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books_with_benghis_kahn's review against another edition
4.0
This is a classic solid Sharpe book that's just an almost perfect distillation of the essence of the series.
Big set piece battle? check
Loathsome evil villain who's in Sharpe's way? check
Incompetent British officer causing Sharpe headaches? check
A damsel in distress? check
Returning friends/allies? check
Boldness and cleverness in battle to get out of sticky situations? check
The book breezes by and is substantial evidence of Cornwell's improvement as an author, since it was published 24 years after the previous book chronologically and his first ever in Sharpe's Gold, which was easily the worst in the series so far and worse than this one in every which way. This was the second-to-last book Cornwell wrote in the mid 2000s before taking a 15-year break for the Last Kingdom books, and he was on an incredible roll with Sharpe -- these are just delectable fast paced military/adventure books that ooze personality. I'm just hoping that when I go back in time for more of his 1980s ones that they don't have as big a drop in quality as the first two.
Kudos to Rupert Farley, whose narration makes every second with the series an absolute joy.
Big set piece battle? check
Loathsome evil villain who's in Sharpe's way? check
Incompetent British officer causing Sharpe headaches? check
A damsel in distress? check
Returning friends/allies? check
Boldness and cleverness in battle to get out of sticky situations? check
The book breezes by and is substantial evidence of Cornwell's improvement as an author, since it was published 24 years after the previous book chronologically and his first ever in Sharpe's Gold, which was easily the worst in the series so far and worse than this one in every which way. This was the second-to-last book Cornwell wrote in the mid 2000s before taking a 15-year break for the Last Kingdom books, and he was on an incredible roll with Sharpe -- these are just delectable fast paced military/adventure books that ooze personality. I'm just hoping that when I go back in time for more of his 1980s ones that they don't have as big a drop in quality as the first two.
Kudos to Rupert Farley, whose narration makes every second with the series an absolute joy.
tomsan's review against another edition
4.0
Another quality Sharpe. Mills & Boon for heterosexual males. It's exactly the same as every other Sharpe which is why it get a high score. Woe is me the day that I run out of Sharpes to read.
Just a slight frustration with the sudden ending and the fact that Sharpe doesn't seem to do himself any favours. If he wants the bloody promotion so bad why not revel in his successes!?
Just a slight frustration with the sudden ending and the fact that Sharpe doesn't seem to do himself any favours. If he wants the bloody promotion so bad why not revel in his successes!?
alex_ellermann's review against another edition
3.0
I can't read a Sharpe novel at less than 6-month intervals. Otherwise, the formula gets tedious. Still, this is a perfectly fine Sharpe novel: the hero is heroic, the villain is villainous, the damsel is distressed, and we even get to learn a little about the Napoleonic Wars without even realizing it.
I look forward to reading the next Sharpe novel about six months from now.
I look forward to reading the next Sharpe novel about six months from now.
judenoseinabook's review against another edition
3.0
Another rollicking good read about Sharpe and the Peninsular War.
Fast paced, as usual, and full of action. Bussaco is a battle I dont remember learing about, although I do remember 'The lines of Torres Vedras' from my O level history classes.
Cornwell always manages to embue his stories with a real sense of historical accuracy, even though Sharpe himself is perhaps a bit too lucky to escape so many deadly situations! But if he didn't there wouldn't be any more great Sharpe novels would there!
Fast paced, as usual, and full of action. Bussaco is a battle I dont remember learing about, although I do remember 'The lines of Torres Vedras' from my O level history classes.
Cornwell always manages to embue his stories with a real sense of historical accuracy, even though Sharpe himself is perhaps a bit too lucky to escape so many deadly situations! But if he didn't there wouldn't be any more great Sharpe novels would there!
stephb413's review against another edition
3.0
I picked up this book because I was interested about Napoleon's army fighting in Portugal. The book didn't provide any great information besides a few battles and cities, but it was still interesting and informative. By the end, I found I couldn't put it down, so I already have another one in the series that I plan to start soon. Interesting!
tome15's review against another edition
4.0
Cornwell, Bernard. Sharpe’s Escape. Sharpe No. 10. Harper, 2004.
In the campaign to expel Napoleon from Portugal, Richard Sharpe is separated from his unit and must fight a local bandit as well as the French. Good stuff from Cornwell—as usual.
