Sharpe's Revenge, by Bernard Cornwell (Richard Sharpe Adventure Series)

Sharpe's Revenge

Bernard Cornwell

Richard Sharpe Adventure Series

We are approaching the end of the Richarrd Sharpe series here, with only two novels left.  Neither Jim nor I want them to end.  It is said Bernard Cornwell is working on another, but it just can't come soon enough.

In Sharpe's Revenge, Wellington has crossed the mountains into France.  The war is almost over.  In fact, the Battle of Toulouse, dramatized here, occurs after Napoleon Bonaparte has surrendered and technically France is under the control of the British and allies.  Angry about a duel, Jane Sharpe has gone back to London, taking a letter from Sharpe to his bankers authorizing her to take over the account.  Pierre Ducos knows his goose is cooked, so he takes the opportunity to steal Bonaparte's treasure and manages somehow to pin the blame on Sharpe and Freerickson.  These two are arrested for the theft.  That Sharpe has in his possession the spyglass Napoleon gave to his brother, Joseph, seals the deal on him.  The two officers escape and go looking for the witnesses to their innocence, while Ducos does the same, getting there first and silencing them.

Back in London Jane is falling in love with and spending Sharpe's money on Lord Rossendale.  Beginning to sense the betrayal Sharpe finds comfort in Lassan's sister, Lucille Castineau.  Unfortunately Frederickson fell in love with her first.    Sharpe wants to tell him about Lucille and him, but they are on their way to find Ducos by the time they speak again.  In the meantime it turns out the attorney seeking Sharpe and Frederickson is really working for Bonaparte who also wants his treasure back.

This is the most mature writing of Cornwell's Sharpe series.  The segments in it about other people than Sharpe himself are as interesting and important and show a greater breadth of characterization than the earlier novels.  Not that I am complaining about the earlier ones...  The story is more involved, the circumstances just as daunting but the more so since pretty much everyonne on earth is after Our Hero.

I have already read the next two novels, Waterloo and Sharpe's Devil, and Jim has read the latter.  We are intentionally reading a long novel next, Edward Rutherfurd's The Prince of Ireland, partially to put off the end of our survey of every single Sharpe novel starting in 2008.  Then we shall have to kill ourselves...  No, wait, I am planning to get Jim hooked on Lymond next!

By the way, there is a movie stuck in here somewhere... Sharpe's Mission seems to come before Sharpe's Siege.  It's not a bad movie with some echoes from the books, but there ain't no book counterpart, not really.

The Hadrian Enigma: A Forbidden History, by George Gardiner

The Hadrian Enigma: A Forbidden History

George Gardiner

Though the history books evade or ignore the nature of the relationship between Roman Emperor Hadrian and his companion Antinous, the fact that the emperor deified the young man after his tragic death lends credibility and not a little poignancy to author George Gardiner’s mystery romance set in the second century AD in Egypt, The Hadrian Enigma: A Forbidden History.

Gaius Suetonius, a bit of a muckraking biographer, tells this story about an investigation into the sudden and unexplainable death of the youth, Antinous, by apparent drowning in the Nile during an annual festival of the death and resurrection of the god Osiris. The small group of investigators commissioned by Caesar Hadrian has two days to learn how he came to be found in the river dead. The path to this knowledge is difficult, involved, often contradictory and definitely dangerous as the investigators follow leads full of red herrings and mislaid people and things. At the heart of what they learn is how the boy came to be the eromenus to Hadrian’s erastes, a relationship between a mature man and a young one entering his career that was at least mentor-mentee and likely erotic. It seems that Hadrian was looking for such a companion and found it in Antinous, but from there the enigma stretches. A Roman man was not supposed to engage in an equal love relationship but only dominate the eromenus, but from the start the two men’s relationship was much more, and this fact if revealed could damage the Empire.

If you are expecting a nice neat Hercule Poirot detective story, let that go. This murder investigation, if that is the crime that took place, is far more challenging for both the investigators and the book’s readers. The solution does not even come to light until almost too late, during the investigation report. Rather than being a spoiler, I offer you the foreknowledge of a much more skillful mental workout. Perhaps the greater mystery is why the emperor asked Suetonius to lead the inquiries, as the latter is known for leaving no salacious stone unturned in his research and writing. Does Hadrian really want to know what happened to his lover? Does he really want everyone to see the seamy side of his court?

