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thomasroche 's review for:
Sharpe's Rifles
by Bernard Cornwell
I really loved the first five Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell -- reading them chronologically, up to Sharpe's Copenhagen or whatever. I'm glad I did, because I think this one is pretty mediocre, comparatively. Maybe I just don't really give a damn about the Napoleonic Wars right now. Given the world-building Cornwell did in Sharpe's Rifles (and presumably beyond), the whole first five books really shouldn't exist, I guess. They're pulpy and improbable, to the point of, at times, being silly. They still felt more realistic and interesting than this one, I guess, maybe because the details of combat in that era felt much more realistic to me. I have no idea if it's actually realistic, having been deprived by time and space of the privilege of serving with the British Army in Colonial India and almost getting eaten by a tiger and, you know, fighting at Trafalgar and all that.
But the pulp first five books certainly seemed more exciting than "Rifles," or the TV series, which I found vaguely annoying from the first strain of studio-musician warbling metal guitar on the soundtrack.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a vividness about the first five books that helps me completely eschew real life and sink into the vivid recollection of a fake history a la James Clavell's Shogun. However improbable the India, Trafalgar and Copenhagen segments might be, I felt like I was there. What's more, I went out of my way to read the historical background of those sequences, because they were pretty damned interesting.
Here, it was all I could do to read the actual book. Maybe I'll skip ahead in the series, or re-read "Beat to Quarters" again.
But the pulp first five books certainly seemed more exciting than "Rifles," or the TV series, which I found vaguely annoying from the first strain of studio-musician warbling metal guitar on the soundtrack.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a vividness about the first five books that helps me completely eschew real life and sink into the vivid recollection of a fake history a la James Clavell's Shogun. However improbable the India, Trafalgar and Copenhagen segments might be, I felt like I was there. What's more, I went out of my way to read the historical background of those sequences, because they were pretty damned interesting.
Here, it was all I could do to read the actual book. Maybe I'll skip ahead in the series, or re-read "Beat to Quarters" again.