In the campaign to expel Napoleon from Portugal, Richard Sharpe is separated from his unit and must fight a local bandit as well as the French. Good stuff from Cornwell—as usual.
jordantaylor's review against another edition
2.0
I picked this book up at a used bookstore, and it just happened to be the tenth in the series (something that has been happening to me a lot lately).
So I was here introduced to Captain Richard Sharpe, a ruthless soldier fighting in the Bussaco Campaign, 1810 Portugal. Besides battling the French, Sharpe has taken a disliking to a new captain, Slingsby, who is vying to take over his men, and has made an enemy of a traitor who is selling food to the French army.
This book wasn't lacking in action, and kept the plot moving quickly. I never felt that any particular scene had me reading on the edge of my seat, but it was never boring.
This book was more entertaining than revolutionary, and I liked the subtle humor. I also liked the atmosphere of this book - I felt immersed in army life amidst all of the talk about strategy, battles, soldiers, and so on. It all came across as well researched and aptly written.
I liked the character of Captain Sharpe, a ruthless man who has trouble following army rules and bending to authority. I liked that he wasn't the typical soldier, riding a white horse (he doesn't even like horses) and trying to compromise between orders to kill and a conscience. One of Sharpe's duties is to roam the land searching for food, bakeries, ovens, and destroy them all, so that the French will be starved into surrender. But what about the women and children who rely on that food to survive? They are barely mentioned.
However, I found Sharpe a bit too much of a "bad guy" at certain intervals. For example, he is jealous of a new captain, Slingsby, and fears that he means to take over his treasured position. He also finds the man exceedingly annoying. So, during a battle, Sharpe aims his gun at Slingsby... And fires! I was surprised. To have the hero of the story contemplate murdering a rival is one thing, to actually and genuinely try is quite another!
The only other problem I saw in this book was the depiction of women during the time period. A proper young Englishwoman named Sarah Fry finds herself kissing a shirtless Sharpe only hours after meeting him, and losing her virginity to him later that night. Sharpe's companions also just so happen to stumble upon another young woman, who is also all too happy to sleep with the one who found her. Perhaps this aspect of the book was put in to further the notion that Sharpe is an irresistible ladie's man, but I simply found it too unrealistic. It is highly, highly unlikely that a well-raised English girl of the early 1800's would behave that way.
Other than that, this book was fine.
Although I probably won't go looking for any of the other Sharpe books, if I happen across one in my book-hunting, I'd be happy to read more of his adventures.
So I was here introduced to Captain Richard Sharpe, a ruthless soldier fighting in the Bussaco Campaign, 1810 Portugal. Besides battling the French, Sharpe has taken a disliking to a new captain, Slingsby, who is vying to take over his men, and has made an enemy of a traitor who is selling food to the French army.
This book wasn't lacking in action, and kept the plot moving quickly. I never felt that any particular scene had me reading on the edge of my seat, but it was never boring.
This book was more entertaining than revolutionary, and I liked the subtle humor. I also liked the atmosphere of this book - I felt immersed in army life amidst all of the talk about strategy, battles, soldiers, and so on. It all came across as well researched and aptly written.
I liked the character of Captain Sharpe, a ruthless man who has trouble following army rules and bending to authority. I liked that he wasn't the typical soldier, riding a white horse (he doesn't even like horses) and trying to compromise between orders to kill and a conscience. One of Sharpe's duties is to roam the land searching for food, bakeries, ovens, and destroy them all, so that the French will be starved into surrender. But what about the women and children who rely on that food to survive? They are barely mentioned.
However, I found Sharpe a bit too much of a "bad guy" at certain intervals. For example, he is jealous of a new captain, Slingsby, and fears that he means to take over his treasured position. He also finds the man exceedingly annoying. So, during a battle, Sharpe aims his gun at Slingsby... And fires! I was surprised. To have the hero of the story contemplate murdering a rival is one thing, to actually and genuinely try is quite another!
The only other problem I saw in this book was the depiction of women during the time period. A proper young Englishwoman named Sarah Fry finds herself kissing a shirtless Sharpe only hours after meeting him, and losing her virginity to him later that night. Sharpe's companions also just so happen to stumble upon another young woman, who is also all too happy to sleep with the one who found her. Perhaps this aspect of the book was put in to further the notion that Sharpe is an irresistible ladie's man, but I simply found it too unrealistic. It is highly, highly unlikely that a well-raised English girl of the early 1800's would behave that way.
