Tag Archives: World War I

Book Review: Sharpe’s Eagle by Bernard Cornwell

Sharpes_Eagle_PBSharpe’s Eagle by Richard Cornwell

Paperback, 288 pages
Published August 3rd 2004 by Signet (first published January 1st 1981)
Original Title
Sharpe’s Eagle
ISBN
0451212576 (ISBN13: 9780451212573)
Edition Language
English

Although this is the eighth book in the series of Sharpe book – going in chronological order, Sharpe’s Eagle has the distinction of being Bernard Cornwell’s first Sharpe book. He went back and filled in much of the history of Richard Sharpe at a later date – his time in India for instance which is referred to in this book.

This book is also of note as it’s the only place where Sharpe’s hair is described as being black – Cornwell didn’t mention his hair colour again in other books in the series, which is a good thing given Sean Bean is blond!

Well enough of the anecdotes about the book. What’s it about and is it any good? The story covers the Talavera campaign, during which the British army under Wellington entered Spain with the intention of capturing Madrid supported by the Spanish army. The story begins in Portugal with Sharpe’s company of riflemen being attached to a new regiment, the fictional South Essex commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Simmerson. The Colonel is proud and incompetent and he and one of his officers, Lieutenant Christian Gibbons are the main villains of the story. Gibbons is accompanied by a beautiful Portuguese noblewoman, Josefina Lacosta. The South Essex has the job of seizing a bridge on the line of march of the British army with the cooperation of a Spanish regiment. Due to the incompetence of both the Spanish and Simmerson the regiment is nearly destroyed by French dragoons and cannon. But Sharpe disobeys orders and manages to save most of the regiment from destruction. Not before the South Essex loses its King’s Colour. One of Sharpe’s friends – an officer of the South Essex dies, and Sharpe tells the dying man that he will capture a French regimental Eagle in order to take revenge for the loss of the King’s Colour. Thus the stage is set for the rest of the book.

The British army makes its way under Wellington to Talavera. Most of the rest of the action is the march to the city and the battle itself. There is a good deal of conflict between Sharpe, Simmerson and Gibbon – and with Gibbon Josefina is the main subject of that conflict – the love interest for the book!

I won’t say anything more about the story in case readers of this post haven’t read it.

So what did I think of it? I really enjoyed it. I’ve read other Sharpe books before and other novels by Cornwell, so I was familiar with the style and content of his work – and it didn’t disappoint. There’s plenty of action to keep you turning the pages, but although he’s sometimes accused of being a bit lightweight on history, I found that there was plenty of historical background and content in the book to keep me interested. The characters are well defined too – although some are a bit stereotyped in a way – you can see that they fulfil a function in the story for instance – such as Major Hogan who’s there as a kindly older father figure who tries to help Sharpe. But the characters work well and Cornwell has a knack of bringing them to life and making you believe in them.

Verdict? Heartily recommended!

If you want to support my blog then please consider buying a copy of Sharpe’s Eagle (or anything else) by clicking on the Amazon links below.

Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Verdun – Realistic WW1 First Person Shooter

I just wanted to mention a great game that I recently started playing – it depicts trench fighting in the First World War with great accuracy and is good fun to play. It’s a first person shooter, but unlike silly FPS where you blast everyone away, you have realistic weapons and like WW1 you can die easily – often getting sniped with no idea where your killer is. Gas attacks are truly scary – if you don’t get your gas mask on you’re dead. I think one of the best bits though is that you need to work as a team to be successful. Each player is part of a four man team with a designated role. The NCO of the team can issue special commands such as calling in artillery or gas. The game seems to work best if you follow your NCO’s directions on where to attack and make a concerted effort to work together to clear enemy trenches.

Here’s the video trailer. If you want to pick it up you can get it on Steam.

A new short story set in the First World War – Smithers Hits a Six

At long last I have a new story out – seems like ages! Hopefully won’t be too long until the next one though – so stay tuned for more!

This one is something different for me – a short story set in the First World War – something I haven’t written about before, but I would like to again. Smithers will fly again!

Lieutenant John Smith was not a gentleman in the opinion of the pilots of 32 Squadron. He hadn’t attended public school and he was dashedly bad at cricket. To top that his own Captain, Thomas Albright-Parker, looked forward to the day when Smith’s flying career would be ended by the Hun.

Sopwith F-1 CamelBut Lieutenant Smith, or “Smithers”, was going to prove his doubters wrong when his Flight went on patrol that day.

Smithers Hits a Six is an anti-Biggles story for the modern reader. This is the tale of an officer not from a working class background and without the natural talented of Biggles. Like many real pilots he survives more on luck than judgement in the dangerous skies of the Western Front.

Order the eBook from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

I hope you like the book.

New Short Stories Coming Soon

This aircraft is currently displayed at the Na...
This aircraft is currently displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just to let you know what is coming up soon from me. I’ve been working on a lot of things recently, including researching and planning novels. Currently I am focused on writing short stories for publication in paying short fiction markets – so the likes of Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, Asimov’s etc. We’ll see how that goes – it’s a hard market to break, but I have a feeling that I’m getting closer – I had some good personal feedback on one of my stories recently from a leading editor, so I am hoping that with some persistence I can write something that’s good enough for one of these publications.

So that means I’m not writing a lot currently that will be self-published. But I do have two stories that don’t really fit for these markets, so these will be coming out soon.

One is a Biggles-like story set in WW1 – but with a slightly more serious central character. So a setting that is quite a departure for me.

The second is a short story featuring my medieval supernatural detectives, Roger Sotil and Jake Savage. They are the main characters in my novel Hell has its Demons, and Jake also features in Chivalry and Bring on the Night.

More news on these will be available to newsletter subscribers soon, and then I’ll let blog readers know when they are published.