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Darth Walrus posted:I feel like this book marked a key point in the softening of Flashman as a character. He's more romantic, more competent, more capable of acts of basic decency, and less frequent and extreme in his acts of cruelty to people who really don't deserve it. Compare him to the Flashman of Afghanistan, and this one generally seems significantly less objectionable. I agree, and it's part of something the thread discussed early on - as the series goes on, Flashman seems to shift a little from "odious emblem of everything wrong with Empire" to something closer to "roguish anti-hero," and the latter doesn't sit well with the rape and slavery that is in the series (and still to come, IIRC). It was interesting to hear that Fraser said that the Mutiny changed him as a character, I had thought it was just the side effect of him living with a character for that long. It's hard to write somebody you hate as a career.
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# ? Jun 18, 2021 16:48 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 07:53 |
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Flashman does change over the course of his publication - his rougher corners get sanded down, he becomes less gleefully awful and more thoughtful. Which is funny because the books themselves jump backwards and forwards in time, so it's not character growth, but rather the writer changing over time. I figured it was Fraser mellowing with age, and the difficulty of writing someone as a complete bastard for 40 straight years.
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# ? Jun 18, 2021 17:00 |
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This was definitely the best of the books. I may have to find the rest, if you're not going to cover them. I think he did a good job of covering the rebellion, at least as experienced from a single viewpoint. The factors leading to it are a complicated mess, and the reasons for joining up (or being caught up in it) vary; and once the killing starts, reason and morality get swept aside.
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# ? Jun 18, 2021 18:05 |
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Xander77 posted:I've started reading that. It opens absolutely brilliantly - quoting some academic (pfft) talking about how the public had to be fed a distorted and mythologized propaganda account of WWII, firing off "I have no idea what that fancy academic talk could possibly mean... but I know it's absolutely and totally false" in quick succession, then... utterly failing to elucidate those harsh and uncomfortable truths that were apparently ever so clear to the general public and soldiery during the war. Repeatedly insists that the Battle of Meiktila and Mandalay was the last major setpiece battle of the war. Brits and Americans can't quite agree as to which was the last great battle of the war, exactly, but they do have a shared consensus about the Kwantung army dissipating into the thin air all on its own, absolutely no military action required on anyone's part.
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# ? Jun 19, 2021 16:37 |
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Echoing everyone else's comments that Flashman becomes more likeable over the course of the series. I do put that firmly on the instinct of the reader and author to identify with someone they have 'known' for a protracted period. While we start to root for his success, he does still routinely do horrific things, betrays people in a callous fashion, randomly inflicts cruelty on underlings etc. We just get used to it. On the cowardice/courage front, rather than any moral axis, there's also been a bit of contradiction. Flashman has very little stiff upper lip in extremis and his internal narrative is that of a gibbering coward. But he can certainly mix it up as a man of action when necessary. Even early on, in Royal Flash he fights a sabre duel against a fearsome opponent - yes, he hates doing it and it ends badly, and you might say Fraser is forced to put it in as a Prisoner of Zenda parallel, but you can't say that's not heroic stuff. Again and again, he does things, when there's no other way out, which are fairly adventurous, swearing and gibbering quietly the while. He also stays impressive looking when in the company of other British officers, even under fire. Every man would be a coward if he durst, sure, but in front of his peers Flashman can certainly fake it very well. That's really not the action of as abject a coward as he presents himself. I remember recommending these books to my mum, who is a history enthusiast but is not a reader of boys-own type adventure narratives and thus not accustomed to unquestioningly accepting acts of daring-do as part of the plot. I'd described Flashman as a satire of heroes who was a total coward, and after reading one of the books she said 'what do you mean? He's not a coward.' By most standards outside an adventure novel, he's a man of action, if not exactly a stalwart one.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 10:00 |
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Yeah, I made this point before, he's actually p solidly heroic in the things he does, just talks a good cowardly poltroon game while he's doing it.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 10:14 |
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That said, I'd say it takes less pushing for Flashman to be helpful and useful over the course of the series, and he doesn't need to be bailed out (or to abandon people he uses as ablative armour) quite so often. There's quite a lot of times when he's more of a liability than an asset to his more traditionally heroic comrades, and that number goes down as the books progress.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 10:21 |
