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26 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1986

Flash is Getting Soft!
After reading "Flash for Freedom," with its nauseous blatant racism expressed through Flashman's perspective, I began to wonder why I was drawn to the series. Even in the Spanish picaresque novels, rogues tend to mature in their skullduggery. But I already had "Flashman at the Charge" in the exercycle pile, so I plunged in. I'm glad I did. This is the most successful episode yet, in terms of ...

Flash for Freedom! (Flashman)

21 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1985

Filthy Groveling Narcissistic Swine!
Hard to take! Bundle 3 of the Flashman Papers exposes Harry at his nauseating worst - smug and cowardly, vile in thought and deed, and appallingly callous in his racism. Racism is a touchy subject for me. If Harry or his creator had been physically accessible, there might never have been a volume 4. Only the perception that Flashman wasn't Fraser, but just a 'fallible narrator' in literary terms, ...

Royal Flash (Flashman)

29 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1985

You KNOW you want it! So buy it!
One bloody narrow escape after another! Flashman, Aubrey/Maturin, Jack Bauer! It must be atavistic, the thrill I feel from them, hormonally encrypted by my neanderthal evolution! Plus Flashman comes with 'entremeses' of lechery between the entrees of fish and foul! If you are so much as considering RoyaL Flash, you should - you must - have read the first of the series, titled simply Flashman. ...

Flashman: A Novel (Flashman)

91 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1984

A hero in spite of himself
Over the years, I've read plenty of books with villains. There have been killers, sadists, cannibals, rapists, scumbuckets, sleazebags, and just plain sociopaths. On the other hand, there aren't all that many cads. George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman, however, is a cad, a scoundrel, a rascal and a rogue. The typical cad is not so much evil as amoral; he acts less out of malice than pure ...

Flashman's Lady (Flashman)

13 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1988

Flashy shows a spark of selflessness in spite of himself
In the 1966 screen adaptation of A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) advises his daughter Meg (Susannah York): "If (God) suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can. And, yes Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it's God's part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a ...

Flashman and the Dragon (Flashman)

20 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1987

Dancing Truth's Tightrope
After reading Hornblower and Bolitho, I thought I would give the army a try. Fraser is an excellent teller of historical fiction with a touch of Jeffery Deaver for fun! Quite graphic in his portrayls of the characters and events, Flashman delves into the whys and not just the hows. Yes, Flashman is a roque, but if given the chance - wouldn't we all?

The Reavers

1 review
George Macdonald Fraser

Knopf, 2008

Funny, but not his best
The Reavers is very much in the style of Fraser's "Pyrates" but, in my opinion, not as successful. For those of you more familiar with the Flashman books, both The Reavers and Pyrates are more over-the-top, more fantastic, and the narrator is constantly interjecting with a wink and a nudge. Pyrates is probably my all-time favorite Fraser novel-- but The Reavers felt more like a rehash. Even ...

Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II

7 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Skyhorse Publishing, 2007

A Soildier's Up Close Story of The Jungle War in Burma During WWII:
George MacDonald Fraser, who has written many successful fiction books based on well researched history quite often starring his very British Flashman character, writes a chronicle of his own personal experiences in the final stages of WWII fighting the Japanese as a 19 year old member of a rifle company that is composed of a handful of men run by a sergeant and a corporal. Fraser, who just ...

Flashman and the Mountain of Light (Flashman)

11 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1992

"There Were Some Damned Odd Fellows About in the Earlies"
In George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman and the Mountain of Light', our man Flashy sees Queen Vicky holding the Koh-I-Noor diamond and flashes back to India - more precisely, the Punjab where he arrives just in time for the first Anglo Sikh War (1845-46), not to suggest that Flashman had a hand in the war or anything. The reader meets some of the most colorful figures ever to occupy the ...

Flashman in the Great Game: A Novel (Flashman)

20 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1989

An Ambivalence Wrapped Up in an Ambiguity
Midway through his memoirs of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, Harry Flashman ruminates: What beats me is the way people take it to heart -- what do they expect in war? It ain't conducted by missionaries, or chaps in Liberal clubs, snug and secure. But what amuses me most is the fashionable way views change -- why, for years after Cawnpore, any vengeance wreaked on an Indian, mutineer or not, was ...