The structure of the novel is a series of interviews with witnesses and suspects about the days before and immediately after the young man’s death. In seeking background about Antinous, Suetonius and his fellows explore his life and relationships before becoming Hadrian’s companion. The individuals who supply this intelligence come at it from a number of quite different perspectives, with enough gaps between them to offer ambiguity. You will find yourself guessing “whodunit” and changing your mind several times as you follow the investigation and meet other players in the story.

I found that starting at the point of the lovers’ first night together I began to feel a sense of the tragic nature of their erastes-eromenus compact. It is understood that it cannot last more than a few years, but since in this case love enters the equation, the tragic nature of Antinous’s life starts to permeate all succeeding events. I found this quite moving and that it added a layer of anxiety as I read. As mentioned above, this is a novel about the nature of love. One aspect of gay male romance is constant threat to happiness and fulfillment, but this is far from just being a gay romance. The central characters are both men, but loves of other kinds make their mark throughout. There is family, marital friendship and sexual love, and the tension comes when the masculinist nature of Roman culture interferes and invalidates it. The subtext, as the author told me, is the same as we face now, when romantic relationships are more broadly defined but still not part of the heart of our societies.

One aspect of this novel I found pleasing was the mix of archaic and modern terms. Readers sometimes balk at modern slang, but when the very essence of a novel is that everything in it is an implicit translation, it is absurd to say that there would not have been a slang counterpart in the ancient language. Further, Gardiner confines his slang to the appropriate witnesses, those who would have used slang. That the words eromenus and boy-toy are in the same paragraph made perfect sense to me.

This novel will stick with readers for some time, its many subtle undertones drifting up and down in contemplation. It is also simply a good mystery novel. You will feel engaged and challenged and you will find you had encountered every little detail at some point in the book. No surprises, that is, if you were paying attention.

I purchased this novel as a Kindle download in order to read and review it.

The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The White Company

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Historical fiction fans generally know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, while best known for his Sherlock Holmes mysteries, loved his medieval novels and considered them his finest work. These two novels are Sir Nigel and The White Company, set during the Hundred Years War. They were included in an anthology of novels and short stories called Classic British Literature and were among the first books available for the Amazon Kindle as a free download. It remains available for free as a public domain book at Amazon and also the Internet Archive and elsewhere.

Though The White Comapny is a sequel, it was actually written first. Two young men leave the Abbey of Beaulieu, one because he was kicked out and the other because, though he has been the abbey's star pupil, was required by his late father to come away into the world at his 20th birthday. This latter, Alain Edrickson, falls in with the former, Hortle John a giant of a young man who had only gone into the abbey because of jilted love. They two meet up with Aylward, a rollicking veteran archer, and the typical but charmingly written picaresque of the three travelers starts this novel out well. Then they reach the castle of Sir Nigel Loring. The minute that worthy opens his mouth the trial begins for the reader.

But more on that later. Alain joins up with Sir Nigel's White Company of men at arms and archers and, in love with Sir Nigel's daughter Maud, he leaves with him for Bordeaux to help the Black Prince fight to put Pedro of Castile on his throne, yes the same Pedro later called The Cruel. After lots and lots of adventures on the way, the company finally meets with the enemy, the Castilian usurper's armies and their French allies, just south of the infamous Roncesvalles.

Even if one entertains the possibility that Nigel is a satirical figure, he is so florid in his speech, as are all of his class in this novel, that one's eye muscles get a good workout constantly rolling in one's head. For instance, seeing an army of the enemy approaching his own modest one, Nigel is elated, for "They look like worthy men and courtesy and should provide us with an opportunity for advancement." He says that no matter who is riding up, singly or with a massive army and scowls on their faces. He is almost charming in his earnestness for chivalric deeds, but this reader got a little overwhelmed with it all, in spite of raising herself on this stuff.

There is a lot to this book that I interpreted as social and religious commentary and definitely satirical. On the road in Gascony the small group traveling with Nigel run into a beggar selling relics that they find out were stolen from a blacksmith in the next town, and with a summoner who sells dispensations for even the vilest sins, though not a priest. Peasant rebellion , John Wycliffe and the destruction of the French countryside by the English all get a mention. The language alone in this novel is fascinating, both tasting of chivalrous talk but not what we are used to in more recent historical fiction.

This of course is not the novel's fault, but the narrator for the library for blind where I got the book, Tim Jernigan, suddenly launched into W. C. Fields for the relic merchant and into Henry Fonda for a veteran archer named Johnston. I am thinking narrators really aren't supposed to do that, and no wonder, since I found it irritating and distracting. But while the books are available from Audible I doubt it is the same recording.

