[amtap amazon:asin=0060934611] As a historical fiction writer myself, I am quite a sucker for just about any Civil War era fiction book I see. It was a suprise that I was given the entire Bernard Cornwell “Starbuck Chronicles” series as a gift.
At my very first opportunity I peeled open the cover to book 1; “Rebel”, and poured myself into it. It didn’t take long for Mr. Cromwell to transport me back in time to a favorite setting. Soon after however, I found myself scratching my head and wondering if indeed I was reading a Civil War era novel.
The settings, descriptions and characters were real, believable, and I certainly felt for them, but…it seems that the well respected Cornwell broke one of my personal taboos for this genre.
The language was much too modern and while some of the visualizations seemed plausible, I began to feel personally dirty as I muddled further into the story. I by no means despise romance, but the female character seemed like she was begging to be molested and maligned.
Perhaps I have read too many Victorian characters and as a result am too sensitive to a “lower” class of society that certainly existed at the time. I was simply not prepared for the lude scenes and explicit language that appeared page after page.
The unfolding drama of the men in the story was indeed compelling and the descriptive machine that is Cornwell captivated my attention. But every time I was drawn more into the story, I was interrupted by lurid, mind-numbing scenes.
To be gentle to a great fiction writer such as Mr. Cornwell, I put the book down next to the rest of the series and have not gone back to it in several months. I do intend to read the series at some point in the future due to my interest in the overall plot.
