Rating: 
Summary: Pope rules the waves!
Review: .************************************************* Review of the Ramage series of novels: This is first of a series of nine books. 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 our 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: In this novel, Ramage awakes after receiving an injury in battle to find himself in command of the rapidly sinking Sibella. The pace is fast and furious as he struggles to complete the Sibella's mission and save his crew. As any Captain who has lost his ship, this book concludes with Ramage facing a daunting courts martial board with the deck stacked against him. ************************************************* Conrad B. Senior
Rating: 
Summary: FIRST of series of NINE novels. Buy them ALL.
Review: . ************************************************* Review of the Ramage series of novels: This is first of a series of nine books. 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 our 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: In this novel, Ramage awakes after receiving an injury in battle to find himself in command of the rapidly sinking Sibella. The pace is fast and furious as he struggles to complete the Sibella's mission and save his crew. As any Captain who has lost his ship, this book concludes with Ramage facing a daunting courts martial board with the deck stacked against him. ************************************************* Conrad B. Senior
Rating:
Summary: 1st Ramage book, his first commands & first great love
Review: 3rd Lt. Ramage finds himself in command of a sinking frigate after all other officers are killed. Escaping in a small boat after only an hour in command of the frigate, he reads the orders given to his late captain and decides to carry out the task given to a frigate using the boat. He rescues a beautiful princess and they fall in love. Sounds like a romance novel, but there is a lot of adventure--in order to fall in love, he has to keep her from killing him first. Ramage's father's political enemies bring him to trial, but he again escapes. Nelson give him his first real command, the cutter Kathleen and an almosst impossible assignment. In this the first of the sixteen book series, Ramage collects key crewmen who will support him in his further adventures. Pope's Ramage series is in my opinion the best of the naval adventure stories of Nelson's navy.
Rating:
Summary: Action near and at Corsica in 1796
Review: A reprint of Pope's novel first published in 1965. The action is concentrated in a very short time period (less than two weeks) in the later part of 1796, just before the British evacuation of Corsica. Ramage escapes from a sinking frigate, aids the escape of Italian refugees from the French, and then deals with the aftermath of his actions. There is a final side action on the coast of Corsica involving the grounded frigate Belette (W.P. Gosset, "the Lost Ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900," lists the frigate Belette as "burned at Ajaccio as unserviceable" on 20 October 1796, along with the frigate Poulette). The action is, perhaps, a little too fast paced. At points, the author gets wrapped up in details of ship handling, but overall it is a good story with a somewhat romantic ending.
Rating:
Summary: A good tale, well told
Review: Enough reviewers have gone on at length to talk about the merits of this book, so I shall be brief. This is a good story. The characters are interesting. The action is plentiful, and well written. Ramage is no Aubrey, nor is he a copy of Bolitho or Hornblower. He is a fine character in his own right. Full marks for Dudley Pope! On to Ramage & The Drumbeat!
Rating:
Summary: Exhilarating fare
Review: Everything about this story is over-the-top: Ramages' incredible luck and skill (after surrendering his frigate) in boldly carrying out his mission in nothing but an unarmed ship's boat, his loyal and adoring seamen, his disgraced but virtuous Admiral-father-Lord, his mean but laughably incompetent enemies who shoot each other with ball or word, the lovingly described Italian landscape, and not least, diffidently falling in love with the utterly beautiful, noble and powerful damsel whom he rescues. The latter is handled with a romance novel cliche, the man obdurately misunderstanding the woman's intent. Lord Ramage can walk in the best circles or rough it with sailors and peasants; all characters seem fixed in the mold in which Ramage first sees them. Pope goofs when the French-occupied frigate Ramage rescues fails to employ sternchasers against Ramage's approach in its supposed blindspot. Napoleon's soldiers weren't as incompetent handling artillery or holding their ranks as depicted, but then they are enemies too. Dudley Pope has conducted much research, as he reminds us by tacking on occasional dry passages of customs. His narrative is closer to a day by day and even minute by minute story than most. Such detail can become tedious as in the long trips in open boats, or the slow approach to a night shore. Nevertheless, this is an entertainment, a story of extremes, and hugely enjoyable if no more is required. It reminds me more of a pep-book Marryat than Forester (with whose Hornblower Ramage allegedly first shipped out!). I look for lots of "texture," local color, and sail handling in a nautical story (having finally figured out what most of O'Brian's esoteric lingo means), so I'm going to continue this series before I return to Kent's contemporary Bolitho series.
Rating: 
Summary: Weak, Cliched Seafaring Tale
Review: I picked up this book after reading Pope's excellent "The Black Ship", a true story of a mutiny in the British navy. If he could write that well about a real event, he must be equally able to create a great fictional story. Unfortunately, Ramage is shallow & cliche-ridden & it was only with difficulty that I managed to finish it. I had two major complaints with this book. First of all, the characters were very one-dimensional & poorly drawn. All of Ramage's enemies are evil cowards; anyone on his side is brave & forthright. Count Pisano is an hysterical backstabbing maniac & the captain in charge of the court martial is described as though he were Death personified. Neither has any redeeming traits at all. Seaman Jackson, on the other hand, is brave, trustworthy, & capable, as are the others in Ramage's camp. Couldn't some of his enemies have even had a few decent human qualities? Couldn't some of Ramage's friends have had a few flaws? Considering that many of the "bad guys" are merely proteges of a different admiral from the one whom Ramage follows, these hysterically drawn villains are bizarre & ridiculous. The second complaint is with the preposterous plotting. One of the most common cliches of historical novels is the presence of a headstrong, domineering, & beautiful young woman whom the hero falls in love with. Naturally, there's one in this book too--an obnoxious & uninteresting character dropped anachronistically into the novel to serve as love interest. Later on there's a big court martial scene--another cliche. Surely Pope knows how courts martial were conducted but he writes the scene as though he were someone who had no knowledge of history at all. People come bursting into the room, precedents are overturned & the feeling is that Pope knows nothing about what he's writing about but is only making it up as he goes along. It is unfair to judge an entire series of books by just the first one--perhaps the later books are much better. But, given the number of books there are to read in the world, & the paucity of time to spend throwing good reading time after bad, it's unlikely that I will ever get to find out.
