Timeless by Gail Carriger

In reviewing Timeless, the 5th and final book of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate I felt it best to hand the reins over to a friend this once. Ladies and gentleman I present to you Mavis Tedlington-Bumbecrack (Mrs) and her review of Timeless.

We ladies of the colonies are so indebted to Lady Alexia Maccon for keeping us up to date with what is happening in the dear motherland and goings on of the ton.

I admire Lady Maccon, as she has overcome being half Italian (on her father’s side) and lack of a soul to become the closest confidante of London’s best dressed vampire Lord Akeldama, and marry the most desirable werewolf in Her Majesty’s Empire Lord Conall Maccon.

In recent times Lady Maccon has given birth to a delightful child with the unfortunate name of Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama. Prudence is a highly unusual infant. Being the natural offspring of a werewolf and a soulless woman like Lady Maccon she has the enviable ability to leech supernatural talents by touching a vampire or werewolf, to date the most convenient way of removing her enhancements is by being touched by her mother, who shuts off the connection to the supernatural in the same way that she nullifies vampires or werewolves.

In her most recent journal of adventures Lady Maccon finds it necessary to travel to Egypt with her very good friend, the excellent actress and wearer of the most fashionable hats in the Empire; Ivy Tunstell. Meanwhile back in England Lord Akeldama; Lady Maccon’s friend and adoptive father of Prudence, holds the fort with his former drone and now werewolf of the Woolsey pack; Mr Rabiffano (I do so prefer his full name to the truncated Biffy that most people refer to him by), with help from Lord Maccon’s ever so polite beta Professor Randolph Lyall.

We readers are treated to a description of life aboard a cruise ship, and I know that if I ever get the opportunity to travel back to the motherland I ensure that I am accompanied by an acting troupe, they seem to liven the journey up considerably. Of course things were also complicated by Lady Maccon falling overboard at one point and having to be rescued by her terribly brave husband.

In Egypt Lady Maccon and her daughter were summoned to the Vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive; Matakara. Unfortunately some dastard stole Mrs Tunstell’s daughter Primrose in the mistaken belief she was Prudence. Lord and Lady Maccon, their daughter, Mr and Mrs Tunstell and their entire acting troupe go in pursuit of the kidnapped infant. Lady Maccon’s faithful and highly competent butler; Floote, is exposed as something other than anyone ever thought and the delightful Mrs Tunstell undergoes a shocking transformation.

Sadly Lady Maccon has elected to retire from her life of adventuring and settle down with her husband, daughter and friendly vampires. She will be missed by those of us adrift in the colonies, but our lives have been enriched immeasurably by her efforts and her journals.

Lady Maccon’s chronicler; Miss Carriger assures her readers that next year she will be making available new adventures, but these are about a younger set and take place some years earlier. Your correspondent is eager to see this.

Flashman at the Charge - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of Flashman at the Charge is a longish one, but it's also highly entertaining.

The last time most readers of Flashman's adventures saw Scud East he was telling Harry that he was sorry to see him expelled from Rugby. Flashman didn't believe him at the time, but with the way Harry East is, it was probably true.

East is, like Flashman, a political. According to the notes in the back the further details of East's military career could be found in the sequel to Tom Brown's Schooldays, Tom Brown at Oxford. Unlike Harry, East takes his duties rather seriously and thinks of escape, that is when he's not lusting after Pencherjevsky's voluptuous blonde daughter; Valla.

The count is described by East as being a loud-mouthed, brutal, tyrannical ogre. After meeting him Flashman agrees, but Pencherjevsky takes a liking to Flashman, seeing him mistakenly as a kindred spirit. Harry's looks and his reputation have once again assisted him. It's highly unlikely that George MacDonald Fraser based Pencherjevsky on a real person, but there was actually a Cossack commander by the name of Pencherjevsky and Fraser links him to that person by connecting him to the same regiment the real Pencherjevsky commanded. It's another example of the great attention to detail that Fraser often does display in the books. I did find a possible continuity error during one of Pencherjevsky's conversations with Flashman. The Count mentions Karl Marx in an unfavourable light and Flashman doesn't think he can mention that the man was an uninvited guest at his wedding (see Royal Flash), and it is true that someone who may have been Marx did show up when Flashman married Duchess Irma, but Flashman never realised who the protestor at the wedding was.

Flashman again comments on the way the serfs were treated. He uses an incident with Valla where she bet a serf's hair at cards and then after the girl had been shorn banished her from the house and begged fifty roubles from her father to get a new maid. Apparently the hair was worth thirty. Flashman also talks about the arbitrary judgements handed down by Pencherjevsky to hs serfs at his weekly meeting with them. They were regularly sentenced to floggings with cudgels or whips and sent to Siberia for the most trifling of matters and yet Pencherjevsky defends himself by saying that he is more lenient than most land holders because he doesn't use the knout or the foot press.