In spite of the silly voices, Doyle's characters are quite well-drawn and endearing.

I guess what I have to say about this novel is that if you are expecting the usual Bernard Cornwell or Sharon Kay Penman story of medieval warfare, then think again. It is both far less and far more, with its odd dialogue and yet insightful illustrations of the same.

I am not sure I could take another extended session of Sir Nigel, but the description of the later earlier novel is interesting enough... I might just give it a try.

Latest Thoughts on Blind People and the Kindle

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Someone who got really mad at me for championing the Kindle 3 in spite of its failure to achieve full accessibility for print impaired readers just sent me an email he got from someone lamenting the lack. It got me thinking about my own use of the Kindle, which has, of late, been very happily active.

What do these people object to?

Mainly they object to the fact that the Amazon Kindle 3 Reading Device is not 100% accessible for print impaired people. That's true, it's not. You can't, as the critic pointed out, access the Kindle store. That is, you can go to it on your Kindle but it will not be in an audible format. The critic points out that you have to go to their website on your talking computer. Frankly, I don't see how this is such a problem. The device from the National Library Services for the Blind is just the same. He also complains about not being able to find where to download the software that would make this accessible, but I have no idea what he is talking about. I didn't know there was anything like that.

This echos what I have been hearing from vision impaired critics of the Kindle 3, that the device is not perfect, and until it is they will have none of it. That's their prerogative, but forgive me if I opine that they are throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

The fact is that as I have been compiling the 1,300 novels for medieval-novels.com I have found book after book that is available with text-to-speech enabled on Kindle. Now mind you these are books I could not get from the library for the blind. Period. They were simply not available to me, a voracious, nay rapacious reader of the historical fiction genre. I have been in hog heaven!

So I am thinking, it will be excellent when the Kindle becomes even more accessible than it is now, but as I listen to books I would never ever get to read otherwise, I am too distracted to worry about the principle of the thing. I know the principle is important, but I wonder what happens to a group's credibility when they insist "all or nothing"?

The last time I checked, very popular and prolific novelist Elizabeth Chadwick only had two novels in the National Library Services in the U.S. Lords of the White Castle and The Greatest Knight. When I went looking for more, I received several cassette books by a Texan author who wrote about the Wild West. Even The Marsh King's Daughter I had to read on commercial audiotape.

However, her books available on Kindle include:

For the King's Favor
Bride Fire
Greatest Knight
Scarlet Lion
Wanton Angel

A favorite of mine, Judith Tarr, only has three on NLS, namely Queen of Swords, Rite of Conquest and Pride of Kings, while on Kindle you will find:

Ars Magica
Alamut
Tides of Darkness
Kingdom of the Grail
Devil's Bargain
King's Blood (William the Conquerer #2)
Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right
and a few volumes of short stories including ones by Judith Tarr.

Would you care to wager whether NLS or Kindle will expand their collections sooner and more?

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I am not criticizing NLS... they are a library run by a government agency with its associated restraints. But... in terms of the Kindle, and remember that books come out on Kindle soon after their release while we are talking months if not a couple years before they make it onto NLS, would you rather be right or reading?

Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure, by Adm. Richard E. Byrd

Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure

Adm. Richard E. Byrd

My husband, Jim Tedford, has been telling me about this book for years. He read it in high school back in the 1970s, and it is easy to see how formative it was for him. When I saw the book, which is an actual account rather than a novel, was available for download from the National Library Services for the Blind, I thought it was high time I read something that interests him uniquely. I am very glad I did.

In Alone, Byrd tells the story of his harrowing, nearly fatal months by himself in a tiny shack in an Antarctic winter. He was there in 1933, at 80 degrees 8 minutes to make meteorological observations. Bear in mind that the South Pole is 90 degrees. He was about as far from the pole as Detroit is from Kansas City. The original plan was for three men to work together, but for a number of reasons, Byrd, the expedition's commander, decided he should do it alone. This and other last minute decisions nearly ended his life. The book is his memoir of the months he spent at Advance Base.

