Pseudo-Flashman recommendations

Cafe Society
1

I’ve read all that Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser. And unfortunately, there aren’t going to be any more.

But I see there are a number of books that are loosely (or not all that loosely) inspired by the series: an anti-hero protagonist present at historical events.

I’d be interested in hearing any opinions from people who have read any of the following books:

The Thomas Flashman books by Robert Brightwell. Three books about Flashman’s uncle, set during the Napoleonic wars.

The Harry Flashman Jr books by Paul Moore. Only one book so far but the author is planning on more. Based on Flashman’s illegitimate son. Set during WWI.

Harry Flashman and the Invasion of Iraq by H.C. Tayler. A descendant of Flashman in modern times.

The Speedicut papers by Christopher Joll. A series of books based around another Tom Brown character. Three books so far in what’s planned as a ten book series.

The Carton Chronicles by Keith Laidler. A crossover book that has Sydney Carton being Harry Flashman’s real father.

The Adventures of Charlie Smithers by C.W. Lovatt. A book “inspired” by the Flashman books.

The Life and Times of Archibald Brinsley Fox by Stewart Hennessey. Two books set during the Russian Revolution.

Thorverton and the Nile by Stephen Manning. Another book inspired by Flashman.

The Martin Jerrold books by Edwin Thomas. A Napoleonic naval character.

The Otto Prohaska books by John Biggins. An Austo-Hungarian character around WWI.

The Roger Shallot books by Michael Clynes. A medieval series.

The Alan Lewrie series by Dewey Lambdin. A naval series set during the Napoleonic wars. Apparently successful as there are fourteen books in the series so far.

The Bandy Papers by Donald Jack. A series about Barthlomew Bandy, a pilot in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Fenwick Travers books by Raymond Saunders. An American character like Flashman.

Scoundrel! by Keith Thompson. Based on James Wilkinson, a real life person.

Any other recommendations in this genre would be welcome.

2

You could try the Ethan Gage series by William Dietrich.
Gage is an American caught up in the French Revolution and the subsequent wars, etc. The first two, Napoloen’s Pyramids and The Rosetta Stone form a pair set during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. Great fun!

He’s also written a couple of stand alone historicals which I thought were very good; one about Hadrian’s Wall and one about Attila the Hun. Details on the site I linked to.

3

I thoroughly recommend C. C. Humphreys’ Jack Absolute novels, although there are sadly only three of them. They’re based in the 19th Century North American British campaigns against the French, and Jack Absolute is a British intelligence agent: whom, to the detriment of his spying career, the playwright Richard Sheridan based his own comic character Captain Jack Absolute upon. The real Jack Absolute must thwart French plots in the New World while living down the reputation of his fictional namesake…

4

I rate “Prohaska” as absolutely splendid. IMO, though, the “Flashman” parallel here is only partial. The hero and first-person narrator, Ottokar Prohaska, does indeed feature on a considerable variety of World War I’s theatres of operations – and assorted pre-WWI stuff – re all of which, he’s an acute and unsparing observer and commentator. And the books deliver a mixture of the comical / ridiculous, and the tragic and heartbreaking. But Prohaska, though cynical in world-view, is anything but a scoundrel – he’s a thoroughly decent and honourable guy.

Sadly, there are only four Prohaska books. Potential is there, for plenty more – there are many passing references in the novels, to Prohaska’s long picaresque “expat” career after WWI ends and the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceases to exist. I gather that Biggins would have wished to write further, re this milieu; but the Prohaska books had only indifferent sales, and the author would have had financial difficulties re going further along this road. Frustrating, in the light of all the total crap which is published and sells hugely…

(Actually, set in Tudor – rather than medieval – England.) After dipping a toe into these, I reckoned them frankly, bloody awful – a crude, clumsy, unoriginal attempt at jumping on the “Flashman-be-alike” bandwagon, which for me totally failed to work. Others’ mileages may vary.

A few years ago I came upon a hilarious bit of fanfic, unfortunately now lost to me without trace. It involved – no word of a lie – a crossover between Fraser’s Harry Flashman, and “Harry Potter”. (Flashy gets, by wizarding means, a trip to the future and back again.)

5

I’m on the third one in the series and am somewhat regretting having bought the fourth at the same time. He’s not really pulling off the “amoral rascal” – his hero isn’t particularly heroic, but he’s not as gloriously bawdy as Flashman – he just likes to screw a lot. So its a bit like an indifferently written Horatio Hornblower novel interspersed with indifferently written soft porn. It turns out that you have to be a more talented author than Lambdin to successfully write a good sex scene.

He can’t write a good comic scene either, or maybe he just hasn’t tried yet.

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For what it’s worth I see that the Forester estate has authorized the continuation of the series. John Mahon has written The Jamaican Affair of 1805 which begins where Forester’s uncompleted last novel ended.

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Looking at the descriptions it appears Gage is often involved in quests for ancient magical artifacts. How strong a fantasy element is there in these books?

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One directly inspired by Flashman is The Peshawar Lancers. It’s an alternate-history in which a meteor strike has screwed up western Europe and the British Empire is now centred on India - facing dastardly Russian cannibals. It’s a hoot.

