't yet been thrown out of university!"

Any other suggestions welcome. I love the idea that I'd be a circus exhibit. (Plan A involves being a trapeze artist called Giselle in a sparkly green catsuit. I have a fear of heights and no experience on the trapeze. IT'LL BE FUN.)

[amchau.livejournal.com]

She does MIRACULOUS amounts of PROCRASTINATION!

I think you'd be a hit. I'd certainly go to that circus (probably when I ought to be writing an essay). Perhaps I'd even join it-- I'd like to be one of those jugglers who sets fire to the sticks first. (I like fire but can't juggle to save my life. I can only barely throw and catch one thing at a time.)

(Now I'm thinking that loneraven's top hat (she is the ringmaster, of course) should be tall enough to hide a fire extinguisher underneath. I suspect I am overthinking this.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) I think you would like both of them very much, actually: especially Temeraire, which is mad inventive and just fabulous.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I shall look out for it next time I am book-shopping.

[msilverstar]

Your description of Master & Commander is great, brings back memories...

The series is uneven, a bit episodic, but most of the next fourteen or so have more novelistic structure. The last ones, he was writing for fans...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

shimgray has all of them, just about, so I imagine life will be rife with sea-stories for a while yet... :)

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

There is a book about dragons and the Napoleonic Wars and them being things that happen at the same time and no one told me?

I love the idea that I'd be a circus exhibit. Mostly, though, I'm trying to work out how we're going to steal the lions now that I don't have a tankmy old car anymore.

First-year exams after six months of learning always through up squiffy results. The fact is you passed, and that's what counts, so congratulations on that!

(edited due to my fail at HTML.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

This is me telling you! Read them if you can! I will send you a copy, even! It is that great.

(I want a lion. We should steal a lion and, I don't know, put it on the roof of the car tied down with string. Or would that be bad?)

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Maybe duct tape, instead of string? Duct tape secures nigh on anything to, well, anything, so it should work?

(And if not, we're absolutely gauranteed a Darwin Award.)

[stained_glass]

The Aubreyad just makes me so happy in my heart and soul. Stephen is my favourite character of all literature ever.

(Sorry, saw this on Friend's Friends page, and GOD, I love the Aubrey-Maturin series so much.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It's lovely! I am entirely smitten by the whole concept, but particularly by the sheer joy of the characters.

[proskynesis]

And the CANON FURSUIT! :D

(ceiling Stephen. He is watching you.)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Dragins!

... sorry, I don't think I have anything more to say than that. I love the first Temeraire book really a lot.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

they be stealing mah dragins.

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

Jack and Stephen omgyay! Oh god the love. And I love Temeraire too for exactly that reason - M&C with TALKING DRAGONS. Snarky, intelligent talking dragons! (And women!!!!1 and also - if you have not read that far yet - actual people of colour! who I also thought were well done - I was really worried about skeevy race issues given some of the events, but from my whitewhitewhite perspective it seemed like she managed to not be too bad... probably still problematic in more ways than I saw, but a whole lot better than 90%+ of the other stuff out there on that issue.)

Also I thought it was really interesting that you linked the historical stuff and sci-fi stuff, because that's how I think of them: I love both, and they live in the same bit of my head, to a large extent. I love them both for always being, to one degree or other, about how our environment (and explicitly our technological and social environment, not just the physical one) affects us. But yeah, if I had to pick one it would be sci-fi, because SPACESHIPS and SCIENCE and POTENTIAL omg.

And *hugs and treat of your choice*, if you want, because it sounds like such things might be needed.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The people of colour bit is bothering me a little, now halfway through Throne of Jade. I mean, I'm willing to see it get better when it is not all entirely from the POV of a biased English sea captain, but, you know. Your reassurance is good.

And, yes, yes! It's all about the way environment impinges on characters for me, too - it's why I love stories where the settings are alien and fascinating but the motivations still human. (Which is why I'm not usually fond of historicals, I think: I can't see into motivations as clearly, and there are NO BROWN PEOPLE as opposed to VERY FEW BROWN PEOPLE.)

And thank you for hugs. They are much appreciated.

