Customer Reviews

Brave Captains (Ulverscroft Large Print Series)

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I read the first volume of the Hazard series and found it very enjoyable. I ordered The Brave Captains and was looking forward to it. I then read a review that panned the book and called it a mess. I thought that was unlikely, given how everything else I had read by Vivian Stuart was first rate and I just put it down as a poor review. I started into The Brave Captains and the review was right - tough slogging. It is a dreary list of dates and brief engagements and who was appointed where and when.
I managed to finish it, skipping whole pages. I then read volume 3 and the rest of the series and they are all excellent books. The only bright thing about this book is that it provides a bridge in the series to the next and much better volume 3.
Just a word on Vivian Stuart. I have read some references to the author as a female. Vivian was a man's name which has now become mainly a woman's name. Vivian Stuart was a man who wrote from a man's perspective.

The title should have been "The Brave Reader" because you'll need to be brave to finish reading this mess. I gave up about a quarter through the book. Volume #1 was a good read. What happened?

I liked this book quite a lot, though the horror of the events sometimes made me cringe. The Crimean War is one that North Americans know way too little about. The huge missteps, the overt blunders, by the British (and French) leadership are the back story to better known elements (the charge of the Light Brigade). What this novel does is to give the reader a glimpse, admittedly imperfect as words must be, of the unbelievable carnage attendant to the heroism of the troops on the ground. The naval and ground army interactions are a dimension that seems largely lacking in many accounts of this horrific engagement. Cholera, mind-boggling suffering, immense sacrifice, bone-headed idiocy, unbelievable miscommunication (or noncommunication) are the currency of this book. Read it and weep, maybe literally. Read it and ponder even current military-political situations....

Okay, Stuart takes some literary license to inject Hazard into the fray. But that seems necessary to advance the narrative without violating history. The tale puts some human faces on that history, as well, fictional as some of them may be. Yes, there are lots of details about interactions, personalities, allegiances, locations, and chains of command; they are a bit difficult to keep straight. On the other hand, it was a very messy, complicated, rapidly evolving, disorganized battle situation, with multiple important figures playing crucial roles and sometimes making critical mistakes. Readers who want a linear narrative ought to look elsewhere, but they will have to accept that such narratives grossly simplify realities on the ground. The incidents of heroism and humanity -- and of immense suffering -- among members of both major contending forces contribute a dimension that the bare histories can't adequately convey.

I'm keen on Stuart's writing. The entwined elements of his stories take some concentration -- set aside that tot of rum while you read! -- but they communicate complexities that were actualities. You'll learn something from this book, even if you are already a student of this particular bit of history.