Rating: 
Summary: FLASHY GETS HIS VICTORIA'S CROSS
Review: This is Flashman's memoir of his time in the "Indian Mutiny" and it is an excellent read. Sir Harry's self bashing is a laugh riot as he explains to us his misadventures during this understudied part of Victorian history. Mr. Fraser's historical knowledge is impressive. We must thank him for using one of the funniest characters in all literature to explain events of great historical signifigance. Flash is stumbling in and out of mischief, bedrooms, battles, and dungeons, while on a secret mission for the queen and it is a pleasure to educate yourself through this anti-hero.
Rating:
Summary: Fraser at his best!
Review: This is my second favorite Flashman book, after (by a close margin) "Flashman and the Mountain of Light". History, plot, and characterization are superb, as are all the descriptive parts. As for the suspension of disbelief... I found nothing inconsistent in Flashman's recount of Moss Troopers torturing their captives. Exactly because he is utterly selfish, Flashman does not identify with Moss Troopers any more than with sepoys, or with anyone else for that matter. Also he derives sadistic pleasure out of exposing other people's baseness whenever he can - to justify his own, perhaps.Only two things about Harry Flashman I found really hard to believe. One is his linguistic ability, which sometimes borders on supernatural (although in this book it is merely very good). In "Flashman and the Dragon" he becomes near-fluent in CHINESE in less than a month - his first tonal language, I might add, - and in "Flashman and the Redskins" he switches to thinking in Siouxan upon hearing it for the first time in 25 years. And the second thing which defies belief - how did a man in his nineties manage to write all these manuscripts in a few short years? His fingers should have fallen off!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful as history, better as fiction.
Review: This may be my favorite of the Flashman novels. The images alone are worth the price: those of Flashman dashing about posing as a Pathan sepoy soldier, of the GloryThatWasIndia, of the murky origins of the Sepoy Rebellion . . . this has it all, adventure, humor, history. And so well written that you will stay up late into the night finishing it, as I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Flashy goes native
Review: Though the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser has been in print for decades, this is the first book that I've read. Ok, I've been inexcusably tardy; I've been busy.
As created by the author, the fictional Harry Flashman is an officer in the British Army during the reign of Queen Victoria. In FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME, Flashy, by this time a colonel, is asked by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston to go to India to investigate unrest among sepoy troops, a potential uprising perhaps being fanned by Harry's old nemesis, Count Ignatieff of Russia. After Flashman arrives, he's forced to go underground by assuming the identity of a native enlistee in the 3rd Cavalry, Bengal Army - just in time to become embroiled in the Great Mutiny of 1857.
Despite Flashy's growing reputation for heroism among the Army and Her Majesty's government, he's actually the greatest of cowards. His only interests are staying out of harm's way and having sex with as many women as possible. He's a rascal and a bounder of the first order. For female readers, Flashman is the man Mom warned about. For male readers, he is, perhaps, Everyman at heart. The charm of his memoirs, "The Flashman Papers", from which each book of the series is an excerpt, derives from the total honesty by which Flashy readily admits to his character deficiencies. It's only through canny opportunism, unwelcome circumstances, and luck that Harry's renown for derring-do increases with each installment.
The appeal of Flashy's rascality aside, the strength of these stories is apparently the historical research that Fraser did to create the backdrop for Harry's adventures. In FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME, the event is the savage 1857 uprising of Indian troops against their British masters that resulted in massacres of whites - men, women, and children - at such places as Meerut, Jhansi, and Cawnpore. The British reprisal was merciless. And Flashy is there to tell us all about it, as well as explain the cultural and religious factors that contributed to the bloodbath. As an instruction about something I knew nothing about, Harry's narrative more than justifies the cost of the book. (OK, so I got it free from an email pen pal. But, you get my meaning.)
As I've no other Flashman novel for comparison, I was torn between awarding 4 and 5 stars. I settled on 4 as the safe option since that leaves room for improvement, which I may discover as I read additional volumes in the series. I do have to say, however, that I found Fraser's McAuslan trilogy more humorous and appealing, perhaps because the time, place, and protagonist are more contemporary.
Rating:
Summary: Flashy's Best?
Review: While I read this book as number eight in my chronological survey of the life and times of Harry Flashman and still have three books to go in the series, I can understand why the Flashman cognoscenti consider this book Fraser finest effort of this series. In this book our toady, womanizing coward ends up in the middle of the great Indian mutiny in the 1858-9 period. As always there is high entertainment with Flashman's picaresque adventures and a lot of historical context thanks to Fraser's meticulous research. What makes the book stand out in this superb series is it's accurate and objective analysis of the events leading to the Indian Mutiny -required reading with regard to the current conflict in Iraq- and the fully three-dimensional rendering of the Indian princess Lakshmibai. Fraser has responded to questions "how much of Flashman is in you?", "I think like Flashman, but don't follow it up with acting the way he does". As such, It seems like Fraser's esteem for this enigmatic leading lady translates into this book. Furthermore, the expert description of the battle scenes and the sights and smells of India turn this book into a superb example of historical fiction. Too bad that the Flashman character has so far been so poorly translated to the moving screen. Maybe, just like Dickens, Fraser's writing skills are so evocative that any reenactment ends up disappointing. Yet, since the in my eyes disappointing O'Brien series received the full Hollywood treatment, it may be time for another try to bring Lord Harry to a larger audience.
Rating:
Summary: By now you are hooked on Flashman
Review: You will buy this book. It's probably the best of the lot.
Rating:
Summary: By now you are hooked on Flashman
Review: You will buy this book. It's probably the best of the lot.
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