In one of Harry's more bizarre sexual encounters he is introduced to the Russian custom of the steam bath by Pencherjevsky's sister; Sara, whom everyone seems to refer to as Aunt Sara. She birches Harry in the steam, then has him do the same to her before indulging in a frenzied bout of love making. It is after this encounter that Pencherjevsky virtually pimps out Harry to Valla. Valla is married, but the Count doesn't think her husband is capable of getting her with child, and the idea of a grandson sired by Harry appeals to him. Scud East is also besotted with the girl.

A number of high ranking officials turn up to the property for some sort of meeting. Harry East insists that they should eavesdrop and see what they can hear as it may prove useful to the Empire. They hear far more than they should and most of it involves a plot hatched by Ignatieff (to Harry's horror he was present) to forment unrest amongst the natives of India and thus remove the British troops and replace them with Russian ones. East says that they have to escape and deliver this information to their superiors in the British army, he's even researched the route. Harry is of course against this, but has to at least make it look like he's doing the smart thing. There was also the suggestion that Tsar Nicholas of Russia was at the meeting, and if Fraser's reading of Flashman's dates are right then the Tsar didn't live long after the meeting.

Flashman may have been able to sit the war out in relative comfort had it not been for a chance happening. The village's priest and a character called Blank (who Fraser's notes suggest may have been one of Lenin's ancestors) come to Pencherjevsky to beg him to pay the soul tax for one of his serfs, an old lady who cannot afford it. Pencherjevsky refuses and sends his cossacks to teach Blank a lesson. They can't find Blank, but instead flog the priest who dies. The serfs will take a lot, but don't ever interfere with their religion. The chapter ends with the house under attack as the enraged peasants revolt at the murder of their priest.

Flashman at the Charge - Chapter 5

After his harrowing charge into the Russian battery in chapter 4 of Flashman at the Charge, chapter 5 finds the 'pride of the Empire' as a Russian prisoner of war.

Harry actually states that being a prisoner of war in those days wasn't really all that bad. He's done time in all sort of prisons in a number of situations so he speaks from experience. A few things benefited him in the Crimea though. One was he was being held by another European power and they tended to view things very similarly back then, their Tsar later ended up being related to Queen Victoria, war was to some extent thing still considered a 'gentleman's game' and as such prisoners, especially officers, should be treated well. Harry was a recognised hero amongst the other British prisoners, particularly the enlisted men, and in a rare moment of self examination he does actually feel something for these men and the way they look up to him, when he knows they are far braver than he has ever been. The Russians also respect Flashman's bravery for riding into the guns, they don't realise that he was so unmanned by fear that he didn't really know which direction he was going.

Flashman doesn't stay at the front all that long, he is transported inland to be held at the estate of a Count Pencherjevsky; a Cossack. Via his anti-hero George MacDonald Fraser gives readers a good look at how he felt about the Russia of the 1850's. It's a huge country, Harry even compares it to the endless plains of the American West, and the US comes off second best in the land stakes. It's unrelentingly bleak and brutal. Most of this is not due to the landscape, but the Russian institution of serfdom. The serf system still existed in Russia until the later part of the 19th century, it was a form of legalised slavery, and in Harry's opinion the slaves on the plantations in the deep south of America had it better than the supposedly 'free' serfs toiling under Russia's endless skies.

It is on the way to Pencherjevsky's estate that Flashman runs into an extraordinary character. His name is Count Nicholas Pavlovitch Ignatieff, and he would become one of Harry Flashman's greatest adversaries. At the time Flashman sees him as another privileged and brutal Russian officer. He is courteous to Flashman, but only because he sees him as somewhat of a social equal. Both army officers, both from the landed gentry and both from money. Ignatieff is in many ways like John Charity Spring, in that he is a psychotic villain, but he differs from the insane slaving captain in most other respects. Firstly Ignatieff is real, the reality of the man suggests that George MacDonald Fraser took significant liberties with the character to mould him into Harry's adversary. Both John Charity Spring and Ignatieff are capable of great cruelty without giving it a second thought, but where Spring flies into an insane rage, Ignatieff is totally cool and completely in control, he knows what he is doing and it's highly possible that he enjoys it. Harry comes away from the encounter positively terrified of the man.

There's another shock waiting for Harry when he arrives at Pencherjevsky's. He has just eyed off the Count's attractive daughter, and is shown to his quarters which he will share with another British officer. Harry enters the room and comes face to face with Scud East of Rugby.

The Lies of Locke Lamora - read along Part 1

Before I get into this I need to explain a couple of things. I've never done a read along before, so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I'm not actually sure that I'm even really officially involved in this, I seem to be ignored by most other bloggers, so I could be talking to myself, but no matter. The questions are provided by Little Red Reviewer and she is hosting this first part of the read along. It covers from the beginning to the interlude Locke Stays for Dinner.

