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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
Another rousing chapter in Cornwell’s Sharpe’s series. These books are incredibly consistent and move at quick speed. All action with blood, guts and gore, we continue to see Captain Richard Sharpe rise through the ranks, escape in possible odds and somehow always come through clear on the other side waiting for his next fight to begin.
Even if you’re not into the British war campaign of the 18th century, the blend of of historical detail and fast paced fiction will keep you reading on to the end.
Even if you’re not into the British war campaign of the 18th century, the blend of of historical detail and fast paced fiction will keep you reading on to the end.
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoy the Sharpe series, and I love Bernard Cornwell's books, however I found this book slightly more challenging to get through. I think it bore from a short period of reading lethargy, I was eager to finish a book, unfortunately it was this one I was wanting to finish quickly. Its got your typical Sharpe recipe, some enjoyable moments, but not my favourite Sharpe adventure.
Another great rip roaring adventure in the Sharpe series. Always enjoyable and thrilling.
Set in the Peninsular War - Sharpe has to rescue a hoard of gold in hostile territory and of course there is a beautiful girl and his riflemen.
I also like the way Cornwell explains the historical background and sets out where he has tweaked history to suit the story.
Set in the Peninsular War - Sharpe has to rescue a hoard of gold in hostile territory and of course there is a beautiful girl and his riflemen.
I also like the way Cornwell explains the historical background and sets out where he has tweaked history to suit the story.
Sharpe’s Gold
By Bernard Cornwell
9.0/10
“Sharpe and Harper went forward, dark uniforms blending with the night, and Sharpe could hear every rustle of his jacket, creak of his belt, and the looming walls seemed to hold danger in every shadow. He felt himself tense with anticipation, his teeth gritted waiting for the mocking shot.”
Sharpe’s Gold was published in 1981. My copy clocks in at 303 pages.
Once again I’m blown away by Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series. It has had its ups and downs but Sharpe’s Gold was certainly the strongest entry for a little while for me. As I’m reading the series chronologically this is book nine for me but in actuality when it was originally published this was only book two. I’m pleased in so many ways that I decided to read the books the way I did because the prequel books reinforce the great things about the original series. Cornwell is a fantastic storyteller but one thing he gets right time and time again is the way he writes camaraderie. Sharpe and his company are excellent time and time again, their relationship is built on trust and rapport and Cornwell’s character work always shines through. Cornwell also writes a damn good villain and Sharpe’s Gold has an excellent antagonist: El Catolico- The Catholic, a heavily Pius Spanish killer. Sharpe’s Gold is a desperate adventure taking place in 1810 during the events of the destruction of Almeida as we follow our hero as he once again follows the orders of the calculating General Wellington.
By Bernard Cornwell
9.0/10
“Sharpe and Harper went forward, dark uniforms blending with the night, and Sharpe could hear every rustle of his jacket, creak of his belt, and the looming walls seemed to hold danger in every shadow. He felt himself tense with anticipation, his teeth gritted waiting for the mocking shot.”
Sharpe’s Gold was published in 1981. My copy clocks in at 303 pages.
Once again I’m blown away by Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series. It has had its ups and downs but Sharpe’s Gold was certainly the strongest entry for a little while for me. As I’m reading the series chronologically this is book nine for me but in actuality when it was originally published this was only book two. I’m pleased in so many ways that I decided to read the books the way I did because the prequel books reinforce the great things about the original series. Cornwell is a fantastic storyteller but one thing he gets right time and time again is the way he writes camaraderie. Sharpe and his company are excellent time and time again, their relationship is built on trust and rapport and Cornwell’s character work always shines through. Cornwell also writes a damn good villain and Sharpe’s Gold has an excellent antagonist: El Catolico- The Catholic, a heavily Pius Spanish killer. Sharpe’s Gold is a desperate adventure taking place in 1810 during the events of the destruction of Almeida as we follow our hero as he once again follows the orders of the calculating General Wellington.
Cornwell, Bernard. Sharpe’s Gold. 1981. Sharpe No. 9. Signet, 2004.
Sharpe got his Eagle so now (1810 he needs to rescue an “exploring officer” (i.e., intelligence officer) and retrieve a gold cache stored in the fortified town of Almeda, Portugal. Wellesley needs it for his shoestring war. You know he and Sgt. Harper are going to get it done. And you know they’re going to rake a little off the top, and deservedly so.
Sharpe got his Eagle so now (1810 he needs to rescue an “exploring officer” (i.e., intelligence officer) and retrieve a gold cache stored in the fortified town of Almeda, Portugal. Wellesley needs it for his shoestring war. You know he and Sgt. Harper are going to get it done. And you know they’re going to rake a little off the top, and deservedly so.
