Dudley Pope, Ramage and the Saracens
Nov. 26th, 2009 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienPenultimate in the Lord Ramage series, which opens with Our Hero pootling around the Mediterranean in a frigate, post-Trafalgar. Soon a pair of French 74's appear -- and just when all seems lost, thanks almost entirely to authorial fiat disguised as luck, they crash into one another and cease to be a threat, after which Ramage and crew take on a couple of French frigates in slightly more convincing fashion, until one of them conveniently holes itself on a rock. (Have I mentioned before that I don't think Pope really liked writing battles very much?) At least the French in these ships seem halfway competent and sober, which makes a change.
That's about the first third of the book. After Ramage reports in to an unappreciative admiral, he's sent to deal with the "Saraceni" pirate problem in Malta. This happens in two stages; first defeat the pirates raiding one coastal village, stopping them from carrying off the men to row galleys and the women to stock their brothels; then raiding (not just with one frigate!) the pirate base and rescuing the captives from previous raids. This is action-packed and bloody but not, somehow, terribly suspenseful. It worries me rather that the Muslim pirates are portrayed as stereotypically as possible; not one of them has a personality or a word to say. Even Tolkien's Haradrim got that one moment in Ithilien with the hobbits and the dead soldier, but these guys might as well be insectoid monsters from another planet, and they die like the cardboard they are.
There's a happy reunion at the end, completely unconnected to the rest of the plot.
Not one of my favorites from this series.
That's about the first third of the book. After Ramage reports in to an unappreciative admiral, he's sent to deal with the "Saraceni" pirate problem in Malta. This happens in two stages; first defeat the pirates raiding one coastal village, stopping them from carrying off the men to row galleys and the women to stock their brothels; then raiding (not just with one frigate!) the pirate base and rescuing the captives from previous raids. This is action-packed and bloody but not, somehow, terribly suspenseful. It worries me rather that the Muslim pirates are portrayed as stereotypically as possible; not one of them has a personality or a word to say. Even Tolkien's Haradrim got that one moment in Ithilien with the hobbits and the dead soldier, but these guys might as well be insectoid monsters from another planet, and they die like the cardboard they are.
There's a happy reunion at the end, completely unconnected to the rest of the plot.
Not one of my favorites from this series.