Here are the questions and my responses:

1. If this is your first time reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, what do you think of it so far? If this is a re-read for you, how does the book stand up to rereading?

It's a reread for me. I actually think this may be the seventh time I've read it. I can remember reading the opening on the way back to work on the tram, I bought the book on my lunch break and started reading it straight away. I was enraptured right from the beginning and until the last page. That first time I couldn't wait for work to finish so I could keep reading. It's been the same every time since, and even in the early stages I find things that are new to me or alter on a reread.

2. At last count, I found three time lines: Locke as as a 20-something adult, Locke meeting Father Chains for the first time, and Locke as a younger child in Shades Hill. How are you doing with the Flashback within a flashback style of introducing characters and the world?

I love the flashback idea. It doesn't alway work, but with The Lies of Locke Lamora it does. The opening is a flashback of sorts and then you cut to Locke and the rest of the Gentleman Bastards pulling off their latest game, the interludes are important as they link to current situations in the older Lock's life and in fact that of some of the other Gentleman Bastards as well.

3. Speaking of the world, what do you think of Camorr and Lynch’s world building?

I've said it before, so I'll repeat it here. Camorr is like this extra character in the book, the city and it's history are that well developed that it takes on a life and personality of it's own. I've seen some say that Scott Lynch doesn't build worlds that well, because he only deals with one city in The Lies of Locke Lamora. That's true, but it's such a wonderfully realised city, it feels real, it's got a history, so for me Scott Lynch gets a 10 out of 10 for world building with The Lies of Locke Lamora.

4. Father Chains and the death offering. . . quite the code of honor for thieves, isn’t it? What kind of person do you think Chains is going to mold Locke into?

I get the impression that Father Chains and Locke aren't that dissimilar. Locke is the one in a million kid Chains has spent most of his career looking for. Locke is the archetypal Gentleman Bastard and that's what Chains is going to turn Locke into.

5. It’s been a while since I read this, and I’d forgotten how much of the beginning of the book is pure set up, for the characters, the plot, and the world. Generally speaking, do you prefer set up and world building done this way, or do you prefer to be thrown into the deep end with what’s happening?

It kind of depends on the book really. I can't imagine The Lies of Locke Lamora be anything other than what it is. When you think about it, it kind of does both. The opening introduces readers to Locke, Chains, Camorr and the concept, but then readers get dropped right into the middle of the Don Salvara game in chapter one, entitled The Don Salvara Game, and have to connect that to the opening and have all these new ideas and characters thrown at them.

6. If you’ve already started attempting to pick the pockets of your family members (or even thought about it!) raise your hand.

I have to say no. I love stories about capers and thieves, but as I have absolutely no manual dexterity I could never entertain the thought of doing it to someone else.

Hopefully next week I'll have a less busy weekend and be able to get to this closer to the correct day.

Flashman at the Charge - Chapter 4

I have a confession to make. I don't really like chapter 4 of Flashman at the Charge. It's very battle and tactic heavy. This is how Flashman got into the Charge of the Light Brigade. While George MacDonald Fraser's descriptions of hand to hand fighting describe the chaos and terror that this type of combat is I find my attention lagging and my eyes glazing over when he goes into troop positions and tactics. It's not just Fraser, it's any historical writer that does it, it just doesn't float my boat.

Harry lays the blame for the disaster that was this engagement squarely at the feet of Raglan, although Cardigan was the guy hauled over the coals back in England afterwards. Lew Nolan seems to have a lot to do with it, too. Nolan was, like Flashman, a galloper, meant to carry messages from the commanders on the hills to those on the front line. Nolan was also a fire eater and had complained bitterly about the lack of action from the generals. It's mentioned in the notes that it is still a matter of debate as to whether the message Raglan sent to the front line called for a defensive and an offensive action. Harry says that he caused the charge because he was arguing with Nolan and the raging case of flatulence he had obscured a lot of talk. Harry's bowel movements were actually rather amusing. There's also an excellent description of the very cool George Paget, who rode into battle casually with a cheroot in his mouth and at one stage when hit by a shell splinter told his orderly to collect it as souvenir.

The long and the short of it is that a reluctant Harry Flashman was caught up in the cavalry charge, lost his bearings and rode straight into the Russian lines, instead of away from them. The chapter ends with a thrown Flashman, cowering under lance points howling: "Kamerad! Ami! Sarte! Amigo! Oh God, what's the Russian for 'friend'?" how very typically Flashman. It reminded me of how in the cartoon Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (the gang, including Fonzie's anthropomorphic kid friendly dog; Mr Cool, wound up in a faulty time machine piloted by a future girl called Cupcake, travelling through time and space trying to get back to Milwaukee in their time) viewers found out that the group's cowardly comic Ralph Malph knew how to shout for help in every language on the face of the earth.

