In Light's on at Signpost Fraser mentioned that he was moved to discover Kingsley Amis read Flashman during his final days, and Fraser got on to wondering what he would like to read in his final days – he thought something light, like PG Woodehouse. I’ve no idea whether this happened but it’s interesting that his final completed novel is very much in a frivolous vein.
Fraser has basically rehashed The Candlemass Road in the style of The Pyrates and the result is a bit of a squib. I really loved George MacDonald Fraser’s earlier stuff but I can’t shake the conclusion that his writing went south in the last few years of his life. I have nil problem with frivolous, The Pyrates was terrific, but this is uninspired.
It’s got an alright idea – some various Englishmen and Scots combine to stop a Spanish plot to overthrow James VI on the border towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I – but the plotting gets lazy, the characters aren’t as strong (though I did like Kylie, the sexy sidekick for the heroine), there are far too many anachronisms (they’re deliberate but after a while it gets wearying) and sequences where baddies can see what other characters are up to on a sort of magical television, Fraser seems more interested in long slabs of character’s talking or ranting descriptions.
Also the world of the borders is less fun than the pirates – pirate fiction is a big genre which enabled Fraser to have a real frollick, but “reiver fiction” really isn’t a big enough genre for him to run riot (at least, not here). I found it heavy going towards the end. I wish Fraser had done another volume of memoirs instead – I think that’s where his passion was in the last bit of his life.
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