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

Halfway through Throne of Jade was when I nearly put the book down through sheer 'wait, ALL the Chinese characters are, like, sneaky and evil? REALLY?' but then they weren't, really, and although Laurence doesn't really understand them (at least by the end of ToJ, which is where I've read to), we are, at least I felt, given enough to say that they have their own stuff going on and are, in their way, equally as good and as bad as the British, just different. I'd love to hear what you think of it, when you get to the end.

So much looove for stories where the settings are alien but we get very human, complex reactions to them. That makes me happy. And yeah... the restrictions in historicals on brown/queer/female people frustrates me so much, and I also tend to think that a non-insignificant number of people writing historicals are doing so because they romanticise their particular period - not everyone of course, but a lot of the white male writers of historicals particularly seem to be doing it because they kind of wish we were back there, that things then make sense to them in a way their contemporary society doesn't because omg the people now are AWFUL. Or something. I don't even know, it's just... offputting.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I've finished it now, and I'm still reserving judgement, to be honest. Because I'm just not sure what she's doing: I'm inclined towards your interpretation, which is to say Laurence doesn't understand them, and it's his confusion we see in their characterisation, not some tendency of theirs to MONOLITHIC EVIL, but somehow I really want her to do more with the problem, not leave it in this state of limbo. So, yeah, I'm going to keep on reading. :)

And yes, YES, that really bothers me about historicals, too! That undercurrent of romanticisation, which just... yeah, you have to quietly question the motive of writing the period when the mores of the time aren't questioned or engaged with. (I'm trying not to be Whiggish in making this point!) Whereas I like Novik's treatement of women very much indeed, for example - she manages to write Laurence as a product of his time, but still managing to write her women well.

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

I really liked that they were better about dragons and that in a world where dragons are intelligent, that matters, and that what they're doing really isn't about the white people at all... but I kind of wanted more on individual Chinese characters that wasn't 'Laurence doesn't really get what's going on there, but it seems possibly skeevy and evil'. But I hear the Chinese element remains very important, which I hope bodes well. :)

And total agreement on the awesome of Novik's women. I love them and totally want more about that. Like you said, it totally works because Laurence is a product of his time and responds accordingly. The people who have a weird attachment to a fantasy version of the past always seem to either ignore issues, or not ever have noticed them in the first place. Always a sure recipe for icky.

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Yay, you have once again proved your awesomeness! Well done on the results, and tell your parents to chill out.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my dear!

[lilka.livejournal.com]

Hee! I think my first attempt to sell someone on Temeraire was 'Think of Jack and Stephen. Now imagine that Stephen's a large talking dragon.'

Master and Commander's pretty episodic because it's based so closely on real events; once O'Brien realised he was writing a series rather than a one-off, the books developed more plotlines of their own. Plus from book 2 onwards you get the romance storylines, which I think are interesting and done with more depth than you might imagine. If you fancy more Aubreyad books, I have the first seven or eight with me (the rest are still in Liverpool).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

ahahahaha. Large talking dragon. Yes. Very much yes. shimgray has the whole lot, almost, so I am thinking I may be breaking up exam-time with forays into mizzens and topgallants...

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Has Shim made you read the drawing room novel WITH DRAGONS he has? If not, grab him now and tell him Amy says you should.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

My extolling the virtues of Tooth and Claw was actually what led us to the topic of Temeraire... It is sitting prominently on the pile, have no fear :-)

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Good, good.

I love that novel, must get myself a copy of it sometime. :)

Book rec

[icepixie]

I am so late to the party here, but I just remembered that you were reading the Aubrey/Maturin books. Anyway, a series you should read is David Drake's Royal Cinnabar Navy series (aka the Lt. Leary series or Leary/Mundy series). He describes it as Aubrey/Maturin IN SPACE! with a female Maturin. They're fun on their own--I haven't read the O'Brien novels--with lots of space battles and snappy dialogue and the odd political intrigue. The first one is called With the Lightnings, and there are five others after that so far, with another scheduled to be released in a couple months.

ETA: Oh, and if you're interested in Hornblower IN SPACE!, check out David Weber's Honor Harrington books. (Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series is also very, very loosely a Hornblower in space kind of deal. And they're incredible on their own, of course...)

Re: Book rec

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much, dude! I shall be sure to check those out, especially the Bujold and Hornblower, which I have heard many excellent things about...