Other than that, this book was fine.
Although I probably won't go looking for any of the other Sharpe books, if I happen across one in my book-hunting, I'd be happy to read more of his adventures.
kateofmind's review against another edition
4.0
I am now officially obsessed with the Lines of Torres Vedras. Which is hilarious, since I'd never even heard of the Lines of Torres Vedras until a few weeks ago, when I read a highly fictionalized/romanticized version of one possible way those amazing fortification/lines of defense/great big military things were built and paid for in Sharpe's Gold. Now in Sharpe's Escape, I get a closer look at what they were for and how they were intended to -- and actually did -- work.
The principle, basically, is this: build two all but nation-spanning lines of forts and earthworks and walls that keep your enemies from reaching a desirable target, say, the city of Lisbon, and then, quickly before said enemy arrives, practice the most severe scorched earth campaign you possibly can. There must be no food or potable water of any kind anywhere. Armies march on their stomachs, and Napoleon didn't like big bellies so made his armies raid for their suppers. No big vulnerable supply trains from France for Boney! His soldiers must root, hog, or die. Which makes them vulnerable to a plan like the Lines of Torres Vedras, which is basically meant to starve them out if they can't be killed any more quickly. Phew!
And this is not just historical color here, for the plot of Sharpe's Escape is intimately concerned with this plan. Sharpe starts off the novel with an encounter with a Portuguese officer and the officer's brother and their stash of contraband flour they've been planning to sell to the French; he makes a grudging admirer of the former and a bitter enemy of the latter when he foils this plan and destroys the flour. Because what Sharpe needed most of all was another enemy, and this one a great big ruthless brute of a man, a true bastard who could almost be a combination of Sharpe himself and his giant Irish Sergeant, Pat Harper. Except, you know, not funny. Subsequent acts repeat and enlarge on this theme as it turns out the Portuguese duo, even though their country is being invaded by the French and the British are their allies in trying to fight the French off, have an even bigger plan to provide the French with even more food!
It is in the midst of foiling that second, bigger version of this novel's treason plot that Sharpe finds himself in need of an escape, which takes him through a Roman sewer that is still in very foul and recent use in the company of his old friend Jorge Vincente (a Portuguese good guy), Sgt. Harper, a feisty Portuguese woman they've saved from rape, and a pretty Englishwoman who used to be a tutor to the children of the bad Portuguese officer and who Sharpe has also spared from rape. She doesn't like Sharpe too much at first, but ah, doesn't he know how to show a girl a good time?:
"Something strange had happened to her in the last few minutes, as if by undressing and lowering herself into a sewer she had let go of her previous life, of her precarious but determined grip on respectability, and let herself drop into a world of adventure and irresponsibility. She was, suddenly and unexpectedly, happy."
And now we know the secret of the old Sharpe charm. I wonder how many unacknowledged little Sharpes there wound up being in addition to the daughter he had with Lady Whossername from Sharpe's Trafalgar? I'm sorry, it's lazy and shallow of me, but Sharpe's Chicks are legion and I'm not in the mood to sift through the roster just now.
Anyway, there was nothing in this novel to contradict Dave Slusher's Sharpe Trek theory, and that's fine with me. These are fine adventure stories, and I continue to love and fear their hero devotedly. But no, I would not be one of Sharpe's Chicks. Not in the days before penicillin and whatnot.
The principle, basically, is this: build two all but nation-spanning lines of forts and earthworks and walls that keep your enemies from reaching a desirable target, say, the city of Lisbon, and then, quickly before said enemy arrives, practice the most severe scorched earth campaign you possibly can. There must be no food or potable water of any kind anywhere. Armies march on their stomachs, and Napoleon didn't like big bellies so made his armies raid for their suppers. No big vulnerable supply trains from France for Boney! His soldiers must root, hog, or die. Which makes them vulnerable to a plan like the Lines of Torres Vedras, which is basically meant to starve them out if they can't be killed any more quickly. Phew!
