Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Monday 22 February 2021

Holcroft Blood, anyone?

 Someone recommended that I would enjoy the Holcroft Blood series of historical novels written by Angus Donald.


 I have to say, I normally don't get on with historical novels. I hated Sharpe, for example - yes, I know, obviously my problem. 20 billion flies can't all be wrong. I also got into trouble once, when I suggested that RF Delderfield was a very overrated author, and that one of his Napoleonic efforts, apart from being chucked together with little thought, was more or less a rip-off from CS Forester. Goodness me - I'll never have an opinion again - promise.

 So this is a humble request, from one who does not know, and does not claim to have the wit or the critical faculties to judge. Has anybody in my trusted world (intellectual bubble?) read any of the Blood books, and what did you think of them?

Any thoughts will be welcome. 


15 comments:

  1. I have, they are very Sharpe esq, but they're still a good read with a good insight to the period they're set in. Go for it!

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    1. Thanks Ray - I'll order one. I'll keep one eye shut, to be on the safe side.

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  2. Interesting that you hated Sharpe, I would be curious to know your reasons. While mostly enjoying them I found them a little bit formulaic so I could only read one or two of them in succession and then have a lengthy break while I read other stuff. I also found it a little jarring how he basically wins the Peninsular war for Wellington; that's just artistic licence I guess, but I particularly remember in one of the books he deliberately (for rather daft reasons) causes the explosion at Almeida that wipes out hundreds of Portuguese soldiers and civilians and allows the French to capture the city and I did think, oh really.

    The only Delderfields I have read are the Napoleonic history ones, the Retreat from Moscow, The March of the Twenty Six and Imperial Sunset, and I like them for nostalgic reasons mostly, I loved them when I first encountered them as a boy, so can't comment on his novels.

    While I tend to avoid fantasy alternative histories I did enjoy Naomi Novik's Temeraire books - Napoleonic Wars but with corps of dragon riders operating as air forces. They were actually YA books that my teacher sister in law recommended to me so I am slightly embarrassed to admit to liking them. *blush*.

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    1. I got off to a bad start with Sharpe, since my dad was a big fan of the TV shows, and insisted on playing me some, when I visited, with him giving a running commentary of what was about to happen 10 seconds later. "Watch this - guess what happens next - he knocks him down the well...!". Surprising my dad lived so long, maybe.

      The shows were too much like a low-budget soap for me, though some of the cast were great. Strangely, I do like Sean Bean as an actor, but that slouching, snarling characterisation of Sharpe was neither credibly hard nor the sort of hero I could warm to. I've subsequently read a couple of the books - they were OK, but the water was already tainted for me. I also read Cornwell's history of Waterloo, which is another novel(!) - he explains to the reader what Napoleon was thinking, etc - there should have been an editor with a mallet, to remind him that this was supposed to be a history book.

      I have to say, I once attended a dinner at which Mr Cornwell was the guest speaker, and I fear I was not very pleased by the prospect, but he was excellent - not at all big-time, and at his best when describing his sailing exploits - I hadn't realised he was an enthusiastic sailor. Nice man, but I don't care much for his books. That's OK - he doesn't read mine either...

      I can't remember which Delderfield book it was, but the story line is pretty much borrowed from Forester's "Death to the French" (which has a different title in the US), and the characters came straight out of the "Women's Realm". Not that I read the Realm, of course...

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  3. Hi MS -
    Probably historical novels - and alternative histories - are my favourite genre. But that doesn't stop my being critical of novels that don't measure up. Oddly enough, sea stories make very good historical novels - my favourites being C.S. Forester's Hornblower, and Patrick O'Brien's Jack Aubrey. I found Alexander Kent/ Douglas Reeman readable, but a tad formulaic, and never cottoned to Dudley Pope for some reason. Showell Styles was very variable; the Lieut Fitton stories fine;
    The Midshipman Septimus Quinn a little TOO kiddy-lit for mine (I'll come back to 'kiddy-lit')

    Possibly my favourite for all time are the Flashman stories. Good fun, and the history is pretty good too.

    I found some of Harry Turtledove's alternate histories to be pretty good, especially the 'alternative Byzantium' and the altogether fictitious 'Lost Legion' books. His alternative ACW and subsequent alternative WW1 are OK-ish, but would make a basis for fine wargames campaigns! Against that, although I enjoyed Harry Harrison's SF 'Stainless Steel Rat' stories, his 'Stars and Stripes' stories I gave up on as a promising premise (the UK joining the South), ended up reliant for the US victory on some improbable events (e.g. a British atrocity on CS soil - not in itself all that unlikely - causing the CSA to switch sides; or 'USS Monitor' defeating 'HMS Warrior' in a single ship duel - the handling of the latter being such in my view to have led to the Court Martial sentencing Captain and officers to be shot).

    Liverpool Dave is a little diffident concerning his enjoyment of some recommended YA stories. Actually there is some very fine YA and 'kiddy Lit' novels about. So I'll be having a look for Naomi Novik Temeraire (sounds like a psuedonym) stories.

    If you liked C.S. Forester's Hormblower, you might like the Nicholas Seafort saga - the 'Hope'stories of David Feintuch, though these are 'Hornblower in Space'. I've read just two. T the first is 'Midshipman's Hope', in which the midshipman takes command of a vessel on a difficult assignment when an accident kills all the senior officers. The other I have read is 'Voices of Hope' which I recommend very highly. Several characters tell the story, but although Nick Seafort is a major character (an hero) it's his son who is one of the 'voices' (narrators). 'Dispersed narratives' as I like to call them, in which several characters tell the story is a compelling narrative style I find.

