Friday, August 27, 2010

Book Review: "The Reavers"

Maybe The Reavers (Knopf, 2008) just isn't the best introductory book to George MacDonald Fraser's works. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood. Or maybe I just really didn't know what to make of this very strange book. In any event, I struggled to finish it, and don't think I'll try to give it another go. It seems to be (from what he says at the beginning) a sort of light entertainment for Fraser in the writing, and that's certainly how it came across to me.

The book is an odd mish-mash; set in the late Elizabethan period on the English/Scottish border, the characters speak in modern dialects and are constantly spouting anachronisms and modern pop culture references, which was just totally off-putting for some reason (on the other hand, I feel like if it had been done with a little more care, it might have been completely hilarious).

Not a book I connected with, aside from the occasional chuckle or eye-roll.