And this is not just historical color here, for the plot of Sharpe's Escape is intimately concerned with this plan. Sharpe starts off the novel with an encounter with a Portuguese officer and the officer's brother and their stash of contraband flour they've been planning to sell to the French; he makes a grudging admirer of the former and a bitter enemy of the latter when he foils this plan and destroys the flour. Because what Sharpe needed most of all was another enemy, and this one a great big ruthless brute of a man, a true bastard who could almost be a combination of Sharpe himself and his giant Irish Sergeant, Pat Harper. Except, you know, not funny. Subsequent acts repeat and enlarge on this theme as it turns out the Portuguese duo, even though their country is being invaded by the French and the British are their allies in trying to fight the French off, have an even bigger plan to provide the French with even more food!
It is in the midst of foiling that second, bigger version of this novel's treason plot that Sharpe finds himself in need of an escape, which takes him through a Roman sewer that is still in very foul and recent use in the company of his old friend Jorge Vincente (a Portuguese good guy), Sgt. Harper, a feisty Portuguese woman they've saved from rape, and a pretty Englishwoman who used to be a tutor to the children of the bad Portuguese officer and who Sharpe has also spared from rape. She doesn't like Sharpe too much at first, but ah, doesn't he know how to show a girl a good time?:
"Something strange had happened to her in the last few minutes, as if by undressing and lowering herself into a sewer she had let go of her previous life, of her precarious but determined grip on respectability, and let herself drop into a world of adventure and irresponsibility. She was, suddenly and unexpectedly, happy."
And now we know the secret of the old Sharpe charm. I wonder how many unacknowledged little Sharpes there wound up being in addition to the daughter he had with Lady Whossername from Sharpe's Trafalgar? I'm sorry, it's lazy and shallow of me, but Sharpe's Chicks are legion and I'm not in the mood to sift through the roster just now.
Anyway, there was nothing in this novel to contradict Dave Slusher's Sharpe Trek theory, and that's fine with me. These are fine adventure stories, and I continue to love and fear their hero devotedly. But no, I would not be one of Sharpe's Chicks. Not in the days before penicillin and whatnot.
beejai's review against another edition
3.0
"Did he seriously just do that?" It is a rare thing for a book to bring forth such side splitting laughter from me. As this question rang through my mind, laughter could not help bursting forth as I read the lines depicting our hero, Richard Sharpe, and this book's love interest having their first romantic encounter. You could not have possibly contrived a more unlikely place for it to have happened. Trust me, though, I am laughing at the author, not with him. It could not have happened in a less likely setting.
I have seen the typical Sharpe formula so many times that these books hold more intrigue for me to see how he will put the pieces together than straight enjoyment of the plot. The Sharpe series follows the military career of Lord Arthur Wellesly from his early days in India all the way through his defeat of Napolean through the eyes of one Richard Sharpe, currently a Captain of the South Essex Regiment's skirmishers.
With the exception of the last book (Sharpe's Gold) and his novellas each one weaves the story around one of the battles of that time. With regard to the historical events themselves Cornwell is unmatched. Where the fictional plot is concerned... yawn. You will have a villainous big bad, a love interest, and some military beadledom. Sharpe will be stymied by but eventually overcome the bureaucracy as he leads his troops, have a dramatic one to one encounter with the bad guy, and win the girl.
Honestly, that last paragraph could be my review of every single one of these books. They are a fun, easy read, but only if you keep your expectations low... very low.
I have seen the typical Sharpe formula so many times that these books hold more intrigue for me to see how he will put the pieces together than straight enjoyment of the plot. The Sharpe series follows the military career of Lord Arthur Wellesly from his early days in India all the way through his defeat of Napolean through the eyes of one Richard Sharpe, currently a Captain of the South Essex Regiment's skirmishers.
With the exception of the last book (Sharpe's Gold) and his novellas each one weaves the story around one of the battles of that time. With regard to the historical events themselves Cornwell is unmatched. Where the fictional plot is concerned... yawn. You will have a villainous big bad, a love interest, and some military beadledom. Sharpe will be stymied by but eventually overcome the bureaucracy as he leads his troops, have a dramatic one to one encounter with the bad guy, and win the girl.
Honestly, that last paragraph could be my review of every single one of these books. They are a fun, easy read, but only if you keep your expectations low... very low.
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