David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> writes: > Gaertk at aol.com writes: > >> Naomi Novik's _His Majesty's Dragon_ > I need to read this, clearly. I've had it recommended to me by a > number of people with thoroughly incompatible taste in fiction Really? I picked it up after seeing Kate Nepveu's comments, and her tastes are close to mine (well, as close as anyone else). > I deduce that the dragons don't breathe fire in this world -- > basing them on ships (of that period's technology) would be kind of > a problem otherwise, and for that matter they'd clear the enemy > navy off the ocean pretty quick otherwise. Some dragons can breathe fire, but only certain breeds (and none of them British). And most combat dragons are too large to be carried by warships (if a sea journey is necessary they use large barges), though I don't know the sizes of the fire-breathers. They do seem vulnerable to normal ship armaments: "We were not half a mile distant from the /Orient/ when she went up, like a torch; we had shot out her deck-guns and mostly cleared her sharpshooters from the tops, so the dragon could strafe her at will." -- Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gaertk at aol.com http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/ "I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface." -- James Nicoll