The latest installment of my book review column, STRONG MEDICINE: Books That Cures What Ails You, has just been published at Intergalactic Medicine Show.

In this column, I review Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War; for comparison and contrasting purposes, I review Mike Resnick’s Dragon America; and on a wholly separate note, I review Jim Kelly’s & John Kessel’s new slipstream anthology, Feeling Very Strange.

[Excerpt:] Talking dragons, or talking animals or beasts of any kind really, is no easy trick to pull off, but Novik manages it nicely. Given that there is no magic in Novik’s world–the only fantasy element present is dragons, and their existence is treated scientifically–there are some issues with the talking that require some suspension of disbelief (as do some other issues with the dragons). Even if you set aside their miraculous language skills (Temeraire learned to speak fluent English through the shell in about a week’s time, for instance), there is the issue of speech: just how exactly do those giant beasts make human sounds with those huge dragon jaws? There are other examples of nitpickery one could dwell on, but ultimately all of those things are irrelevant; if you can’t get past them, you probably won’t enjoy the books, but if you simply accept the fact that there are certain allowances that need to be made in order to have the world Novik created function, you’ll likely get completely sucked into the story as I did.

Go read the review and then come back and tell me how awesome it is.