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But then, when it comes right down to it, he'll push a woman out of a sledge or leave his man to die to save his own skin. He IS talented, so when he's thrown into a bad situation he might be able to behave as a hero when that's what it takes to survive, but he's not, y'know, trying to accomplish his mission or anything, he just wants to live. It's not like he actually spent his time undercover as a sepoy trying to find out intelligence or root out Count Ignatiev, he just had a fun time playing soldier (and then a less-fun time playing survivor). I guess it WAS kinda heroic that he actually went to see the Rani instead of laying low in Jhansi, or reporting back that he announced himself and she wouldn't see him.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 16:28 |
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Phenotype posted:But then, when it comes right down to it, he'll push a woman out of a sledge or leave his man to die to save his own skin. He IS talented, so when he's thrown into a bad situation he might be able to behave as a hero when that's what it takes to survive, but he's not, y'know, trying to accomplish his mission or anything, he just wants to live. It's not like he actually spent his time undercover as a sepoy trying to find out intelligence or root out Count Ignatiev, he just had a fun time playing soldier (and then a less-fun time playing survivor). I guess it WAS kinda heroic that he actually went to see the Rani instead of laying low in Jhansi, or reporting back that he announced himself and she wouldn't see him. Also, he did actually keep his charge alive and safe on that escort mission despite all his whingeing, and did his bit on the walls during the siege of Cawnpore. That's an improvement on his past track record.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 16:41 |
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Flashman is interesting because he doesn't rise above the morality of his time, or sink beneath it (well, at least not getting caught); he sort of oozes to the side. He knows "dulce et decorum est" is a self-serving lie, but he never contradicts it - openly. He plays the game, but only as an exhibition. I admire that; I was in the military and never got the hang of the game myself; there's an art to letting the poo poo roll down that I don't grasp. Also, was skimming over "Tom Brown," and even I want to bully the unctious little poo poo.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 18:40 |
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Cobalt-60 posted:Also, was skimming over "Tom Brown," and even I want to bully the unctious little poo poo.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 21:19 |
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Thank you very much for finishing the book, Arbite! And what a perfect ending, as well.
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# ? Jun 20, 2021 21:22 |
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My pleasure, it was great fun going through it again. Later this week I'll post a brief interlude with something both very different and nearly identical.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 04:21 |
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Really hope this continues. I'd say the next three books are still peak Flashman before the series starts to slip. Flashman's Lady is probably my overall favourite. It's much lighter and more fun than this one, with lots of Elspeth and Morrison. It also has more interesting settings that I didn't know anything about prior to reading it. Flashman and the Dragon's setting is fascinating, taking place during what some historians say may be the second most deadly war ever (and no, it's not the opium wars), which almost nobody has heard of. Flashman and the Redskins is more familiar again and IMO not on the level of the other two, but it does contain the single most despicable act of Flashman's career.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 09:36 |
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It also contains my favorite line of the whole series, I'm impatient to get there.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 09:58 |
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Norwegian Rudo posted:Really hope this continues. I'd say the next three books are still peak Flashman before the series starts to slip. I agree I hope this continues, indeed right to the end! The next three are classic, absolutely. I think F&the Mountain of Light is also pretty drat good. Angel of the Lord and the Tiger are probably the weakest of the series, but they do have their charms and I think it's quite close. Perhaps oddly, I think the final volume, Flashman on the March, was also pretty close to the form of the middle ones. A little bit of a rerun perhaps? But it's a fascinating and little known military campaign and some truly astonishing historical personalities, so peak Flashy in that sense.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 14:36 |
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Norwegian Rudo posted:
Yeah, that one scene is what I think of when Fraser starts to drift into treating Flash as a loveable scamp
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 19:38 |
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Norwegian Rudo posted:Really hope this continues. I'd say the next three books are still peak Flashman before the series starts to slip. Taiping Rebellion? None of my friends ever believe me when I tell them that it killed more people than World War 1.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 19:49 |
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Warden posted:Taiping Rebellion? None of my friends ever believe me when I tell them that it killed more people than World War 1. Wow. I had nfi. Given it started from an apocalyptic religious cult, I wonder if there's a historical echo of that in the persecution of falun gong?