The main character is clearly supposed to be a descendant of Flashman (though nothing like him in character), and the villian is “Count Ignatieff”.

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There’s even a Flashman in the 'Grim Darkness of the 41st Millenium, where there is only WAR!"

Meet Ciaphis Cain, ‘Hero of the Imperium’

They are a guilty pleasure, but i love those books.

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He ends up searching for secrets of the ancients, especially ones with Masonic relevance. Some scenes are really quite far-fetched! But there’s also lots of well-described action and events.
If you don’t like ‘ancient artifact’ thrillers or mysteries then they’re not for you.

11

Denis Wheatley’s Roger Brook series, published between 1947 and 1974, is fascinating as a proto-Flashman, and the books, hugely popular in their time, were a major influence on Fraser, although he gleefully subverts their swashbuckling and intrepid hero with the knavish and cowardly Flashy. They’re set between the French Revolution and Waterloo, and like Flashman, the eponymous Brook goes absolutely everywhere and meets everyone who was anyone in the period. Here’s the synopsis for 1955’s The Dark Secret of Josephine:

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It’s an excellent book. I’ve always felt that if anyone was going to continue the series after Fraser’s death, I’d like to see Stirling do it.

13

Rather more obscurely, The Victor comic in the 70s and 80s had quite a good strip about the adventures of Captain Gerald Cadman, a thinly disguised Flashman variant who skulked and snivelled his way - no rogering in a comic aimed at 10 year old boys - all the way from the Western Front to 1930s Berlin.

14

I’ve found Wheatley’s “Roger Brook” series, mostly good fun. (To be pedantic, Roger’s adventures abroad actually begin in 1783 – in the last years of the old French monarchy.) I’d seen similarities between the Brook, and the Flashman, books, though had not realised the mentioned actual modelling by Fraser, after Wheatley’s material.

I have always had a bit of a problem with the Brook series, in the suspension-of-disbelief area. As you say, Roger “goes absolutely everywhere and meets anyone who was anyone” – some of such, in wildly complicated and credibility-straining ways. He spends a lot of time actually among the French military, and becomes well-acquainted with Napoleon and family: passes himself off as a French officer, one Roger Breuc, and gets away with it. Plus, he has yet another alias which he uses at times – the identity of his Jacobite cousin, who actually exists, though he’s never met the guy. There’s just no sense-making way that anyone in a limited period of history, could be present at virtually every big event in it. The same, of course, goes for Flashman – with him, though, one is able to reflect that the whole thing is basically satire and burlesque; and overlook the taking of liberties with what’s probable. The narrative of the Brook novels, though, is in deadly-serious vein.

As some of the Flashman novels are IMO better than others: I feel that the same goes for the Brook series, a few of of which are to my mind, poorish stuff. The Irish Witch I find particularly lame. This book, incidentally, features (pretty much the best bit in it) a fairly brief spell which Roger spends in the USA, at the time of the War of 1812 – if I recall rightly, Roger’s only visit ever to North America.

15

Though I’m British, I’d never heard of Captain Gerald Cadman before (link didn’t work for me). The whole thing sounds strange and rather fascinating. Even minus the rogering – it’s not an angle on the World Wars, that I can imagine in a British kids’ comic from my childhood in the 1950s / early 60s – straight-up heroism was the only imaginable fare then, in that context. Of course, times change – and one can see kids a couple of decades later, being a good deal more worldly and cynical; and their parents less likely to have actually taken part in World War II, and to object furiously to perceivedly subversive stuff.

16

I concur – Stirling would be the guy for the job. If only he’d drop the IMO God-awful stuff he’s turning out nowadays, and proceed with further “Flashman” instead…

17

Try that link. Yeah, it was an odd strip, but a very interesting one despite its derivative character.

18

Crikey, what a bounder!

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This one worked – thanks. It does seem a very creative idea to make such a figure, an anti-hero in a kids’ comic strip – for sure, a thing I’d never have thought of.

And here he is at Gallipoli ! … He certainly – to borrow your words – seems to go absolutely everywhere and meet everyone.

20

At a bit of a loose end, and keeping making posts: Wheatley’s “Roger Brook” series getting an airing, brings to mind for me, the same author’s “Gregory Sallust” books: “the mixture as before”, so to speak, but about World War II instead of the Napoleonic Wars. Seven or eight books in the series IIRC: the eponymous hero, a super-skilful British secret agent, is closely involved with – and plays vital roles in – nearly every part of the war in the European theatre. (He has no first-hand ado with the Japan / Pacific part of the conflict – maybe the sheer logistics of getting him to and from that side of the world, as well as his being into most things in the ETO, would defeat even an author of Wheatley- or Fraser-level ingenuity?)

The Sallust books are a gripping and exciting read (punctuated with didactic stuff in the guise of the books’ characters discussing the twists and turns of the war) if you like that kind of thing. However, they get yet further away from true Flashman-resemblance. Gregory Sallust is a tough and ruthless fighter and intriguer in his country’s cause; but he’s very much a man of true courage, and integrity – and fairly faithful in the love-life department (with the odd lapse) – the true great love of his life is an anti-Nazi German lady.