Book completed

His Majesty’s Dragon, by Naomi Novik. Reread. I’ve mentioned that I’ve been making a point for my bedtime reading to be something relaxing that I’ve enjoyed in the past, rather than something new and potentially stressful; it seems more conducive to a good night’s sleep to spend some time in a world that’s already comfortable. So I was a little surprised to find myself interested in reading the Temeraire books again, as bedtime reading – I thought it would be too exciting? Actually, it’s quite satisfying.

The short version: The Napoleonic War, with dragons. It’s an alternate history in general, though, where dragons had been known all along – for example, South America is governed by the Inca people, not Spain and Portugal. I think having dragons has given other societies more technological parity with Europe.

This book starts with Will Laurence, captain of The Reliant, which has just defeated a French ship and taken its treasure into its own keeping – a dragon’s egg. Dragons are an essential part of the military, and it’s critical that every dragon be taken into harness immediately upon hatching – the dragon then forms a permanent bond with the person it permits to do the harnessing. Laurence’s dragon hatches a week later, before they’ve been able to make port, and oops, he ends up being the one to do the harnessing, which means he’s lost his captaincy of his ship and now has to join the aviators.

However, his dragon is quite unusual. All dragons learn human speech while in the egg, but Laurence’s dragon, whom he’s named Temeraire, has managed to learn English after only the one week’s exposure. He looks different from the European dragons too, and that’s because he’s actually a Chinese dragon, the only one ever seen in Europe. That would all be interesting enough, but the real selling point is Temeraire’s personality – he’s naïve, being newly hatched, and curious, extremely smart, and really very, very sweet.

This book is the first in a series of nine. They travel throughout the world (except, alas, to North America, and I think not to India either), so we get to experience China, Japan, Central Asia, the coast and heart of Africa, Australia, at least two regions of South America, Russia… hm, and France. And one thing I especially appreciate is that Novik is sensitive to the social justice issues that follow from automatically enlisting every member of an intelligent species into military service from the moment of birth – it’s not initially a main theme, but it’s there, and it matters.

On to the second one!

Day 1250: Everything is fine

Today the sky was clear and clean! And the weather was lovely, high of 88, and it cooled off quickly. I was picturing a relaxing afternoon and evening.

But then I saw poor Sorin trying to walk from the box where he'd spent the morning to the bathroom. One of his hind legs was barely working! He was staggering and doing quite poorly. I called for D. to come out of his room, and we examined him. He started walking better, then he flopped down, clearly favoring that one leg. I felt around on the leg, which he didn't mind. Then he walked around some more, and even jumped onto the couch and then the dining table, but still not steady, not normal. Oh dear.

I called his vet, but they had no openings - they keep a few emergency openings for each afternoon, but today they'd filled up by 8:02 am, the office having opened at 8 am. Another vet told me that there's a new emergency hospital in town, a bit closer than the usual one - turns out it's the same building in downtown Springfield where Lillian had her chemo, 11 years ago. I phoned them and asked if I should bring Sorin in, and they told me if he's been going pee there's no rush, but if not, then he should be seen today. Well, since he shares litterboxes with Ajani, I couldn't be sure. So we packed him up and off we went.

Even though his voice is gone for his meow, he definitely managed some loud, hoarse howls. The trip to Springfield was farther (and faster) than he'd ever gone before. He was not happy. They immediately took him into the back to triage his kidneys, then they checked me in and put me into a room to wait for the nurse. She came in fairly quickly, took a health history, then cautioned me not to expect to see the doctor for at least an hour. If I wanted to go on a walk to pass the time, I'd have to pay a $500 deposit - apparently some people abandon their cats. Yikes! Yikes to all three things - people doing that, the deposit amount, and the hour's wait. I went out and told J. the situation, then I texted D. to update him. I chatted with D. via text and J. via Skype for maybe ten minutes, then looked some things up on my phone. I hadn't yet picked up my book, when, yay, the vet appeared!

So... as I said in the header to this post, everything was fine. Sorin was fine. The vet said that since he's 10, it's very likely that he has a bit of arthritis in his knees, but by the time we got to the vet, he was moving quite well, no paralysis, no kidney problems, and entirely acting healthy and normal. The vet's theory is that maybe when he was curled up in that box this morning, he might have been lying funny, such that his leg went to sleep, and then he started walking on it before it could support him. Silly dear! But what a good outcome.

(In my icon, Sorin is the dark-colored tabby, and his littermate Ajani is white.)