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 21:21 |
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sebmojo posted:Wow. I had nfi. Esoteric Taoist/folk religion cults giving birth to mass insurrections in times of national decline is something of a recurring trope in Chinese history. All the way back in antiquity we had the Yellow Turbans, who did their part to finish off the Later Han Dynasty. Given this history (as well as the circumstances surrounding the CCP's own rise to power), I'm not surprised the Party takes a particularly dim view of Falun Gong.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 21:46 |
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sebmojo posted:Wow. I had nfi. China's "century of shame" was some wild poo poo. Taiping Rebellion was absolutely bugfuck-crazy, and there's some insane happenings during Chinese Civil War and Japanese invasion, like people demolishing the dikes of the Yellow River mostly BY HAND to delay the Japanese ground forces. Like, they had something like 50 000 dudes with shovels doing that, and the result covered an area the size of small European country with with a meter of water, and nobody can agree on the death toll (400 000 - 900 000)
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# ? Jun 22, 2021 07:48 |
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Genghis Cohen posted:I think F&the Mountain of Light is also pretty drat good. It is, but for me it's clearly a step down from the peak. It just isn't memorable to me the way the best are. What I remember about it is the respect Flashy/Fraser had for the Sikh soldiers (of course those same soldiers would go on to serve the Empire, and their loyalty was one of the main factors for British rule surviving the mutiny). Most memorable is probably a story I read when looking up some of the characters; one of the British officers had 10 kids, then his wife died (gee, I wonder why), so he married the 16 year old daughter of one of his fellow officers and had another 10 kids with her...
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# ? Jun 22, 2021 09:09 |
sebmojo posted:Wow. I had nfi. Yes. Very. A lot of it is just a general suspicion of any grassroots movement but the 19th century was genuinely deeply traumatic for China and anything that feels a bit like it is as a red rag to a bull.
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# ? Jun 22, 2021 12:06 |
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Beefeater1980 posted:Yes. Very. A lot of it is just a general suspicion of any grassroots movement but the 19th century was genuinely deeply traumatic for China and anything that feels a bit like it is as a red rag to a bull. I think this is really important for understanding China - for all the "the 21st century is China's century" rhetoric, my impression is that the Chinese intelligentsia and government still see themselves as in the shadow of the 19th century. They're genuinely worried about massive rebellions and/or invasions by superpowers, because most of the last 200 years or more have been so incredibly relentlessly terrible for most of the time. I've been to the Winter Palace in Beijing, and every few feet there's a plaque that is some variant of "there used to be something beautiful here, here's a picture, it was burned and looted by by [the Portuguese/the British/the Japanese] in [date]" I think Fraser does at least introduce some of that, but my memory of the Chinese history books here are that they don't do as good of a job showing the human side of the Chinese population as e.g. this book did with the mutineers.
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# ? Jun 22, 2021 18:42 |
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There he is in all his glory. Running away and ending up with the credit. Nearly pissing himself and somehow bringing down the whole enemy apparatus. Like a great many people I was quite unaware of 40k beyond it's existance until the internet began thrusting it in my face over and over. At the time the easiest place to get a feel for the setting was a hilarious and since purged wikiquotes compilation but then I saw this one character: A coward who sees the madness of the setting for what it is and he just so happened to be the perfect gateway into that endless maw. That man was Ciaphas Cain, and it turned out this funny fellow was based on these two other British characters I'd not heard of, Blackadder and... Flash-man? That's an odd name... And the rest is history. So while waiting for the next Siege of Terra book to be widely released (part 6sih of the 8ish part conclusion of the 64ish part Horus Heresy substory) I think I'll look back on the very beginning of Cain's story in the short story: FIGHT OR FLIGHT quote:'Like any newly-commissioned young commissar I faced my first assignment with an eagerness mixed with trepidation. I was, after all, the visible embodiment of the will of the Emperor Himself, and I could scarce suppress the tiny voice which bade me wonder if, when tested, I would truly prove worthy of the trust bestowed upon me. When the test came at last, in the blood