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Rating: 
Summary: As good as the last two. Read also The Black Ship, by Pope
Review: .********************************************** Review of the Ramage series of novels: Don't read this until you have read the first book: Ramage and Ramage and the Drumbeat by Dudley Pope. Also included below a partial review of The Black Ship, also by Pope about a factual mutiny. Book 1: Ramage Book 2: Ramage and the Drumbeat Book 3: Ramage and the Freebooters Book 4: Governor Ramage RN Book 5: Ramage's Prize Book 6: Ramage and the Guillotine Order them all, because you won't want to stop. The action is fast and furious. This is third in a series of historical fiction by Dudley Pope. All of these are fictional novels based on British Admiralty records of the Napoleonic era. Written in the best tradition of Forester and O'Brien, these books will capture your imagination. And if you haven't read the Hornblower series by Forester, or the Aubrey/Maturin series by O'Brien, try them also. All of these are excellent books that you will treasure and reread. I particularly like these books by Pope. I recommend that you buy them all at once and read them in order. You will be glad you did. If you enjoy reading accurate descriptions of naval maneuvers in the age of sail, or simply a good adventure yarn, Dudley Pope delivers. Pope conveys how the best of the best, handle emergency situations. He portrays these situations with realism and authenticity. Review of this book: Ramage, is given command of the Triton with orders to deliver a warning to three offshore fleets that the fleet in homeport has mutinied. His first job is to get the Triton under way and he comes up with a surprise to get the mutinous Triton's out of port. Even then he still has to hold the crew together and build their loyalty. Then upon arriving in the West Indies, he is given a mission and set up by his admiral to take a fall and must gamble against the odds to be successful. Buy the series in the hard cover--worth keeping and handing down. For more historical information about mutiny in history, read the factual story of the most notorious mutiny of all time in the, The Black Ship by Dudley Pope. It gives keen insight into the conditions of the time, an analysis of the mind of a heartless Captain whose floggings often resulted in the deaths of his men, the terrrible casualty rates due to Yellow Fever, and the gruesome deaths of the officers. One horrific tale, but if you have the stomach for it, well worth reading. A good yarn. Buy them all. I'm starting on the next one tonight. ************************************************* Conrad B. Senior
Rating:
Summary: A good action adventure
Review: Calling this book a first edition is a bit of a stretch. It is a reprinting of a book first published many years ago, and precedes the books published by more recent authors like O'Brien. Lt. Ramage is a young Royal Navy officer who uses intelligence and strategy rather than simply charging in using brute force. Identifying the pirates who have been seizing small inter-island merchant ships is a challenge which Ramage proves capable of dealing with. Like most fiction writers, Pope ignores the main hazard of service in the West Indies, i.e., disease. It was not uncommon at that time for a ship to lose half its crew to yellow fever (for an account of real naval service in the West Indies during that time period see Frederick Hoffman, "A Sailor of King George"). It should be noted that the mutiny of 1797 had two parts, one at Spithead (resolved peacefully), and one at the Nore (which resulted in conflicts with the mutineers, and eventually a number of hangings). The mutiny is covered by C. Northcote Parkinson in his novel, "The Fireship." Overall, this novel by Dudley Pope is a well written Royal Navy adventure. In this book, Pope tends to concentrate on a particular action (after preliminaries) in contrast to some of the more recent novels by other writers like O'Brien ("Master and Commander") or Woodman ("A King's Cutter") whose early books cover an extended period of time with many actions.
Rating: 
Summary: Dudely Pope's Ramage Took the Wind Out of My Sails
Review: I basically picked up the 1st three of Dudley Pope's Ramage novels because, they stated he was the annointed successor to C.S. Forester and that a review said he knew more about the Royal Navy in Nelson's era. I agree with this statment, but like in Freebooters, when Pope spends an entire chapter explaining the construction of a cat-o-nine tails, you've forgot why the seaman was being flogged in the first place and feel like you're the one being flogged. 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.
Rating: 
Summary: 4 carronades crashing for Ramage 3
Review: In the third installment of the Ramage series, can our hero overcome the mutiny at Spithead, deliver dispatches to 3 separate fleets and solve the mystery of disappearing ships? The fact that there are 15 more novels in the series hints at a successful conclusion. Of course the redoubtable Ramage will overcome all obstacles and emerge triumphant although not without controversy. In the first two novels, Ramage was successful but his means of achieving success left him open to criticism. It would be unreasonable for a first time reader to expect anything any different in Ramage three. 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.
Rating:
Summary: 22 year-old Lt. Lord Ramage outwits mutineers & pirates
Review: In this, the 3rd of the Ramage series, Lt. Ramage is given command of the brig Triton whose crew is involved in the great fleet-wide mutiny at Spithead in the spring of 1797. His orders are to carry dispaches to the admirals off Brest , Cadiz and then to the West Indies. How does he set out to sea with such a crew? Then in the Caribbean, he is instructed to stop the mysterious loss of ships sailing from Grenada to Barbados after frigate captains had failed. There is an interesting discussion of the economics of the slave trade in the 18th century.
I find I re-read Pope's books more often that the smiilar books by Forrester, Kent or O'Brien. Pope always gives a good tale.
Rating:
Summary: #3 in an exciting series
Review: Lt. Lord Ramage single-handedly overcomes the fleet mutiny at Spithead, sees through a slaver's ruse to take a rich prize, exposes a spy, and winkles out a secretive privateer terrorizing the Caribbean. A busy, and entertaining, fellow. 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.
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Summary: Good naval adventure almost ruined by romance
Review: Ninty percent of this book is a well-written and exciting novel, filled with action at sea and a little espionage. The other ten percent concerns a romance that is corny, sappy, insipid, etc. The rest of this book is so good that the romance seems glaringly out of place. Our hero, Lt. Ramage, first has to overcome a mutinous crew, and then find a defeat a group of privateers in the Caribbean. As usual, he uses some creative tactics to overcome his problems, particularly to gain the loyalty of his mutinous crew. One of the things I like most about Pope is that he does not shy away from describing the harsh realities of the times. For example, he describes in such detail the poor treatment the common sailors recieved it is easy to understand why they mutinied and why they deserted whenever they got the chance. He also gets into some very dangerous territory in this book when he describes the slave trade. That is obviously a very sensitive issue but I think he did a good job describing it in some detail without diminishing its horrors but also without getting too melodramatic. I don't want to give away too much about the end of this book, so I will simply say that it is very exciting and at least the equal of the first two books in this series. So, in conclusion, just try to ignore the ridiculous romantic scenes and you will really enjoy this book.
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