Captain Will Laurence doesn't realize what he's getting into when he and his crew come across a dragon's egg on a captured French ship. But before he knows it, he becomes the master (or partner?) of Temeraire, a charming and inquisitive dragon. In his world, dragons and their riders serve in the Aerial Corps, battling other nations' reptilian forces.

The first third or so of the book is concerned with the training of Temeraire and Laurence, so it takes a while to get into the action. I found the training to be interesting, however as it further explains the logistics of draconian battle and Laurence, a proper British gentleman finds himself rather shocked by the social mores of the dragon riders. So military history buffs, be patient and you'll see our heroes match their wits and strength with the wiles of Napoleon's cronies.

Other Reviews:

Cheryl at Loose Ends

 As we move into the multimedia age, many of us choose to enjoy watching movies over reading "boring" books. As a child I sometimes had an impulsive urge to read and then I would lose complete interest. Reading is just so time consuming, movies on the other hand are so much easier to do! The thing about watching a movie is you get to merge with a technological master piece. A piece of art that shows how far we have come since sticks and stones.

I grew up in India during the cold war era. India was (and still is) a socialistic country. India had close ties with the soviet union and nationalism was still big. While watching Top Gun the first time something just clicked inside of me. All through my childhood I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

With the breath taking cinematography and flight sequences, Top Gun looks as good today as it did when it came out in 1986! There is just something special about traveling 3 times the speed of sound. With my dad being an Aeronautical Engineer, my family was able to see a lot of fighter planes. Every opportunity I had I would run to get my picture taken in a cockpit.... It feels like it was just yesterday when I got to touch a piece of French machinery, called the Mirage 2000. It sure was a mirage... gave me goose bumps just to be in 'Maverick's' shoes.

There's just something special about a plane being catapulted off an aircraft carrier's deck. Top Gun was made into a movie to attract young American guns into the military. It might have helped recruit thousands in Nations worldwide. Such is the power of this Hollywood flick!

My brother always used to make fun of me for being short but when he tried out for the military they told him he would be too tall! In my final year of college, I weighed my option of joining the navy as a pilot or doing my masters. My masters felt far more career building. A few dreams I guess are just not meant to be.

Top Gun is a movie truly well made; from flight sequences, to story line and the "OST" is one of the best ever. The young rash top cat showing the establishment how its done. A bit of romance thrown in and the chances you need to take. Some of which horribly go wrong.

Whilst I'm a big fan of the 1/600th scale aircraft from Tumbling Dice - I own quite a few US Jets and MiGs for Vietnam - (and the new modern jets are very nice) I wanted something with a little more visual impact. I had a look at the 1/300th scale jets from Scotia-Grendel at Hammerhead, and they were still not quite what I was looking for.

The aircraft used in the AirWar rules pictures look very nice, and whilst I was scanning through eBay I came across something similar - though maybe not quite the same - and these are 1/144th modern jets from the JWings range.

These are a set of pre-painted plastic models, which require some assembly (typically the tail-planes, hard-points and weaponry/extra fuel tanks need attaching) but actually look pretty nice.

The above example is an F14-Tomcat.

Whilst the paint job is nothing exceptional, it certainly beats the other pre-paints that I've seen from Revell before (their Star Wars and 1/100th Jets ranges) and it's certainly good enough to game with.

The other thing that's difficult to beat is the price. These come in at about £4.50 ($9.00) a plane - and that includes shipping from Hong Kong! QQmodels is also an excellent seller to do business with, and I've received all my purchases (yes, I've made several) with 3 or 4 days.

In comparison, I've bought some Academy, Revell and Minicraft 1/144th scale aircraft kits in the last few days, just to fill some gaps in the range, and I've paid £1.00 - £3.00 plus postage for these - and I've still got to assemble and paint them!

Two slight down points though.

Firstly, the scale. Though the entire range is advertised as 1/144th, it's not entirely true across the range. Whilst the larger fighters (like the Tomcat above) are probably 1/144th, the rest of the range are more 'box scale' - which means that they are designed to fit the packaging, rather than exactly to scale. This means that the Hornet is the same size as the Tomcat, despite being a smaller aircraft in real life. This is especially apparent if you put the JWings aircraft next to a 1/144th model kit. My JWings Hornet is about 2cm longer than an Academy 1/144th Mig-29 Fulcrum, which can't be right.

Whilst this is slightly troubling, and possibly even a show-stopper for the purist, when playing on the table I can't see it being a huge problem.

Secondly, the range. They have just released their 3rd range of 12 aircraft for JWings, which focuses on the Vietnam Air War. The previous 2 ranges focus on more modern jets, but tend to be US focused, with F-14s, F-15s, F-18s and F-4s dominating the range. Other aircraft include the MiG-27, MiG-37 and Dassault Rafaele. There are 2-3 variants of all these aircraft, as they have different paint jobs (being pre-painted).

The lack of Russian kits especially is a slight problem. As I mentioned, I'm getting around this by buying some 1/144th plastic kits, but this is not a perfect solution.

 However, as something that is cheap, quick and easy to get on the table, JWings certainly hits the spot.