    Cheers,
    Ion

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    1. Hi Ion - yes - Forester is always a safe bet - can't remember one of his books I didn't enjoy. There's something about small groups in a story - the most successful Sharpe stories are about a small group of individuals on a mission, the worst are the attempts to depict a piece of a mass action. Maybe a ship is a good-sized setting to make a closed group for an adventure? Anyway, I'll order one of the Blood books and see what's what!

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  4. I read one, or was it two, Sharpe novels and found them a little ‘thin’. There you go, you’re not the only heretic! I also read one of Cornwell’s about an archer (Agincourt?). Sharpe with a bow and arrow. English bloke from the lower orders becomes a captain through the fortunes of war. Good shot. Has a team around him who are also crack shots. Assorted bunch from around the British Isles. Beats the French against the odds.

    I tried with one of those Jack Aubrey books but I couldn’t get past all the sailing jargon. I could work out if they were going left or right, but not whether what they were doing was the equivalent of a hand break turn or stepping on the gas. Pretty essential to understand what was going on tactically I’d have thought. Love Master and Commander though.

    Can’t beat Flashman though.

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    1. "Team around him who are all crack shots" - yes, that's the formula. Occurs to me that it's the same formula as Enid Blyton's "Famous Five" and similar.

      Thanks for this - interesting. I've always avoided Flashman - for the same reason I always avoided "Top Gear" on TV - tradition of laddish hedonism! Maybe I should lighten up and have a read!

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    2. Five Go to Badajoz. “I say Richard, those foreign chaps are dashed queer coves.” “Yes Timmy. But they’re KGL so they’re our foreigners. And what’s more, loyal to the King.”

      I can see why Flashman has this laddish tinge. But there’s also some pretty good history behind it all. Lots of footnotes etc and explanation of what was really going on. I’d say they have more intellectual kudos than Sharpe.

      And of course they are entertaining yarns.

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    3. By Jove, I think you've cracked an idea for a new podcast series. Excellent. You can imagine the problems Wellington would have, laying on supply trains full of egg and cress sandwiches, and ginger pop.

      I'm not sure, but I think it is GA Henty's "The Young Buglers", where Wellington is generally playfully disposed towards his young staff officers, and refers to them as "you young scamps" and suchlike. In fact, the vibe is probably more gay than Henty intended, though there is nothing wrong with that, and maybe Henty intended it after all. If it wasn't Henty, kindly ignore all this.

      By the way, not wishing to split hairs here, but Timmy was a dog. No - I have no point to make about this.

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  5. I couldn't get on reading Sharpe either although strangely I did enjoy the TV show. I enjoyed reading Biggles as a lad though if that counts? I have always preferred well written military non-fiction (the type that make fact seem like fiction) like Stephen Sears ACW books. The only horse and musket book that I think comes into this category is David Howarth's Waterloo, perhaps this is due to the lack of first hand accounts that writers can draw upon?

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    1. What turns me off the Sharpe stories most is the soppy love-interest sub-plots, which are usually doomed and predictable and rather embarrassing. I guess the publisher demanded it - tough job for Sharpe, but someone has to do it.

      Forester's two Peninsular War books are good, I think. One of the best of the autobiogs is George Simmons "A British Rifleman" - George tells it from his own diaries (unlike many of his contemporaries, who spent their declining years cutting and pasting chunks of Napier as their own), and there's lots of interesting social side-themes such as trying to send home money to help with his brother's education. George got wounded just about every time he went into action!

      Howarth's book, along with a childhood visit to Les Invalides, on a Sunday morning, when it was shut (my grandfather was pally with the Governor!), these are almost certainly the first seeds of my interest in the Napoleonic period!

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    2. So glad someone mentioned Biggles - surely he counts?! Where a lot of things began for me, aged about 9 I was in danger of becoming a junior Chris Packham with my 'Observers Book of Birds', but chanced upon 'Biggles in the Orient' from the mobile library at junior school and never looked back... ( not to knock Chris P, after all he had Rorkes Drift as his specialist subject on celebrity Mastermind, 'cos his Dad was big on military history! ) Never tried Sharpe, I fear he would be a pale imitation of 'Death to the French'..

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    3. I guess Biggles is fine. I never read much Biggles either - I read a WW2 Biggles title with Spitfires and all that when I was a kid, and was quite impressed, but I borrowed some pre-war titles from my (much) older cousins, and was very confused about all the Colonial detective stuff - I fell off the wagon at that point.

      You reminded me that I used to have a photo of Dudley Moore as Biggles, with wire coat-hanger inside his white scarf, so I started looking to see what happened to the movie it came from, and it seems it didn't happen - well, not with Dud in it. It also seems to have twinned WW2 Biggles with a 1980s AMERICAN chap in a time-skip narrative, which is too weird to countenance, so I moved on quickly. I mean, I can believe in the time travel and the personality swap, but not with the US transplant.

      I see that WE Johns' output (which is vast) has received some criticism because the passing of the years was not the same for Biggles and his chums as it was for everyone else, which merely proves that they must have been travelling at speeds approaching that of light during some other book I missed.

      One great strangeness in this area is the very strange version of The Gun, Forester's Peninsular novel, which appeared as a movie starring Frank Sinatra (as a Mexican bandit) and Sophia Loren (I can't remember who she was). Now that really is a terrible movie, which is a shame, since the book was very good.

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  6. Not a fan of the Sharpe novels either. After a couple, they are all pretty similar.

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