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readallthenewberys2012-09-15 07:33 pm
justice_turtle) wrote in readallthenewberys2012-09-15 07:33 pm
Review: The Dark Frigate (Charles Boardman Hawes)
Summary: Philip Marsham, age nineteen, gets orphaned, kicked out of his lodgings, and falls in with a disreputable fat drunk guy in short order. He swears to marry a tavern wench, earns the respect of a manor lord by having a fistfight with the lord's gamekeeper, and lands a job on a sailing ship along with the fat guy. Sailing ship is pirated by pirates whom the fat guy knows, Philip hangs around with them for a while, runs away, gets awkwardly captured as one of them (it's complicated), is put on trial with them, is the only one acquitted (it's really complicated), goes back to see the tavern wench who's gotten married, goes back to see the manor lord who befriends him... and the last chapter covers "oh by the way, he's a soldier in the Roundhead/Cavalier wars and does lots of brave things but I ain't gonna tell you that part in this book", and ends with him shipping out for Barbados on the same ship he originally got pirated on. The end.
Reaction: There are no awesome ladies whatever in this book, only nasty and/or boring ones. The writing is a bit better than in "The Great Quest", but people are still given to doing things for either plotty reasons or bad excuses a lot more than for anything that makes sense. I did get all the way through it, mainly because the slave trade is not involved, thus racism is barely hinted at. But the protagonist is still a dope, just not quite as much of a one. And it's a lot more gory / violent in places. Plus, there's quite a lot of incredibly weird mental sophistry / gymnastics trying to defend the plotty reasons, and a fair bit of "making fun of less fortunate people is something all good and true men should do!" :P
Overall, I'd say he was becoming a better writer but still wasn't a good one.
Conclusion: Two stars. For having something resembling a coherent plot, and for not addressing questions of race at all.
Reaction: There are no awesome ladies whatever in this book, only nasty and/or boring ones. The writing is a bit better than in "The Great Quest", but people are still given to doing things for either plotty reasons or bad excuses a lot more than for anything that makes sense. I did get all the way through it, mainly because the slave trade is not involved, thus racism is barely hinted at. But the protagonist is still a dope, just not quite as much of a one. And it's a lot more gory / violent in places. Plus, there's quite a lot of incredibly weird mental sophistry / gymnastics trying to defend the plotty reasons, and a fair bit of "making fun of less fortunate people is something all good and true men should do!" :P
Overall, I'd say he was becoming a better writer but still wasn't a good one.
Conclusion: Two stars. For having something resembling a coherent plot, and for not addressing questions of race at all.