Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
As irreverent and picaresque as Tom Jones and always more dramatic Flashman is a one-man demolition squad! Chicago Today Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-2000026 Openlibrary_edition
George Randolph - An educated and intelligent quadroon who twice attempts to organize slave risings in the South. The anti-slavery underground railroad movement manipulates Flashman into escorting the fugitive Randolph to freedom in Ohio. The equally conceited and self-centered duo detest each other. Randolph is presumed dead after falling overboard from a Mississippi steamboat, but is reported as having reached Canada alive at the end of the novel. Not that Flashman is subject to the morals of normal men... he manages to find his way on the ship, and shows he is still all about looking after himself. Mr. Mandeville - Annette's husband, who sells Flashman into slavery after she accuses him of rape. By the time of Flashman and the Angel of the Lord he has died of alcohol poisoning. It’s all tremendous stuff, full of the usual (on Fraser’s part) erudition and wit and (on Flashy’s part) lechery, as well as, of course, the historical tweaking: Flashman meets a young Disraeli, a young Lincoln, and even serves as the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous book. Superb historical parody, historical fiction, and pure entertainment all in one. Oh, a final thought: Flashy’s definitely gotten a lot braver since the first book. Scared or not, it takes guts to pull a gun on a killer, or even keep one’s wits enough to play-act in the face of danger. That’s most likely a good thing, of course; as a reader, one can take only so much helpless, quivering terror from the narrator. The author of the famous Flashman Papers and the Private McAuslan stories, George MacDonald Fraser has worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada. In addition to his novels he has also written numerous films, most notably The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, and the James Bond film, Octopussy.
Wikipedia citation
By the third book you'd think it would have been pounded into my skull that Flashman is Not a Nice Person. Usually in fiction the lovable scoundrel eventually does something altruistic, but Flashman is consistently horrible. I'm not surprised when he fails to be moved by the suffering around him, unless it inconveniences him, but I keep expecting him to get sentimental about one of the women he becomes involved with. It still startles me that while he occasionally admits to fond feelings, he never even hesitates to betray or abandon one of them to save his own skin. At the end of the novel, Flashman claims that his escape with Cassy across the Ohio River was the inspiration for the anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, with the names altered and the story focusing on the slave Cassy rather than Flashman. I left North Korea in late 2009 when I was 23. At the time, the scale of my work and business was growing, but so too was the frequency of authorities’ apprehension of my underground activities. The rewards and risks were escalating, and I didn’t know whether it would continue to be ultimately worth it.
But there are two humorous scenes that truly stood out for me. One involved Flashman’s description of Captain Spring and his wife: in my gallery of happy acquaintances. "Mr. Flashman?" says he. He had an odd, husky voice with what sounded like a Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-04-30 06:00:43 Boxid IA40098211 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier After a scandal involving cheating and assault, England becomes too hot for young Flashman and his father-in-law sends him off. Flashman suddenly realizes that he’s on a slave ship captained by a lunatic bound for Africa to take on a cargo of slaves, and he’s horrified. Not so much about slavery but that running slaves is proscribed in 1848 and he’s fearful of the ship being seized by an interdicting navy. They transport a cargo to the Americas but offload it before being captured by the U.S. Navy. Flashman manages to pose as a Royal Navy spy, then escapes before having to give testimony. He flees up the Mississippi in a variety of guises; reluctantly escorting escaped slaves; subsequently becoming a slavedriver himself for a while before the slaveowner has Flashman sold into slavery; escaping across a frozen river to be saved from slavecatchers by Congressman Abraham Lincoln; before ending up in a New Orleans courtroom.The most entertaining anti-hero in a long time Moves from one ribald and deliciously corrupt episode to the next Wonderful and scandalous. Publishers Weekly
The AudioDVD format is not the same as traditional CDs and does not work on CD players. Please be sure to use one of the players mentioned above.
AREN'T YOU PUTTING PEOPLE IN DANGER BY SENDING DRIVES?
As irreverent and picaresque as Tom Jones and always more dramatic... Flashman is a one-man demolition squad!"-- Chicago Today An omnibus volume of three Fraser's adventure stories about his hero Flashman. Written with accuracy of historical facts and reflecting the culture of the times could be considered a very politically incorrect in the twenty first century. Despite all this, Flashman appears to be very likeable, considered by many a great hero while being a self-confessed coward and womaniser. Fraser really revels in his un-PC approach to the telling of these stories but this one is particularly hard on a sensitive 21st century soul like myself. Raises dastardliness to the level of an art... One of the most amusing and sardonic novels I have ever read!"-- Omaha World A run in with the US Navy after they unload most of the slaves at Honduras lands Flashman and the crew in the USA, but he has a scheme, and ends up on the side of the law, but not for long. The Underground Railroad engage his services to accompany a man up to Canada, but even then circumstances conspire against Flashy, and he must make an escape again. From here, the story is far from over.
The Good - hard to find anything edifying in this story. However, considering the current climate in the US, the denial of systemic racism by the right, the mistreatment of Negroes by the police, Republican governors passing anti-voting laws and denying Critical Race teaching in schools, it's probably not a bad book to be read as it describes the slave trade and treatment of slaves in the harshest possible terms. Even though it's fiction, there are interesting factoids provided at the end of the story. His description of the period is excellent (accurate? well, I can't actually verify it as I'm not quite that old), you can see it in your mind very clearly. The appearance of Abe Lincoln made me feel better, one of the positives in the book.
Create a new list
One of Harry Flashman's few positive qualities is a sharp eye for a hypocrite, and we see the two-faced dealings of British lords who abhor far-off slavery but own local factories where children are worked to death, and the paternalistic American abolitionists who think of themselves as benevolent angels rescuing "simple creatures" from bondage. We're also treated to a portrait of young Abraham Lincoln, one of the few characters in the series perceptive enough to instantly see Flashman for the "rascal" he is. Annette Mandeville - The wife of a Southern slave owner who has an affair with Flashman before framing him for rape when the affair is discovered, causing her husband to sell him as a slave in revenge. She later reappears in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord as an agent of the Kuklos conspiracy, who ultimately kill her for betraying them.
Great Deal 
New Comment