Ramage and the Freebooters (Paperback)

Likewise, when the Ramage aboard the HMS Triton takes up station in the Carribean and is ordered to stop privateering in the area, Pope spends countless pages discribing the islands. I felt like, I was reading a travel brochure, not an age-of sail fictional novel.

However, what was worst was Pope's jumping from one character to another. Most novels, I have read stick to the feelings, thoughts, and emotions of the main character. In the Ramage novels, you know Ramage feelings as he makes a decision, he then tells the mate Southwick and then you're inside the Southwick's head. Next thing you know you in a seaman's head who overheard them talking. It gets confusing. If you want a good read try C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower.

I like the sense of adventure, the clever plots, Ramage's audacity and modesty, the nautical lore and clearly described maneuvering, and the sense of place. I don't like Pope's insertion of interesting lore as a device to delay the action once it's underway, his predictably good or evilly incompetent characters (irrespective if friend or foe), and his telegraphed plot solutions (despite coy circumspection). However, in Freebooters there IS one key character about whom Pope did maintain my suspicions through many chapters and another person turns out to have had conflicting loyalties. Two minor plot elements jumped out as inconsistent.

These McBook pb edition books have a nice look, heft, and feel. (Why DID they pick that silly name?) Again there's wrap-around cover art by Peter Wright, evocative in its ghostly silence and spidery tracery. Wright repeatedly over-emphasizes an integrated design for the catheads, one that reminds me of horned beetles or owls.

Is it odd how many maritime authors write series rather than one-off novels? Pope, Woodman, Kent, Forester, O'Brian; D.C. Poyer doing it for the modern navy. Maybe it is the ready handle of a rigidly structured career ladder to follow and explore, each rung offering a different view of command behavior and individual psychology. Do others find the early books in a series offer the greatest compass for ingenuity, excitement, and water-level story telling? For example, some of the later O'Brian titles in the Pacific drag interminably to small effect, and Lambdin's Lewrie loses some of his bold, ah, flirtation.

Like the first two novels, the action in Ramage and the Freebooters starts early although shots aren't fired until well into the book. Still the novel builds to a thrilling climax with lots of action along the way. It's a good read.

Pope typically includes mysteries and subterfuge as part of the action in his novels. In Ramage and the Freebooters there are covert operations, spying, and mysterious goings on. My only complaint in that regard is that it seemed obvious who was doing the spying.

I also had a couple of other concerns about the story. Ramage finds romance in the Caribbean while Gianna waits at home. He seems to feel no guilt about establishing another relationship while he is involved with Gianna. Oh well, this was published in 1969, "love the one your with" etc. Also, unless one has a map of the Caribbean, the sailing is confusing, as is the setting in the climax. Maps would have been a real plus.

Pope was a sailor and his knowledge of the sea shows. He does include some realistic details (his description of the fashioning of the cat for example) but doesn't overburden the story with them. The Caribbean is a winter vacation spot now but Pope conveys it as the disease infested hellhole that it must have been 200 years ago. Also, it is clear that Ramage is a born, charismatic leader. Some people are like that and Ramage conveys natural authority better in this novel than the first two.

Ramage and the Freebooters isn't as good as the first two but it is a worthy entry in the series.