Book Review Raised by Wolves Vol 1 W a Hoffman

Review by Erastes
(From Frontiers Magazine)
Brethren is the story of John Williams, Viscount of Marsdale (known for well-nigh of the book as Volition), sent past his estranged male parent to manage the family unit'due south saccharide plantation in 1667 Jamaica. On his arrival, he instead joins up with the Brethren of the Coast (a predominantly gay tribe of buccaneers raiding Spanish settlements and ships under the auspices of Jamaica'southward British governor); in detail, he falls in dearest with a mostly straight and intermittently mad buccaneer called Gaston the Ghoul.

Review
Information technology's a big book. About 550 pages. Big in scope and ambition. Slightly too large a paperback to hold comfortably in bed or in the bathroom. That existence said information technology's set in a fascinating era which isn't often written virtually in a fictional and accurate chapters, so I was looking forward to tackling it, although a little daunted by the size.

(Information technology must be said that this was originally function of a trilogy, and now the author has announced that this has expanded and will be a quartet.)

At its core information technology follows the traditions of a typical beloved story – an arranged union which isn't consumated and a long long road in which the two protagonists learn to dear and trust each other. Layered on top of this is a healthy dose of piratey action with some practiced secondary characters and some obvious difficult enquiry.

The author tries a niggling as well hard, and she's guilty of "doing a Dan Dark-brown" from fourth dimension to fourth dimension and info dumping difficult about buccaneers and filibusters and the history behind it all – and mostly that was ok, as I didn't know a lot of it, but I also shook my head at times and said "And I should intendance about this over-richness of facts WHY exactly?" Too much of it and I was pulled abroad from the story itself. It is the same with the interractions between Gaston and Will (of which in that location are legion.) Granted, I acknowledge at that place are slow bits in a sailor's life, merely all these two seem to practise is yak; chapters and chapters of it, and information technology got rather boring at times.

As for the actual daily life of the seaman, it was disappointingly absent for much of the book, replaced by the conversations. Only at rare points did I get the tang of salt in my nostrils and experience the rigging beneath my bare feet. They sailed effectually without the crew doing very much except shag and talk.

In that location is a over-arching plot, though and eventually it kicks in and starts to progress, but it takes too long getting in that location, and I had lost interest, both in the honey thing and the backstory. I didn't like Volition much – he didn't catch my imagination. He was a murderer/mercenary, and although Hoffman attempted to show me he was a "Good Egg" at the first by getting him to look after his bondsmen, and rescuing a sailor who was being abused, he lost any sympathy he gained there by promptly sailing off and leaving the bondsmen to rot in the hands of his overseer without a astern wave and never bothering much with the rescued crewman again.

Equally to the "Wolves" motif: it was overdone – He's a nobleman, he considers himself a wolf, existence on pinnacle of society and he's always explaining virtually the wolves and the sheep (those who take orders.) I understood the concept after half a folio, simply the bespeak was rammed habitation then often I was screaming at Volition not to treat me similar an idiot. The repetitive "hook" at the end of each affiliate discussing "the Gods" besides affected me like a dripping tap later on ten chapters, and I was dreading the last line of each one.

There were a few disruptive or inaccurate details that I noticed. Right in chapter one Will says "I was not a Protestant" and so later he refers to "You Papists" so I'm all confused and thinking "well, what are you, so? Jewish?" No matter what he considered himself to be, he'd be one or the other. Then he celebrates Mass with his family so he must have been a Catholic. But even in the Restoration, I am fairly sure that Catholics weren't celebrating Mass so openly. But feel free to contradict me, I oasis't checked this.

However, it's not a bad read. The inaccuracies didn't make me want to throw it against the wall, and every bit an take chances story it's well researched and not horribly written. Some of the speech is a little too modern and there are some typos, merely that's to be expected in a self-published novel. Where the self-publishing Really lets Hoffman down, yet, is the bloated size of the book itself. She would take done the volume a favour to permit a professional editor loose on it and rip out large sections; all the unnecessary chit-chat and scenes where nada happens. It could have been reduced to 350 pages without losing any of its flavour, and would have been a much better, tighter book for the reduction.

Fans of seafaring tales will honey this – and they practice by all accounts but it wasn't for me. After the bewilderment ending, I don't care enough about the characters to notice out what happens to them adjacent and the emotional involvement in reading a book 2 or iii times the size of the average novel wasn't repaid, as the book, in essence, contained no more actual content than a book of 200 pages.

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Filed under: 17th Century, Reviews, iii stars |

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