Dem's the Breaks

[ShelleyCM]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

That explains it! I saw two movies during law school, and the League wasn't one of them. (And Disney? Not if I can help it.) The novel sounds fun, though.

 

Shelley

["V"]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

Regency Hero? Victorian Hero?

 

Have I died and gone to heaven?

 

At last a rules vehicle for the entire Flashman chronicles!

 

I salute you in advance

[oryanfactor]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

Shelly,

 

The Disney movie is actually good, beleive it or not. Also, the Scarecrow character appears in both the book and the film LOEG, both as part of a portrait. Either way, it's a heck of a neat character.

 

oryan

 

To V, what are the Flashman Chronicles?

["V"]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

 

To V, what are the Flashman Chronicles?

 

My favourite series of novels. Historical adventure stories that combine astonishing research (I have learned a vast amount of 19th Century history from them - the writer George McDonald Fraser is meticulous in footnoting the people & places he uses) with a light comic touch, all narrated by one of the most engaging rogues in literary history.

 

Clicky

 

The framework is as follows (and it is a measure of the writer's talent that some readers believed this to be a factual account rather than fiction): a series of packets of memoirs were uncovered in a house clearance and they turned out to be the warts & all memoirs of a famous Victorian war hero whose career spanned from the 1840s through to the days prior to World War I by which time he was knighted, a general, holder of the Victoria Cross etc.

 

The memoirs reveal that he was in fact a bully, coward and charlatan whose heroic reputation was a result of a series of unlucky breaks, misadventures and a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

Each novel covers one period in Harry Flashman's life, from his original expulsion from Rugby School (he was the villain in Tom Brown's Schooldays) and his posting to Afghanistan all the way through a variety of campaigns including the Indian Mutiny, the Sikh Wars, the Zulu risings, adventures against the slave trade, encounters with Lincoln, John Brown and other figures of the Old West (he was fleeing panic stricken from the action at LIttle Big Horn too...), mixing it with the pirates of Borneo and the deranged (and entirely historical!) Queen of Madagascar... and far more.

 

I can't recommend these books highly enough, and this brief and hastily written blurb by no means does them justice.

 

Oh, he charged (unwillingly) with the Light Brigade too... Damn me, but the Victorian era was hellishly busy for a British officer, what?

[oryanfactor]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

I love that sort of stuff of mixing history with dramatic characters. I also wonder if the character of "Funky" Flashman from Secret Society of Super-Villians is a deliberate namesake. They sound like similar characters.

 

I'm working on a 1930's background history for a character whose adventures will (hopefully) place him in similar situations in his time, although the random historical meet-ups can be overdone. What I'm learning is that real history has more weirdness and odd characters to it than anything I can come up with. Look up Teddy Roosevelt and Bigfoot if you don't beleive me!

 

oryan

["V"]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

I believe you! Such real historical characters who are far stranger than fiction litter the Flashman chronicles.

 

How about this for an appropriate Victorian Pulp Hero: Former British naval officer who distinguished himself fighting the pirates of the South China Seas to such an extent that he is honoured by the Sultan of Brunei and made Rajah of Borneo on condition that he keeps up the good work.

 

His crew includes former Naval personnel and individuals such as a half Scot, half Arab adventurer and a blowpipe wielding native of Borneo.

 

He's a real guy - James Brooke the "White Rajah" of Borneo and a much loved figure out there... fictional adventures wouldn't dare portray the expeditions he led against the pirates as they would seem overdramatised and unlikely.

[oryanfactor]

Re: Dem's the Breaks

 

V,

 

You remind me that although I've heard of Borneo, and certianly in regards to "The Wild Man of Boreno", that I don't know a fig about Borneo. Time to crack the web and fnd out about this mysterious land......

 

Your treat for the night is to hear about the "lost tribes" of Andaman Island and North Sentinel Island, who, in 2006, are living as they did in the stone age off the coas of India, primarily because no one can get near them. Every time they fly in a helicopter to check on them, like after the tsunami, naked natives come screaming out of the jungle, throwing spears and grabbing their genitals (nicest way I could think to say it) to frighten off the invaders.

 

Earth is wierd.

 

oryan