Rating:
Summary: Another Brit sails the hazardy seas!
Review: It was while reading Van Reid's funny historical adventures about the gentlemen's club, the Moosepath League, that I was led, by a communication with that author to James L. Nelson's "Revolution at Sea" saga. Even if Mr. Reid hadn't already made me laugh and shout with surprise at his unlikely heroes' exploits, I would be grateful to him for telling me about Mr. Nelson's writing. From the latest in the "RaS" series I began hunting for some more nautical adventures. The first thing I tried was Dewey Lambdin - not too bad. Now I come back after reading the first of Mr. Pope's Ramage novels (Where did he get *that* name?) to say that this guy is another good storyteller. I've said elsewhere that the British nautical hero has probably been done enough, but if you love a sea-story, they are the go to guys, I guess. Mr. Pope does it up pretty well - not quite as good a tale-spinner as Mr. Nelson, nor does he have such an original tale to spin, not quite as roguish as Mr. Lambdin, and certainly not the stylist that Forester was. But all in all, a solid entry in the lists and I will give the second in the series a read soon. It will hold me between Mr. Nelson's and Mr. Reid's next books.
Rating:
Summary: Another Brit sails the hazardy seas!
Review: It was while reading Van Reid's funny historical adventures about the gentlemen's club, the Moosepath League, that I was led, by a communication with that author to James L. Nelson's "Revolution at Sea" saga. Even if Mr. Reid hadn't already made me laugh and shout with surprise at his unlikely heroes' exploits, I would be grateful to him for telling me about Mr. Nelson's writing. From the latest in the "RaS" series I began hunting for some more nautical adventures. The first thing I tried was Dewey Lambdin - not too bad. Now I come back after reading the first of Mr. Pope's Ramage novels (Where did he get *that* name?) to say that this guy is another good storyteller. I've said elsewhere that the British nautical hero has probably been done enough, but if you love a sea-story, they are the go to guys, I guess. Mr. Pope does it up pretty well - not quite as good a tale-spinner as Mr. Nelson, nor does he have such an original tale to spin, not quite as roguish as Mr. Lambdin, and certainly not the stylist that Forester was. But all in all, a solid entry in the lists and I will give the second in the series a read soon. It will hold me between Mr. Nelson's and Mr. Reid's next books.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad little book, but not the greatest
Review: This is the hardest kind of review to write, I find. The first of the Dudley Pope "Ramage" series is not bad as an adventure-at-sea novel, but it is not great either. It is fun, but not amazingly exciting. Pope is knowledgable, but heavy-handed. So the book rates 3 stars. First some background. I have read the Horatio Hornblower & Aubrey/Maturin series, as well as a couple books by Kent, "Two Years Before the Mast", and scattered other bits of nautical lore and adventure. I enjoy the genre as a whole. Thus at a friend's suggestion I picked up "Ramage". The action in this book can get pretty heavy, but often to the point of strained credulity. As this is a historical novel, I don't really expect to see sections that strike me as "What an AMAZING bit of luck!" every 20-30 pages, but that does happen here. Ramage begins his career (at least as far as the book is concerned) by coming back to consciousness after being knocked about by an explosion. Luckily he has not noticable concussion... He is the only officer left on board his ship. Luckily he can find the captain's secret orders... Luckily they directly involve skills he has... And somehow he is able to convince his heavily battered crew that he is NOT abandoning them by leaving the ship in the ship's boats. This is only the opening sequence, so I am not giving much away here. His adventures take a much more believable turn on land and the pace really picks up; unfortunately things drag later during a courtmartial scene. I want to get involved with the adventures and the excitement, but I keep thinking, "How much blind luck can one fellow have?" Another disappointing aspect of the book revolves around the nautical lore. It is always tricky as to how much to include in a given book and how to present it. Patrick O'Brian was the great master of being able to spoon bits of knowledge of sailing vessels to his audience without making it seem like a long lecture. Unfortunately Pope is much more heavy-handed in his approach. When he wants to explain something about the management of ships, he very obviously places a non-naval person in the scene and then proceeds to have Ramage give a mini-lecture. This is not only clunky in execution, it becomes woefully predictable. The only time this didn't happen, Ramage thought all the steps out in his head, sort of like a Shakespearean soliloquy on naval maneuvers. Ramage himself is a rather nice character, with some little quirks, an interesting background, and rather too much luck. Gianna, his lady love, is a standard head strong young woman who comes to love the hero. Jackson, Ramage's American sidekick, is also rather nice, but a little too Johnny-on-the-spot, as if all he is at times is an extension of Ramage's luck. Pope knows the period very well. He knows the sea, the commanders, the action, and the politics. As this was his freshman effort I have every hope that the later books become less heavy-handed. In the end "Ramage" is not a bad book, but it is not a great book of the genre either.
| 