I went between one and two stars for this book, but since it's already sitting at over four, I figured it could take the hit. I didn't like this book. I picked it up on impulse at the library because I thought it might be a good adventure story but it was a lot more dour and grim than I was looking for. Didn't like Sharpe or really any of the other characters in the book, and couldn't muster up a lot of interest in the British or the progress of the Napoleonic wars. I realize that most of the series is about that, but I didn't know that going in. Couldn't buy Sharpe looking at what the French had done in disgust - I don't think the British armies hands are so clean - and couldn't really care that strongly about either side.
There was no effort made to make Sharpe or his troops likeable - I realize Harper was supposed to be that character, but it didn't convince me. I also didn't buy that a wounded, exhausted Sharpe has too much honour to kill El Catolico when he's at a disadvantage and unarmed but is willing to blow up the garrison and kill 500 of his allies to get the gold out of the city. It's crap. And having Sharpe win that duel was crap too.
The only thing I really liked in this book was Cornewell's afterword, in which he first talked about the historical accuracy and then talked about his own writing career. It made me feel a little more sympathetic towards the book, but it was too late to make me enjoy it.
I do wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I had grown up in England reading Boy's Own type of magazine and being regaled by stories about Rorke's Drift and the Charge of the Light Brigade, but I didn't and so here we are.
There was no effort made to make Sharpe or his troops likeable - I realize Harper was supposed to be that character, but it didn't convince me. I also didn't buy that a wounded, exhausted Sharpe has too much honour to kill El Catolico when he's at a disadvantage and unarmed but is willing to blow up the garrison and kill 500 of his allies to get the gold out of the city. It's crap. And having Sharpe win that duel was crap too.
The only thing I really liked in this book was Cornewell's afterword, in which he first talked about the historical accuracy and then talked about his own writing career. It made me feel a little more sympathetic towards the book, but it was too late to make me enjoy it.
I do wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I had grown up in England reading Boy's Own type of magazine and being regaled by stories about Rorke's Drift and the Charge of the Light Brigade, but I didn't and so here we are.
I've never been more eager to see a TV/movie adaptation of a novel as I am that of Sharpe's Gold. This is not because of its quality, which is fair to middling as Sharpe novels go.* Rather, it's because I'm dying of curiosity as to how the continuity problem is going to be handled.
The continuity problem named Teresa Moreno, whom I've already seen played to dashing perfection by the great Assumpta Serna in the TV movies of Sharpe's Rifles and Sharpe's Eagle. Even though her character didn't belong in them. Ahem.
Of course, I didn't realize until I got to this book what a problem she was going to pose, as this, Sharpe's Gold, is the novel wherein Sharpe and Teresa meet, and it's not at all cute. Sharpe has been directed to go collect rather a lot of Spanish gold that was moved to a sort-of-safe place until it could be paid out to the Spanish army -- their wages -- but then the Spanish army got its collective posterior well and truly kicked by the French and there basically isn't one anymore. There are just guerrillas (and I just this second noticed that this word basically translates into something like "mini-war"), known as the Partisans, herding sheep and growing barley by day, making life hell on earth for the French by night, sleeping, uh... sometime?
A family of them is more or less guarding the gold, in the family crypt, until what's left of the Spanish government figures out what to do with it and how to transport it to where it's needed.** Except said government has pretty much farmed that task out to the British, who have, via the newly made Lord Wellesley, in turn farmed it out to one Richard Sharpe, killer of men, destroyer of armies, hopeless dimwit when confronted with a pretty face (or, in this case, a girl with the guts and the looks to lead the French army away from her men by running naked through the night).
But see, the Partisans don't trust the British. And Teresa's fiance is chief of the Partisans thereabouts. And may also have some ideas of his own about what to do with that gold.
So next thing we know, Teresa is a hostage. Who doesn't seem to think much of Sharpe. Whom she has just met. But in the TV movies, in the movies, they've already made whoopie and promises. Quite a lot.
So as I said, for this one, I'm mostly interested in seeing how the whole Teresa plot gets handled for the little screen. My guess is the fiance will just turn out to be an ex-lover and there will be no side-switching and whatnot. Which will be duller than this novel was.
But maybe I'm wrong. Because there is plenty to enjoy aside from the Teresa plot, of course. I can't wait to see that great German brute, Helmut, in action, for instance. Because anyone Pat Harper regards as a big ol' monster is going to be something to see, a veritable Hodor, except trained with the sabre. Zowie!
And also, one of my favorite minor characters dying. Le sigh.
And also, Alameida. Which, OMG Alameida.
*Meaning it's still a damned fine book, but there have been better ones. I still like all the India books better than any of the Peninsular ones, so far, and this one didn't change my mind. And Sharpe's Havoc is still the best of the Peninsular War novels I've read.
**This, of course, reminds me of the bit with the heaps of Nazi war gold in the middle of the Philippine jungle in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and of Goto Dengo's observation that "gold is the corpse of value." But unlike that gold, Sharpe's gold is needed for a mind-blowingly epic purpose, in one of Cornwell's neatest weaving of history and fiction and speculation I've yet seen. Well done!
