Operation Read All the Sutcliff: Frontier Wolf

[sineala]

I love this book. You know how sometimes you think you will never find a book that is new to you that you love as much as the books you loved when you were, oh, fourteen, because now you are a cynical bitter adult and you just cannot love another book as much as everything you loved that has all that nostalgia bound into it

Comments

[halotolerant]

This was the first book I got hold of after 'The Eagle of the Ninth' when I was wondering if there were other Good Sutcliffs and boy howdy, I was pleased as you can imagine *g* I too worried that it would be Epically Bleak (have you read 'Outcast' yet? that will break you a little but it's OK, maybe, anyway it will make you scared of the marshland) and was racing through the end in that 'if everyone will die I want to get it done' way, and the last paragraphs made me so very, very happy *g* (they remind me of Hornblower and Bush at the end of Lieutenant Hornblower in the understated devotion thing). And then I wanted all of the Alexios/Hilarion but back then there were literally two Sutcliff fics on the whole internet (and very good they were, but they were Eagle) so I'm so glad people (you!) are writing them now.

Just looked up the prices on amazon - gosh! They are expensive. So glad I had a Sutcliff-buying fest back when they were a penny a go. But they should be in print, that's just silly that they aren't.

[sineala]

I have not read Outcast yet, but it's here on my Kindle, waiting. But yeah, I'm with you on the "oh my God, she's going to kill everyone in this book" dread, because that was pretty much my experience. Reading it multiple times has made it better, if only because I already know the death toll. And, hey, slowly fandom is producing Frontier Wolf fic! Some of it is even written by people who aren't me!

(Also I never got around to reading/watching Hornblower... maybe I should.)

I have no idea why this one especially is so expensive. It makes it difficult to recommend to people! I am hoping some of the out of print ones will still be cheap after I finish the ones I've got!

[carmarthen]

I have no idea why this one especially is so expensive. It makes it difficult to recommend to people! I am hoping some of the out of print ones will still be cheap after I finish the ones I've got!

That happened in the last couple years, too, because I think I got my copy fairly recently, and it was still in print then. I'm hoping that whatever happened with the shift in ebook publishers, they'll reissue all the ones that got pulled. (And Blood Feud and The Shining Company, ebooks now plz.)

[halotolerant]

Reading and watching Hornblower are very very different experiences. I personally recommend watching it (incredibly pretty Hornblower is whumped for three seasons, repeat as needed, Epic Friendship, monumentally slashy moments [if I wanted to show someone what hurt/comfort was, I'd use this show to demonstrate] Samuel West is hot etc)

I don't know how much you know of what happens - I don't want to spoil - but let's just say when they adapted the books for TV they made some pretty amazingly pro-fannish-catnip decisions *g*

[sineala]

All I know about it is it's got the guy who played Apollo on new BSG, and I might even be wrong about that.

[halotolerant]

No, you're right! And he is VERY IMPORTANT to the world of Hornblower *g*

I have tried to find a YT vid to pimp at you but it is literally impossible to get one without massive spoilers for the many plot twists, so I'll just make encouraging gestures *gesture*

In a nutshell, in the books Hornblower is Perfect, and has a best friend called Bush who goes 'Wow you are perfect' but doesn't meet Hornblower until Hornblower's a lieutenant. So the TV writers thought Hornblower needed a best friend from when he was a Midshipman, so invented Archie Kennedy who is beautiful, flirty, epileptic, devoted to Hornblower and being buggered by another Midshipman and that's just episode one... He and Hornblower have EPIC EPIC feels for each other (heated discussions, crying, risking of lives, carrying each other unconscious through the rain, forced-to-share-a-cell - you name it). Then Bush has to canonically turn up and he does and there's even moar flirting and nakedness and... well. WATCH IT

[sineala]

Okay, okay. It's going on the great big list of things to watch and/or read! :)