First Review 2008
Jan. 3rd, 2008 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So, finished up the first book of 2008 (one of the many books I got for Christmas). I read Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte (translated from Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden).
It was...short. And clearly part of a larger arc of stories. And it would've been better, I suspect, if the next book or two in the series had been packaged up with this one.
Basically, if Dumas were a Spaniard, this is the kind of stuff he would write. We've got a moody ex-solider turned sell sword who drifts along through life until he gets caught up in events far larger than himself.
The writing is solid, although the narrator (the Captain's young page) has a level of omniscience that's a bit tough to swallow. There are lovely descriptive passages about Spain and it's inhabitants and there are pleasant poetical breaks every now and again, but the story is very short.
Basically, Captain Alatrise gets a mysterious job that goes sour. He catches the blame for it and spends the rest of the book stoically slumping through life as usual while other people try to kill him until things come to a head and the whole thing blows over until the next book.
Meh.
It wasn't a waste of my time, but I probably won't pick up any of the other books in the series.
later
Tom
So, finished up the first book of 2008 (one of the many books I got for Christmas). I read Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte (translated from Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden).
It was...short. And clearly part of a larger arc of stories. And it would've been better, I suspect, if the next book or two in the series had been packaged up with this one.
Basically, if Dumas were a Spaniard, this is the kind of stuff he would write. We've got a moody ex-solider turned sell sword who drifts along through life until he gets caught up in events far larger than himself.
The writing is solid, although the narrator (the Captain's young page) has a level of omniscience that's a bit tough to swallow. There are lovely descriptive passages about Spain and it's inhabitants and there are pleasant poetical breaks every now and again, but the story is very short.
Basically, Captain Alatrise gets a mysterious job that goes sour. He catches the blame for it and spends the rest of the book stoically slumping through life as usual while other people try to kill him until things come to a head and the whole thing blows over until the next book.
Meh.
It wasn't a waste of my time, but I probably won't pick up any of the other books in the series.
later
Tom