I am one of those readers who is highly susceptible to events and situations in a book, so I absolutely froze while I read Alone. It is amazing how the temperature could range in one day in June or July, as much as from two degrees F below to more than 30. Byrd lived in a small shack with two tunnels for supplies and a shelter for the weather recording equipment outside. The shack was buried for insulation, but Byrd had to go outside several times a day to change the paper and so forth on the recording devices, to make any repairs, and to make visual observations of such phenomena as the Aurora Australis. At its coldest the thermometer read 82 degrees F below zero. At that point in July, he was already failing from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Byrd says that he chose to do this ordeal not just for the sake of science but also because he wanted to experience complete and utter solitude. He wanted to see what would happen away from the social interactions and demands of real life. He learned this in spades, coming to a spiritual awareness he had not foreseen. As you read, you learn what an earnest fellow he was, what warmth he could exude, his love for his colleagues and family, and his quiet modesty. More than that you learn what a man of true courage can endure.

I see so much of Jim in this book, his fascination not only with the extremes of geography and weather but his earnest desire to learn from everything around him. He, like Byrd, cares so deeply about those in his life, the world, the wonder of it all. I also see where his interest in simple liiving comes from. The one thing Jim and Byrd did not share is a love for radio technology. Jim adores it, Byrd hated it, though of course it saved his life.

The book has a highly informative afterword by another author, telling about the rest of Byrd's life, what discoveries were made after his expeditions, and more about the history of Antarctic exploration.

Byrd states early in the book that his diaries, which make up part of it, reveal little of his emotions during his weeks of isolation and hardship. I don't know what he thought emotions were, because I saw plenty of self reflection and thoughtful contemplation not only in his account but in those diaries. The result is a picture of a highly admirable human being. Just like Jim.

Kingdom of the Grail, by Judith Tarr

Kingdom of the Grail

Judith Tarr


The only thing more exciting than discovering another Judith Tarr novel is discovering one about one of your all-time favorite heroes. The only thing more exciting than that is finduing out it is not only on Kindle, it is text to speech enabled... meaning I get to read the thing. I am so accustomed to looking to see if a book is in some accessible format and being disappointed that I just about screamed with triumph when I found Judith Tarr's novel of Roland, Kingdom of the Grail. I immediately wrote to her on Facebook and thanked her for the book being so near and yes, so near.

So, if you know Judith Tarr's books you know that several of them, like Rite of Conquest and Pride of Kings, concern real historical figures and events -- William and the Norman Conquest and King Richard and Prince John and the ransom respectively, with an underpinning of a mystical struggle between good and evil. There are Guardians whose job it is to keep the natural and supernatural world in balance. The hero of the story does not know he is one of the Guardians, and the fact comes as a shock to him, as it does for William and the reluctant John -- Richard turned it down because one thing you can't be is exclusively Christian. This hero, and because I haven't explored far enough yet, I can only assume this, is the heir to King Arthur. In this case the heir is Roland, the nephew of the Great King Charles of the Franks, whose name was probably Karl, but we all know him as Charlemagne. I can't tell you how thrilled I was. I must have been thirteen or fourteen when I read Sir James Baldwin's The Story of Roland, written in 1913 and one of my tip top favorite books of all time. (You can download it free on Internet Archive.)

If you know the story, not legend, of Roland, you know he dies at Roncesvalles, a mountain pass, as he is crossing back into Francia from Moorish Spain. So you wonder, OK, how's this going to work in Tarr's book. Quite satisfyingly, actually. The first part of the novel is about Roland's growing suspicions about an evil wizard and the king's son, Pepin. He is under scrutiny by the mysterious Sarissa, who had expected that the goal of her quest was to recruit Charles to be the next Grail King, but Durandel, the sword, chooses Roland instead. In the first part you also meet Olivier and Ogier the Dane, long familiar and beloved names if you are a Roland nut. In the second part of the novel you follow Roland to the Kingdom of the Grail after his presumed death at Roncesvalles. The nine ladies are guarding the Grail there, along with nine Grail knights , both groups filled with fascinating people from numerous cultures and times. The present Frail King is the dying Sir Persival of Arthurian legend. Roland himself, none too happy with being tricked, pulls a Lancelot-like "wild man" stint as the village idiot, but comes to himself just as the bad guys are on their way. Oh, and Huon of the Horn is here. No Reynald?

It all works wonderfully. If I had a criticism it would be that I could've spent an entire novel with the Grail ladies and knights but we barely get to meet them. On the other hand I adored Tarek, the puka, who spends much of the story in his gray cat guise... charmingly. he gets to be a horse and a dragon too. The love story between Roland and Sarissa is edgy, which was just exactly right, giving them both independent conflicts and some lovely love scenes.

I need to find out which of Tarr's books are part of this series and which one is the first in it, the one about Arthur. I am rather tired of Arthurian legend, and Merlin in particular, though he is in this book, but I gotta see how all this started.