Flashman at the Charge - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of Flashman at the Charge sees Harry and Willy arrive in the Crimea itself. Most of the chapter concerns itself with the old soldier's observations on the campaign itself, the conduct and general incompetence of the commanders and while most of this is common knowledge it still stuns me that it was true of many of the British commanders of the day, yet they were still successful so often.

There's a mention of a correspondent by the name of Billy Russell. Flashman confesses to liking the man, he's not the only journalist mentioned in the papers and they generally come off fairly favourably. Maybe George MacDonald Fraser's bias, being an old journalist himself, was showing here.

Willy is eager to get into the action and it's all Harry can do to hold him back. The young prince sees war as a great adventure and keeps comparing what they're doing to the knights of old. Harry of course knows better, having experienced at least two fairly bloody campaigns already (Flashman and Flashman and the Mountain of Light) and his natural cowardice kicks in. Flashman doesn't have to go anywhere near the action, his reputation is enough to keep him away from the front lines.

Sure enough Willy does something rash and while Raglan screams at Harry to get after him, Harry pretends not to hear and when he does finally have to go it's too late. Poor Willy is killed. Flashman's reaction, which is mostly fear that his reputation and career will be shot (after all he was partially responsible for the death of Queen Victoria's nephew), is mistaken for grief at what happened to his young companion.

A moment of high hilarity is sobered by a very poignant reflection. Raglan carpets Flashman, blaming him for the tragedy, which is true enough, then hands him Willy's effects, one of which is a locket containing a picture of a girl Raglan describes as: 'the face of a boy's sweetheart, chaste, trusting and innocent.' Harry nearly laughs, because the last time he had seen the poor sweet creature she had been wearing a pair of black satin boots and nothing else. Yes, Willy had worn the image of St John's Woods whore into battle! If Flashman had his way Willy would be back in London pleasuring himself with the girl, but he then wonders if Raglan and any of the boy's pious relatives would have called him back to life on those terms. The chapter ends with three heartbreaking words: Poor little Willy.

Flashman at the Charge - Chapter 2

The second chapter of Flashman at the Charge may very well be one of my favourite chapters in the entire series thus far. It doesn't really have any historical impact or even a lot on the story, although one element of it does become important later on. One part is very funny and the other gives Harry himself some significant character development and highlights something that I like most about the series itself.

Once Flashman has been attached to young Willy they go about preparing for their campaign in the Crimea and Harry starts squiring his charge around London and introducing him to all the well connected society matrons, his own lovely wife included. He notes that he and Willy have something in common, they're both charmers when they need to be. He's about to find out that's not all they have in common.

One evening Willy asks Harry if the ladies they can see coming out for a night's work are prostitutes. Harry confirms this and tells young Willy that he doesn't want anything to do with them. The surprising reply comes from William of Celle that indeed he does, he has always wanted a 'whore', contact with young women has been something he's always been denied, and he has a very specific woman in mind, as he tells Flashman: "I want one, with long golden hair, and big, big round - " readers never got to discover what Willy wanted big and round on his dreamgirl as Harry cut him off, but he did finish: "And she will wear black satin boots buttoning up to her thighs."

Now if there is one thing Harry Flashman knows, it is how to procure a woman of the night for somebody. He takes his charge to a brothel where he has an understanding with the madam and produces a girl that matches Willy's specifications. After his first encounter with the girl Willy says to her: "You are a beautiful whore, I am quite delighted with you, and shall visit you frequently." According to Harry he did too.

During the preparation for the war Harry and Willy were kept busy at work and were regularly working well past midnight. One of these nights Harry doesn't want to go home to an empty house (Elspeth is staying the night at a friend's house who is throwing an 'off to war' ball), so gets himself rather drunk and then decides to surprise Elspeth by turning up at the ball. Drunk as he is he thinks it would be rather romantic to hide in the closet in Elspeth's room and jump out. He falls asleep in there and is woken by the sound of a voice, he peers out and there is his darling wife getting ready for bed and wearing only her bloomers. Harry jumps out and sees another figure in the room! Lord Cardigan, shirt held up, breeches around his knees. Elspeth is shocked by the appearance of both men and even Harry has to admit that Cardigan maintains his dignity, dropping his shirt, pulling up his pants, bidding them a good night and leaving.

For the past 14 years, ever since he returned from Afghanistan Harry has been convinced that Elspeth cheats on him. It doesn't much bother him, he cheats on her all the time, and she does hold the purse strings, but with Cardigan is almost more than he can bear. Elspeth tearily professes her innocence. Then she wonders what Harry was doing in the closet, did he have a woman in there? Harry says no, but Elspeth even makes him prove it. As they settle down to sleep Flashman reflects: I don't suppose I've cried myself to sleep since I was an infant, but it was touch and go then.
Only Elspeth could provoke that sort of emotional reaction from Harry Flashman.