Flashman on the March (Flashman Papers)

33 reviews
George Macdonald Fraser

Anchor, 2006

Bloody Hell - Where's the NEXT one?
If you have read even one of the Flashman Papers, this review very likely is irrelevant: You're already reading one of the previously published works recounting the adventures of Sir Harry. On top of that, what can you say about General Flashman that has not been said already, and by those better with the Queen's English than Your Humble Narrator? Sufficient to say that "Flashman on the ...

The Light's on at Signpost

5 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2003

A Real Breath of Fresh Air
Mr, Fraser has written a really good book, which makes a lot sense and was fun to read. One gets tired of hearing from the P.C. and the "Caring Brigade", so when I started reading this text it really was a joy to these tired old eyes. Not that I don't agree with everything with the Author. For example his oppostion to the 4th Afghan War. But Mr. Fraser has earned his right to opposed that war. ...

Flashman and the Tiger

42 reviews
George Macdonald Fraser

Anchor, 2001

You'd think Flash would have to repeat himself
Fraser squeezed another Flashy episode into that brief human life and me, I'm glad. So will you be also. The Flashman Papers continue to offer up new episodes in this series. In this one Flashy's reflections are more more mature, but his cynicism remains intact, his wisdom a human one recognizing our weaknesses as humans, none more than his own.

Flashman and the Redskins (Flashman)

20 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1983

Flashy reluctantly helps tame the Wild West.
"I never did learn to speak Apache properly. Mind you, it ain't easy, mainly because the red brutes seldom stand still long enough - and if you've any sense, you don't either, or you're liable to find yourself studying their system of vowel pronunciation while hanging head-down over a slow fire or riding for dear life across the Jornada del Muerto with them howling at your heels and trying to ...

The Sheikh and the Dustbin

4 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

HarperCollins UK, 1996

Chaos in a grungy kilt
It is time that you hear "the sub-muckin', the whole cheese, the hail clanjamfry, the lot' about the Scottish Highland Regiment that served in Africa after World War II. George MacDonald Fraser has written the stories of this regiment and its most infamous soldier, Private McAuslan, in three collections: The General Danced at Dawn, McAuslan in the Rough, and The Sheikh and the Dustbin. Through ...

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord

18 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Plume, 1996

FLASH HARRY IS BACK! But not in this book.
I wanted to write a brief review about the twelfth packet of papers in the Sir Harry Paget Flashmen series, but it hasn't been printed in the US, as yet, so I'll write about them here. I purchased the latest novel FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH from amazon.co.uk a few weeks ago. I am very happy to say that the old Harry is back. This time he finds himself escaping the anger of his Austrian companions from ...

Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard (New York Review Books Classics)

8 reviews
Arthur Conan Doyle

NYRB Classics, 2001

Classic entertainment for Napoleonic war enthusiasts
Brigadier Gerard is everything that a Briton of Conan Doyle's time thought was an exemplar of the Napoleonic officer - and to a certain extent a charicature of the French themselves. Hopelessly and ridiculously brave, completely lacking in appreciation of the fine British virtues of sportsmanship, a devotion to L'Empereur, rather dim, obsessed with his honor and the honor of La France, and yet ...

The Pyrates: A Swashbuckling Comic Novel by the Creator of Flashman

24 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

The Lyons Press, 2003

The funniest book you'll read in years
Imagine the fantasy and imagination of The Princess Bride; take the joie de vivre of Pirates Of The Caribbean; mix it a little with the eccentricity of Carry On Don't Lose Your Head (leaving out the tackier parts of the humour) and then take each of your favourite pirate stereotypes (bad guys, good guys, black spots, needlessly evil Spaniards, sword fights and derring-do) and turn it into ...

The Complete McAuslan

2 reviews
George MacDonald Fraser

Harper, 2000

On par with Flashman, and perhaps even better.
The title of this missive is misleading. Comparing Flashman to McAuslin is like comparing Heroditus to Camu. It's senseless. Except that both entertained me greatly (not so much Herotditus). This is the case with this collection. Because this is a compendia better reviews than this one have doubtlesly been written. At the very least they must be less grammatically fragile (to say nothing of my ...

The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers
George MacDonald Fraser

Skyhorse Publishing, 2008

Want to know what really happened? Stan Isaacs knows. He was there! "The Shot Heard Round the World," in 1951. "The Fight of the Century," in 1971. The horror of the 1972 Munich Olympics. Secretariat's legendary win at the 1973 Belmont Stakes. Stan Isaacs saw them all live. Isaacs covered thousands of sports stories in his more than fifty years as a journalist. But ten moments stand out in his memory. Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World ...

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