Naomi Novik has written three fantasy novels chronicling the Napoleon-era adventures of a swashbuckling ship captain and a heroic dragon named Temeraire who fight to rescue Britain from a French invasion. Ms. Novik has just sold the film rights to all three of her books to Peter Jackson, the director of such blockbusters as “King Kong” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The deal has completed her ascent from a computer programmer to a virtually unknown writer to a newly minted member of a select group of authors — J. R. R. Tolkien among them — whose novels could receive the extravagant high-tech, big-budget Jackson treatment. [More]