Here we go again...
Sep. 7th, 2007 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marnanightingaleThere's a new Jack Absolute book out. (The second one, The Blooding Of Jack Absolute, was a good enough read, but it lacked that ineffable... something ... that would have made it a candidate for review here. I think it might have been a tad overedited by someone determined to excise all traces of Mr Humphrey's rather wayward -- but audacious -- id from the final product. It's not very often I call for LESS editing in a novel, but there are always exceptions...)
Our Hero Has Acquired A Horse. Go Jack!
Sadly, the dirty-minded type designer of the first book:
seems to have moved on to other projects. We will miss his or her suggestive way with a trailing "A".
Jack, however, remains his own bad self. I'm on page 8, and so far he's been shagging a Quaker Widow in Newport all winter and is off back to Blighty, leaving her, I'd say, reasonably consolate. (He doesn't think so, but he wouldn't.)
"Lieutenant Absolute!" The call followed the bang of wood on wood as the boat reached the jetty. A rope landed near Jack, followed by a sailor. "If you please, sir," the seaman said, "the Captain says bugger the Irishman ..."
(Page 10. The Irishman has shown up. Naked.
Jack could see now that the man was tall, his naked physique strong, and that he had bright red hair trailing out behind him like a flame...
Ah, yes? Right then.)
Sadly, it is FAR too warm in the office to read, post, IM, or indeed THINK. I am taking Jack off to bed with me, with a device for taking notes on, and will report back later. Meanwhile, those who missed the first round of this are invited to go here for the Jack Absolute review post.
ETA 1:
The Sexy Quaker Widow gave him a farewell letter, but he lost it in the ocean while pulling out the naked Irishman. He is unperturbed by this, despite the extremely high probability that the contents of said letter are going to turn out to be important to the plot.
Page 19: Oh goody, he and the Irishman are bonding on a slave ship. They seem to be the only two aboard who disapprove. Jack just tried to pick a fight with the Captain and his new, um, friend has come to his defense and beat up the Captain for him.
So now they're wrestling. Drunkenly. This all seems hauntingly familiar; I think "Cornish Wrestling" is a euphemism for foreplay in Jack's world. Oh, and they're telling dirty stories about women in a Very Manly Way. And Jack's been admiring The Irishman's (his name is Hugh) physique. A lot.
Somewhere in The Blooding of Jack Absolute - I think it's while he's leading some guy on prepatory to robbing him - it says that Jack gave up boys when he left school and discovered women. I grow less and less persuaded of the reliability of Ol' Inexhaustible's narration ...
Page 26: So they got drunker and bonded over Bonnie Prince Charlie. Hugh's calling him "dear joy" now … and there may be pirates.
Page 40: Hugh just grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. In a very manly-yet-emotional way, of course. On account of him being all gallant and putting on his regimentals. That's one kinky damn Irishman; Sgt. Harper would be APPALLED.
Page 89: (PS: they won the battle. Now we are in Bath.)
This promising romance has been temporarily disrupted by Jack contemplating his honour, and also by the appearance of Hugh's cousin Letitia, aged 17. Jack is smit. (Jack is, by the way, 18. The dear boy. The narrative keeps announcing rather portentiously that he is A Man, but it lies. Puppy.)
Page 96: still smit. Our hero thinks of marriage. He may or may not also think of threesomes. Your faithful correspondent certainly does.
(Plot. Plot. Plotcakes. Hugh has taken to calling him "sweet honey", and he has been hit on by a Macaroni in the Assembly Rooms. Sadly, he was in too much of a hurry to do anything about it.)
167: Hugh and Letitia were Not As They Seemed. (We knew this, of course; it says so on the back of the book.) He is Betrayed. (Though he did manage some sex first. No, with Letitia. The sex scenes have improved since Book One, but Our Boy still has no foreplay. Good thing she wasn't REALLY a gently reared sweet little virgin...) He has Lost His Honour. He will Pursue Them Both and Avenge Himself. (Possibly via threesomes.)
So I think we may conclude that the Humphries id is back and in fine trim, as is the historical cracktastickness. Yes! *punches the air and goes back to read some more*
Our Hero Has Acquired A Horse. Go Jack!
Sadly, the dirty-minded type designer of the first book:
seems to have moved on to other projects. We will miss his or her suggestive way with a trailing "A".
Jack, however, remains his own bad self. I'm on page 8, and so far he's been shagging a Quaker Widow in Newport all winter and is off back to Blighty, leaving her, I'd say, reasonably consolate. (He doesn't think so, but he wouldn't.)
