I am going to stray a bit with this post so if you are not interested in science fiction/fantasy books, feel free to let your mind wonder.
One of my favorite subjects to talk about with my friend, Steve Stanger, is books. I recently turned him on to a good series (that will get another review another day) and asked him if he had anything interesting. Steve told me about the Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik. These books are set during the Napoleonic wars with one wrinkle: there are dragons. Each country has its own aerial corps of dragons and these books follow the adventures of one such reluctant captain and dragon companion, Temeraire. I don’t want to say much more and spoil the fun but I’ve now finished book 4 of the series (all that are published at the moment) and highly recommend them. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the author was partially inspired by Patrick O’Brian’s Aubry/Maturin novels, the source for Russell Crowe’s “Master and Commander” movie a few years back.*
Anyway, I’ve never been particularly enthralled with dragon novels but these are outstanding books with engaging characters. If you are looking for an entertaining read, pick them up. The first book in the series is “His Majesty’s Dragon.”
* This partially explains why I loved the Temeraire series so much because Patrick O’Brian’s novels (which spanned over 20 books) were an obsession of mine a few years back. I read them all but never was able to convince a single person to read them.