Just as Fraser teased us by doing an America story in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord that mentioned the Civil War but ended up just being John Browns' Raid, so too with this he teases us with a really interesting story - Flashman in Mexico under the time of Maxmilian - and gives us a boring one, of the Abssyinian Campaign.
This is a slog. Hard to read. I tried to figure out why. Fraser's descriptions of time and place remain strong. But the story is slow. Flashman could have gotten out of having to do this mission, several times - like in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord he's too brave. Even at the end when Theodore lets free the prisoners, he hangs on "for his credit". That's not Flashman. Flashman is a coward.
It lacks interesting characters. Napier is dull. So is the Ethiopian princess. The characters mentioned from his Mexico adventure are far more interesting. There is the Emperor but he never quite comes alive. Napier is just decent and smart.
Fraser/Flashman refers to other adventures too much, and Flashman also refers to historical references too much - a younger Fraser would surely have cut these.
I got the impression from reading the introduction that this was going to be tough going - instead of being brief and witty, Fraser rants on about how better the 19th century was than today, and how more honorable this mission was than the recent Iraq War. Like, who cares. Fraser always read young and energetic - here he writes like an old man.
I wonder if this was meant to be a two parter like Flashman's Lady with Mexico being the first half and Abyssinia the second?
It's one advantage is that I knew very little about this campaign so it has freshness. This ended the series on a weak note - I easily would have preferred the Civil War, Khartoum, a longer Zulu War, the Boxer Rebellion... any of those.
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