His Majesty's Dragon

Would that be HMD as opposed to HMS? Capt. Will Laurence of HMS Reliant has been in the navy since he was 12 and steadily moved up the ranks due to his competence and leadership. Having recently defeated a French frigate, he is shocked to find that their cargo includes a dragon egg--a rare enough commodity--that is due to hatch before they reach land. The captain asks for volunteers because the dragon will imprint when it hatches and then is bonded to that person as his aviator for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, the dragon bonds to Capt. Laurence himself, thus potentially ending his career in the navy and his prospects for marriage. The air corps is a slightly undisciplined and isolated group within the military structure. But once Laurence goes flying with Temeraire, he is hooked. When the Reliant reaches land, the appropriate officials are contacted and efforts are made to remove Laurence from the equation to be replaced with a trained aviator. But Tereraire will have nothing of it and so the air corps must take Laurence on with his magnificent young dragon in the middle of the Napoleonic wars. Temeraire, it turns out, is a rare Chinese breed of dragon and nobody really knows what special skills he will have. He was born fluent in French and English, having picked those languages up in the egg, and proceeds to have Will read to him every night about subjects even Will does not understand but that Temeraire grasps with ease. Of course Temeraire talks to Will and is by far the most interesting character. There is a rather cloying use of terms of endearment between the two, and a lot of French types of dragons thrown in during battle scenes. There is a nice little glossary of the various dragon family lines appended to the text. This is an alternative history of those wars, with very detailed descriptions of strategies, and the first of an intended trilogy by Naomi Novik (although the series has gone way beyond that). I did not like this book as well as the one I previously read, Hugo-nominted Uprooted. However, if you are a dragon fan, you will love this book.