Rating: 
Summary: Now I understand all the hype!
Review: This is the first Sharpe novel I have read, although I did catch some of the TV series. I am not a fan of multiple formula novels churned out by lazy writers, and I was suspicious of this series.But Cornwell has done something different here. He has taken real events, from the career of Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington). Then he has inserted the character of Richard Sharp, a canny ex-thief ranker in the British Infantry. One of the men Wellington was to describe as "Scum of the Earth" after Badajoz. From the viewpoint of Sharpe we see the business end of the British Army, a worms eye view of the rise of Wellesley and the Indian and Peninsular campaigns. What you are getting is real history fleshed out with a cracking good story. And it is very well done! I am very tempted to dig further into this substantial series of books. I can see why they have become so popular.
Rating: 
Summary: Bloody good
Review: This is the first Sharpe series book that I read, and it won't be the last -- I plan to follow the series in chronological order (although that's not the order in which Cornwell wrote them). Richard Sharpe is an infantry grunt who joined the British army to avoid jail for his crimes. Beaten down by his sergeant, trudging through southern India in England's ubiquitous (woolen) redcoat, he first considers fleeing the army but is soon framed for a whipping after encountering his first firefight. Events and a sympathetic officer contrive to launch Sharpe into a spy mission to rescue a British officer who is in the custody of the Tippoo of Mysore -- the man whose kingdom the British are trying to topple in order to control southern India and who has planned a surprise for the British for their impending attack on his fortress. Cornwell keeps the action flowing, uses his viewpoint characters well and has vast knowledge of both his general historical subject as well as the tactics, arms and daily life of the British army in the Napoleonic era. Sharpe is a common soldier with a strong will to survive and an appreciation of loyalty and bravery, not a super-heroic James Bond with old weapons. And Cornwell doesn't pull his punches regarding the darker aspects of British imperialism. This is accessible writing that flows, unlike other historical novelists who write with an eye for the arcane. Good stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Tippoo the brutal dictator? umm...
Review: While the book is entertaining, I just want to point out that many people from Karnataka (former Mysore state) do not see Tipu Sultan as a brutal dictator but as a patriot and a martyr. This doesn't detract from the book's merits as an entertaining novel in any way, however.
| 
