Bob Woods:
What I find most appealing in the
Flashman Papers is that the author takes a specific incident and researches the
heck out of it. His meticulous research
had me convinced that he was a historian who turned to writing fiction, but as
it turns out, he is a journalist who loves research. A-
Keith:
Looking for a concise summary of Flashman: Casanova; Lady Killer; rake; roué; wolf;
woman chaser. 50 pages is plenty for me;
however, the ending was superb. Dynamic
action is good in the short run.
Hearing 40 minutes of Rush Limbaugh gives you knowledge of what 4 hours
will be like. B-
Kenny G:
This is my first Flashman book. I
read “Flashman & The Tiger” story
first and thought it clever to mix history and fiction. B+ for that story. However, the Baccarat story was overdrawn,
turned me off: C+ Overall:
B-
Bob Simon:
I read the first and last story, not the one about Baccarat. I enjoyed the ending to the first story,
thought it clever: A- I loved the energy of the story –
invigorating. Even humorous writers don’t
have this energy. Good ol’ Flashy goes in,
gets the woman, fights his way out – wild!
He saves Franz Joseph from being assassinated, gets high
commendations. Interesting, but not sure
I would recommend to others. Charming, a
genre I’m not familiar with. I don’t know
how Fraser animates his artistic genre. A-
Charlie:
Fun and entertaining, I enjoyed reading it. Doesn’t compare well with Western
Literature. Doesn’t make it to the top
level – very good, but B overall.
Good fun.
Dick Arms:
I enjoyed it. I read the first
part, then learned I was supposed to read the third part. Very skillfully written, excellent grasp of
history, loved where he was idololizing his granddaughter only to discover that
she had his same sense of morals.
Skillfully done, probably not tell all my friends to read it. A-
Mike:
If the twin goals of reading are for entertainment and to learn, this was a top-notch
book. I am always amazed with how little
of human history I know. Especially
entertaining to read Flashman on a Kindle iPad app. Here one can click on words like Isandl'wana and impi, and people like Cetshwayo and Lord Chelmsford to try to ascertain: are these fictional or real? Great mixture of both, and I subsequently learned a great deal. My thanks to Brother Simon for introducing me to the movie "Zulu" – at YouTube.com, a search for Zulu chants brings 6 minutes of unforgettable video. A-
… and from well outside of Zululand …
Bob and Mike:
I will not be at the meeting tonight.
Here is my brief review of the book.
I enjoyed reading Flashman and The Tiger, I think it was quite well written and I found the characters interesting--the story was also quite interesting. I planned to read more stories about Flashman (the book that I bought has two more stories in it) but I was not able to read them--we have been out of town on a cruise.
I don't think this story was quite as good as some of the previous ones that we have read so I would give it a B.
Sorry to miss the meeting.
Dick Jensen
The first Flashman tale
we read [2000] led me to regard the hero as a lovable scalawag. I didn't
think our hero was very lovable in this Tiger tale. Closer to loathsome.
Glad it was short.
C plus. The plus is for brevity.
Rob
C plus. The plus is for brevity.
Rob