The continuity problem named Teresa Moreno, whom I've already seen played to dashing perfection by the great Assumpta Serna in the TV movies of Sharpe's Rifles and Sharpe's Eagle. Even though her character didn't belong in them. Ahem.
Of course, I didn't realize until I got to this book what a problem she was going to pose, as this, Sharpe's Gold, is the novel wherein Sharpe and Teresa meet, and it's not at all cute. Sharpe has been directed to go collect rather a lot of Spanish gold that was moved to a sort-of-safe place until it could be paid out to the Spanish army -- their wages -- but then the Spanish army got its collective posterior well and truly kicked by the French and there basically isn't one anymore. There are just guerrillas (and I just this second noticed that this word basically translates into something like "mini-war"), known as the Partisans, herding sheep and growing barley by day, making life hell on earth for the French by night, sleeping, uh... sometime?
A family of them is more or less guarding the gold, in the family crypt, until what's left of the Spanish government figures out what to do with it and how to transport it to where it's needed.** Except said government has pretty much farmed that task out to the British, who have, via the newly made Lord Wellesley, in turn farmed it out to one Richard Sharpe, killer of men, destroyer of armies, hopeless dimwit when confronted with a pretty face (or, in this case, a girl with the guts and the looks to lead the French army away from her men by running naked through the night).
But see, the Partisans don't trust the British. And Teresa's fiance is chief of the Partisans thereabouts. And may also have some ideas of his own about what to do with that gold.
So next thing we know, Teresa is a hostage. Who doesn't seem to think much of Sharpe. Whom she has just met. But in the TV movies, in the movies, they've already made whoopie and promises. Quite a lot.
So as I said, for this one, I'm mostly interested in seeing how the whole Teresa plot gets handled for the little screen. My guess is the fiance will just turn out to be an ex-lover and there will be no side-switching and whatnot. Which will be duller than this novel was.
But maybe I'm wrong. Because there is plenty to enjoy aside from the Teresa plot, of course. I can't wait to see that great German brute, Helmut, in action, for instance. Because anyone Pat Harper regards as a big ol' monster is going to be something to see, a veritable Hodor, except trained with the sabre. Zowie!
And also, one of my favorite minor characters dying. Le sigh.
And also, Alameida. Which, OMG Alameida.
*Meaning it's still a damned fine book, but there have been better ones. I still like all the India books better than any of the Peninsular ones, so far, and this one didn't change my mind. And Sharpe's Havoc is still the best of the Peninsular War novels I've read.
**This, of course, reminds me of the bit with the heaps of Nazi war gold in the middle of the Philippine jungle in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and of Goto Dengo's observation that "gold is the corpse of value." But unlike that gold, Sharpe's gold is needed for a mind-blowingly epic purpose, in one of Cornwell's neatest weaving of history and fiction and speculation I've yet seen. Well done!
Typical Sharpe book. Good, not great. There's another random love interest that Sharpe has fallen deeply and madly in love with after only a few days and practically no interaction. Of course, her fiance is the evil villain that must be confronted, just like every other Sharpe novel. A lot of familiar characters play their cardboard cut out roles.
There are also some continuity issues. Here Sharpe is musing on how poor a swordsman is, yet as far back as Sharpe's Tiger he is portrayed as an expert even though that book is supposed to be a decade earlier than this. This is the problem series that are not written in chronological order. The conundrum is whether to read them in the order written or in the order the events supposedly take place. I think I made the wrong choice.
In all, the series is fun, but don't expect too much. His earlier works are incredibly weak but his later writings are better and I guess you just have to slog through books like this to get to the better ones.
There are also some continuity issues. Here Sharpe is musing on how poor a swordsman is, yet as far back as Sharpe's Tiger he is portrayed as an expert even though that book is supposed to be a decade earlier than this. This is the problem series that are not written in chronological order. The conundrum is whether to read them in the order written or in the order the events supposedly take place. I think I made the wrong choice.
In all, the series is fun, but don't expect too much. His earlier works are incredibly weak but his later writings are better and I guess you just have to slog through books like this to get to the better ones.
I did indeed found the way to read the Sharpe series. In order in which they were published. This is the second novel I had no problem getting into after Sharpe's Eagle. The story picks up a few months after the celebrated catching of the Eagle. Sharpe is invested by Wellington of a mission that can only turn bad. Sharpe faces ethical dilemma, who lives, who dies, shall he stick to his duty and mission despite the high cost of human lives. Cornwell writes action really well, the French patrol attacking, the German mercenary saving the day and he takes you, the reader, part of it, part of the historical battles (in this case Almeida) like you are there standing next to Sharpe and Harper. Sharpe meets a beautiful dark haired beauty again but he wouldn't be Sharpe if he didn't.
More fun with Sharpe. So glad I still have a dozen more to read . . .