and glory of the battlefield, I had my answer; and my life changed forever! Just like Flashman, the conceit of these books are Cain writing down an accurate portrayal of his life well after his propagandistic and official autobiography is released. This tonal clash is made amply clear when it is followed by quote:If there's a single piece of truth among all the pious humbug and retrospective arse-covering that passes for my autobiography, it's the last four words of that paragraph. When I look back over the past hundred years of cowardice, truth-bending bowel-loosening terror, and sheer dumb luck that somehow propelled me to the dizzy heights of Hero of the Imperium, I can truthfully point to that grubby little skirmish on a forgotten mining world as the incident which made me what I am. It can be hard to put yourself back into distant times like 2003, but the famous 'Grimdark' of the setting was considered humerously satirical, though not out and out hilarious (Orkz notwithstanding). Here the military hero guy steps off a banged up transport on a planet called 'Desolatia' and is greeted only by a yokel whose stank is so rank it has subspace implications. quote:The journey was uneventful; nothing so assertive as a landmark interrupted the monotony of the desert road once the mountains had diminished behind us to a low smudge against the horizon. The only thing even approaching scenery was the occasional bumed-out hulk of an ork battlewagon. The tabletop game actually had rules for fragging a commissar. quote:'Ciaphas Cain.' I introduced myself with a formal nod of the head, and tried not to shiver, The air in the habdome was freezing, despite the furnace heat outside, and I found myself unexpectedly grateful for the greatcoat that went with my uniform. I should have anticipated Valhallan tastes would run to air conditioning which left your breath vapourising when you spoke. Mostrue was still in his shirtsleeves while I was trying my best not to shiver. Here we have the Flashmanesqe ability to work people into seeing you exactly as you want them to. quote:'Gunner Erhlsen. Out of uniform on sentry duty.' Toren Divas, Mostrue's subaltern, glared at the latest miscreant, who had the grace to blush and glance at me nervously. Divas was the closest thing to a friend I'd made since I arrived; an amiable man, he'd been only too happy to hand over the chore of maintaining discipline among the troops to a proper commissar now one was available. The Imperium of Man is an ever-decaying carcass while Flashman's British Empire was preeminent and still growing in size and prestige. Absolutely everything in the galaxy could be or is out to get a human trying to make their way and nowhere is quite safe. Cain doing slightly more than the minimum in precautions can only be seen as sensible. Also, they both manage to end up in the about hairiest situations the setting allows. quote:We stepped outside, the heat punching the breath from my lungs as usual, and were halfway to the officer's mess before a nagging sense of disquiet at the back of my mind resolved itself into a sudden realisation: the guns had stopped firing. And let's pause this interlude on a hopeful note.
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# ? Jun 27, 2021 12:45 |
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WH40K that's not relentless GRIMDARK? I might have to find myself a copy.
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# ? Jun 27, 2021 21:11 |
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Cobalt-60 posted:WH40K that's not relentless GRIMDARK? I might have to find myself a copy. The first and third Ciaphas Cain novels are really good, the second and fourth are good, fifth is ok-is, sixth is pretty good. Wouldn't recommend reading much beyond that. The short stories vary in quality, but few of the first are quite decent. Edit. The ebook versions have issues with the footnotes, having them at the end of the file rather than below the text, which is a shame, because they are often utterly hilarious. Explanation for the planet Sodallagain, for example. Warden fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jun 28, 2021 |
# ? Jun 28, 2021 07:25 |
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The other issue with the CC novels is that they get a bit repetitious. Oh look, orks again. Now it's tyranids for the third time. Tau ? Really ? What are the odds they would show up again ? All that means is you don't want to binge-read the series. Take them as an occasional treat or palette cleanser and you'll get through all of them just fine.
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# ? Jun 28, 2021 08:25 |
I have two problems with Cain: the first as I’ve mentioned before is that he is way too nice; the second is that they don’t shoehorn him into every major battle but instead give him his own adventures. Part of the joy of Flashman proper is the retelling of historical events.
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# ? Jun 28, 2021 08:42 |
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mllaneza posted:Tau ? Really ? What are the odds they would show up again ?
