The DU Lounge

The Flashman series purports to be the publication of discovered memoirs of Harry Flashman, the villain of Tom Brown's School Days. He is a liar, a coward, a cheat, a rogue, and a womanizer, who somehow managed to achieve great fame as a military officer in some of the greatest disasters of the Victorian period. His awards include a KCB, a VC, the US Medal of Honor, and numerous other decorations; he rose to the rank of Brigadier General. The books are hilarious, satirical, and yet deeply honor the others whom Flashman swindles, betrays, and abandons, all the while reaping undeserved laurels. They are written in the first person, and include extensive footnotes of the sources Fraser consulted to write the story. Withal, they're not everyone's cup of tea. Few persons of stature escape the satirical pen of the author, although Fraser does paint the common soldiers in an attractive light (having been one himself, he probably sympathized with them).

His WW2 memoir, Quartered Safe Out of Here, is an excellent account of the little-remembered Burma Campaign, and his short stories of Private MacAuslan, the "Dirtiest Soldier in the World," are quasi-memoirs of his own time as a junior officer in the post-WW2 Empire.

My favorite author, but again, there are many who don't like his style. He freely uses words that are now considered unfashionable, since he writes as a Victorian gentleman who never worried about such things. Thus, he is accused of racism, which is inaccurate; in fact, he is just about the opposite. But his most controversial book, Black Ajax, about the great heavyweight boxer Tom Molyneux, is criticized because it accurately portrays the racist attitudes of Britain in the early 19th century.

-- Mal