"Lieutenant Absolute!" The call followed the bang of wood on wood as the boat reached the jetty. A rope landed near Jack, followed by a sailor. "If you please, sir," the seaman said, "the Captain says bugger the Irishman ..."
(Page 10. The Irishman has shown up. Naked.
Jack could see now that the man was tall, his naked physique strong, and that he had bright red hair trailing out behind him like a flame...
Ah, yes? Right then.)
Sadly, it is FAR too warm in the office to read, post, IM, or indeed THINK. I am taking Jack off to bed with me, with a device for taking notes on, and will report back later. Meanwhile, those who missed the first round of this are invited to go here for the Jack Absolute review post.
ETA 1:
The Sexy Quaker Widow gave him a farewell letter, but he lost it in the ocean while pulling out the naked Irishman. He is unperturbed by this, despite the extremely high probability that the contents of said letter are going to turn out to be important to the plot.
Page 19: Oh goody, he and the Irishman are bonding on a slave ship. They seem to be the only two aboard who disapprove. Jack just tried to pick a fight with the Captain and his new, um, friend has come to his defense and beat up the Captain for him.
So now they're wrestling. Drunkenly. This all seems hauntingly familiar; I think "Cornish Wrestling" is a euphemism for foreplay in Jack's world. Oh, and they're telling dirty stories about women in a Very Manly Way. And Jack's been admiring The Irishman's (his name is Hugh) physique. A lot.
Somewhere in The Blooding of Jack Absolute - I think it's while he's leading some guy on prepatory to robbing him - it says that Jack gave up boys when he left school and discovered women. I grow less and less persuaded of the reliability of Ol' Inexhaustible's narration ...
Page 26: So they got drunker and bonded over Bonnie Prince Charlie. Hugh's calling him "dear joy" now … and there may be pirates.
Page 40: Hugh just grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. In a very manly-yet-emotional way, of course. On account of him being all gallant and putting on his regimentals. That's one kinky damn Irishman; Sgt. Harper would be APPALLED.
Page 89: (PS: they won the battle. Now we are in Bath.)
This promising romance has been temporarily disrupted by Jack contemplating his honour, and also by the appearance of Hugh's cousin Letitia, aged 17. Jack is smit. (Jack is, by the way, 18. The dear boy. The narrative keeps announcing rather portentiously that he is A Man, but it lies. Puppy.)
Page 96: still smit. Our hero thinks of marriage. He may or may not also think of threesomes. Your faithful correspondent certainly does.
(Plot. Plot. Plotcakes. Hugh has taken to calling him "sweet honey", and he has been hit on by a Macaroni in the Assembly Rooms. Sadly, he was in too much of a hurry to do anything about it.)
167: Hugh and Letitia were Not As They Seemed. (We knew this, of course; it says so on the back of the book.) He is Betrayed. (Though he did manage some sex first. No, with Letitia. The sex scenes have improved since Book One, but Our Boy still has no foreplay. Good thing she wasn't REALLY a gently reared sweet little virgin...) He has Lost His Honour. He will Pursue Them Both and Avenge Himself. (Possibly via threesomes.)
So I think we may conclude that the Humphries id is back and in fine trim, as is the historical cracktastickness. Yes! *punches the air and goes back to read some more*
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Date: 2007-09-08 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-08 05:29 am (UTC)Er, that is all.
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Date: 2007-09-08 06:22 am (UTC)Have you heard of an author named Broos Campbell? He's a former crew member of the Lady Washington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Washington), and he's published two books so far featuring a young officer in the fledgling American Navy circa 1800. They're not as campy and slash-o-riffic as the Jack Absolute series, but I really, really like Campbell's voice. First book is NO QUARTER, second is THE WAR OF KNIVES, which has, IMHO, a lovely cover in the badass-with-sword tradition (http://www.brooscampbell.com/work7.htm), though nothing like the dirty-minded typesetting of JACK ABSOLUTE...
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Date: 2007-09-08 01:19 pm (UTC)HEE! Cornish wrestling!
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Date: 2007-09-08 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-08 06:22 pm (UTC)As far as Age of Sail recommendations, I liked Jay Worrall's two books: _Sails on the Horizon_ and _Any Approaching Enemy_. The heroine is even a Quaker. They are NOT, however, picaresque like the Jack Absolute books (more Hornbloweresque).