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# ? Jun 28, 2021 08:51 |
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quote:'Yes, it's true.' Mostrue seemed as pleased at the news as everyone else. He pointed at the hololithic display. 'The 6th Armoured overran the last pocket of resistance this morning. They should have completed cleansing the entire world by nightfall.' The parallels between Cain and Flashman are far more prominent in the early stories. We saw Flashy get expelled and drop right into the army from Rugby while here we are with Cain straight out of the orphanarium boarding school where he also got up to some mischief. quote:'Initially, the landing field.' He turned to Divas. 'We'll need to get the Earthshakers limbered up for transport.' Much like when showing off in India got young Flashman dragooned into Afghanistan, Cain hasn't learned the restraint to avoid unneccesary guff. quote:'Do you know something we don't, commissar?' He still pronounced my title as though it were a species of fungus, but at least he was pretending to acknowledge it. That was a start. Unexplained breaks in communication were bad in the subcontinent, bad today, and especially worrisome in the grim darkness of the far future. quote:'With the entire fleet?' I was getting an uncomfortable tingling sensation in the palms of my hands. I've felt it a great many times over the years since, and it never meant anything good. No reason why an Imperial Guard officer should find the lack of contact ominous, of course. To them the warp and anything to do with it is simply something best not thought about, but commissars are supposed to know a great deal more than we'd like to about the primal stuff of Chaos. There's very little which can cast a shadow in the warp so powerful that it can cut off communication with an entire battle fleet, and none of them are anything I want to be within a dozen subsectors of. 'Colonel, I recommend very strongly that you rescind the orders you've just given.' He looked at me as if I'd gone mad. 'This is no time for humour, commissar.' Cain has better instincts for peril than Flashman did at his level of experience, but considering his setting that makes some sense. quote:Unfortunately, I wasn't. I was in the command post, talking to the captain of an ore barge which had made orbit that morning when my worst fears were realised. He was a florid man, running slightly to fat, and visibly uncomfortable communicating with an Imperial official, even one as minor as me. Yes, in what would be a very, very, recurring trend, the first story Cain ever appeared in had Tyranids show up and take the main stage. Also this Kryptman fellow mentioned was Tyranid expert who was booted out of power for being too planecidal for them to stomach. quote:'Tyranids?' Mostrue's face was grey. Mine was too, probably, although I'd had longer to get used to the idea. Like I said, there wasn't much that could cast a shadow in the warp that big and with genestealers running rampant a couple of systems away it didn't need Inquisitor Kryptmann to join the dots. I turned my attention back to the freighter captain before he could cut the link. Here we have Cain willing to ditch everyone and save himself, which is quite in keeping with his inspirations but was a trait that was worn away quickly as the series progressed and got less uniquely interesting. quote:'Where did they come from?' Divas asked, an edge of panic entering his voice. I found myself slipping into my role of calm authority. All my training was beginning to pay off. Cain being right at the time this was written and Mostrue being right all these volumes later is a neat bonus on reread. So, let's end on that bit of meta-humour. We'll wrap up this interlude next time!
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# ? Jun 29, 2021 08:00 |
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quote:Now I'd set everything in motion there was nothing to do but wait. I hung around the command post for a while longer, watching the red dots blossom in the desert to the east of us, and marvelled at the tenacity of our main force. I'd expected them to be annihilated within a matter of hours, but they held their positions doggedly, even gaining ground in a few places. Even so, with the steady rain of mycetic spores delivering an endless tide of reinforcements, they were only delaying the inevitable. Mostrue watched tensely, stepping aside to afford me a better view as he noticed my presence. For as tired as they would get by the third trilogy, the Mitchell always does a great job conveying the terror the 'Nids in a very short space. quote:Merciful Emperor, we were opening the distance! The incoming fire was becoming less accurate as the scuttling swarm receded slowly behind us. Just to show how fast characterization moved, I read this after the first novel and was shocked that Cain strongly considered killing Jurgan on a whim. Him running away not so much. quote:'Back off!' I screamed, and swung my chainsword at the 'gaunt attacking Jurgen. It just had time to look up in surprise before its head came off, spraying ichor which smelled nearly as bad as Jurgen did. He rolled to his feet, snapping off a shot from his lasgun that exploded the thorax of another, which I'd barely had time to register was about to eviscerate me. Looked like we were even. I glanced around. The rest of the brood were hemming us in, and the tyrant was getting closer, looming huge against a sky reddened by the rising sun. And so ends the start of a beautiful friendship. Next time, I'll give my thoughts on the good bad and wonderful with the Cain series as a whole and share the Flash-plan going forward.
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# ? Jul 2, 2021 03:52 |
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Leaving aside Cain's own warm and fuzzy personality - few things about the transposition work because you can't really have fascinating historical tidbits about the grimdark fictional world of Warhammer, Cain doesn't even interact with other interesting characters from the setting like Horus or Eisehorn... But more to the point. Even at his oldest and most boot-licking, Fraser was still capable of satirizing the empire. Flashman and his friends consistently shove their nose into other people's poo poo, and any harm they come to is essentially justified. Conversely, having your army defend humanity from killer robots, killer Predators and killer Aliens justifies both the militarism and, really, the fascism. Caine can't ever really pose the basic "is there a point to all this" question, because the answer is "of course there is - you're literally all that stands between billions of people and extinction".
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# ? Jul 6, 2021 00:11 |
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The first time I read the last page I was pretty sure I was having a stroke, as it didn’t seem much like Flashman.
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# ? Jul 6, 2021 02:37 |
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Xander77 posted:Leaving aside Cain's own warm and fuzzy personality - few things about the transposition work because you can't really have fascinating historical tidbits about the grimdark fictional world of Warhammer, Cain doesn't even interact with other interesting characters from the setting like Horus or Eisehorn... It's worth noting, though, that 'the Imperium does considerably more harm than good' is not actually an unusual take within 40K literature and source material, especially in the really early stuff where they were more of a distant menace than the protagonists. At least half of their wars with the Eldar and Tau, for instance, are due to them being dumb racist fanatics, and it's not an especially alien take that the Imperium's insane, repressive paranoia and anti-intellectualism makes it more of a breeding ground for Chaos cults than a bulwark against it.
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# ? Jul 6, 2021 10:58 |
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It's a little difficult to make value judgements in a fictional world where demons are real and so are elves, in space.
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# ? Jul 6, 2021 17:12 |
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Cai-Cai-Ciaphas, Hero of the Imperium! Flashman's most successful literary inspiration, Sandy Mitchell's series about the self-deprecating Commissar served as my introduction to the 40k franchise and I've been tragically hooked ever since, with a painted Dark Eldar and later Vampire Counts army from back when those were still things. The character himself is a hilarious break from the mold the book covers try to paint him as, and grows quite a bit over the course of the books. Unfortunately this growth comes at the expence of everything that makes him unique in the setting. By book seven he barely bothers to make excuses about keeping his reputation before diving right into danger. As for the stories that orbit around him, they suffer more and more over time from samey enemy encounters and a real drought of humour. The author himself said this latter was at the encouragement of the editors. "Occasionally, I must admit, I get carried away and cross the line into out-and-out comedy, but when this happens I'm lucky enough to have supportive and vigilant editors (hi Lindsey, hi Nick!) looking over my shoulder and pointing out tactfully that this is, perhaps, a joke too far." It's a pity because 40k has so much potential for tragicomedy and a galaxy full of varied enemies, but alas, it trends towards more bugs and fewer laughs. Thankfully these problems did not take hold early so the first trilogy is a wonderful romp. I especially recommend getting the audiobooks for the brilliant performances. They're so great that they turn Sulla's Memoirs, the least enjoyable parts of the books, into absolute highlights. The second trilogy doesn't reach those heights but it does have rather perfect ending. The third trilogy's meh and was more expensive due to changing to low quality hardback. I haven't read the tenth book. Still, I'm very glad I read the series and compared to those awful non-Fraser books claiming to be about this Flashman or the other, not to mention that unreadable article in the Guardian, Cain is the best thing ol' Harry ever inspired. As mentioned earlier, Cain and Flashman inhabit very different empires and encounter very different dangers, but their clear-sighted cynicism make for welcome gateways, especially those who love to share being in on the joke. Also, pick your favourite. Mine's gotta be Death or Glory. Just the right extreme. Next time: We begin Flashman's Lady, where Fraser again does the impossible: He makes cricket compelling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRozBAIbaG4 Arbite fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jul 7, 2021 |
# ? Jul 7, 2021 05:04 |
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Cricket must be the most impenetrable and arbitrary game in the world, that could only have been dreamt up by rich people with far too much time on their hands. It's strikingly similar to baseball, which has its own set of impenetrable and arbitrary rules -- it's like they originally came up with the idea of hitting a ball with a bat and then running around, and then they went in entirely separate directions when developing the weird and unintuitive rules that would govern the game. I read this next book about a month ago and it took twice as long to read each page because I had to keep going back and forth to a web browser to google cricket rules so I could figure out what was actually going on.
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# ? Jul 7, 2021 17:05 |
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I just skip ahead to figure out who won. The very notion of reading about cricket (or baseball) baffles me as purely absurd.
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# ? Jul 7, 2021 17:16 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 07:53 |
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How are u posted:It's a little difficult to make value judgements in a fictional world where demons are real and so are elves, in space. 40K is a descendant of/sister franchise of 2000AD, and has had extremely blunt political satire baked into it from the very beginning. The way that the Imperium deals with elves and demons is very frequently a pisstake of real-world cultures both ancient and modern.
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# ? Jul 7, 2021 18:31 |