A well-wrought adventure tale set on a wild frontier is about the best thing in the world as far as I’m concerned. I’ve found me some new ones — new to me that is — and they’re mighty fine.
Somehow, the works of Anthony Conway had escaped my notice until just a few days ago. Now, thanks to the magic of the Kindle, I’m totally immersed in the adventures of John Caspasian in various hinterlands of the British Empire in the wake of the Great War. The first “Caspasian Novel” — The Viceroy’s Captain — is set on the North West Frontier in the 1920s. The set-up is pure pulp, delivered with strong writing and verisimilitude that comes out of the author’s own service experience.
The Eye of the Storm is a legendary diamond, said to bring its owner control of India. Now, bandits have stolen it on its way across the border from the ruins of the Czar’s empire, with a party of Bolshevik fanatics in hot pursuit. The only way to prevent a war is to get the diamond back and Sir Oswald Masterman of the Imperial intelligence service knows the right man to do it — Captain John Caspasian of the Twelfth Gurkhas. Rebellious, insubordinate and astonishingly effective, Caspasian is glad to be off desk duty and back in action. With his hand-picked assistant, Gurkha servant Ganga Limbu, and a hand-picked arsenal of the latest automatic weapons, Caspasian sets off for Beshandu disguised as the escort for a routine tribal council.
If that sounds to my REH-aficionado friends like a slightly updated Francis X. Gordon adventure, you’d be very close to the mark.
Sure, the rebellious-but-highly-effective hero is a cliché, but Conway is a good enough writer to make Caspasian come alive. And, to be honest, that’s the kind of character I want to read about anyway, cliché or no. ALL my heroes are that kinda feller — hell, most of my friends, too, for that matter — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Gurkha connection is Conway’s own:
After training at Sandhurst (Conway) was commissioned into 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles, remaining with the Brigade of Gurkhas for twelve years. He commanded his battalion’s Mortar Platoon in the 1982 Falkands War and thereafter served in other posts both within the Brigade of Gurkhas and throughout the wider reaches of the British Army.
This is excellent adventure writing. Conway throws you into the midst of action immediately, hitting a gallop right out of the gate, then slows down to layer in character and atmosphere. He’s very strong with setting, which is one of the pleasures of good adventure fiction; it should take you to some exotic land and immerse you there.
Writing good adventure fiction is far more difficult than most folks credit. It’s got to have action, but if it’s all-action-all-the-time, it’s insubstantial. A hero is inevitably an archetype — and rendering an archetype in flesh-and-blood is a neat trick. And creating a setting that feels like a fully-realized world and not a movie set is another. Conway is up to the task. Fiction rarely grabs and holds me anymore; The Viceroy’s Captain has accomplished that increasingly difficult task. It helps that Conway is working in an era that has become my historical home — an early 20th Century where there are still wild frontiers. There are so many fantastic tales to be told from that era, and so many tensions between the modern and the traditional to employ to dramatic effect.
I’ve read the free samples of the rest of the books, and it looks like the series really holds up. I’m downloading them all. And Conway has started a new series set during the Great War. I read the sample of that one, too, and I have to tell you that anyone who can hold my attention with a fresh and immediate description of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand — which I have explored at some depth — is doing a damn good job.
I’m looking forward to following John Caspasian’s career from India to Egypt to China to British Guyana. I reckon some of you will enjoy it, too.
Paul McNamee says
Great tip. Thanks!
JimC says
You will dig. Promise.
Paul McNamee says
Wow. Check out the synopsis on this one, too. Think – James Bond in 1914 Sarajevo.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Hand-Jaeger-Book-ebook/dp/B00BEZUBSQ
JimC says
Yeah, I actually pictured Daniel Craig as Jaeger. I’ll dive into that one right quick.
Matthew says
Interestingly, Jaeger is a German last name. Of course, there were people of German descent in Britain: i.e. Tolkien. Okay, because of the Saxon invasions most of Britain is probably of German descent, but you know what i mean.
JimC says
I think the deal is that he’s got a German father and an English mother. And of course Jaeger is “hunter,” which ain’t no accident.
Paul McNamee says
Like Bond’s Scot father and Swiss mother. 🙂
deuce says
Like all the Germans in the British royal family. 😉 The ascent of the Hanovers to the throne opened things up for German immigrants to England (just as the Welsh poured into London with the Tudors). Later, you had the British alliance with Prussia against Napoleon. It’s believed JRRT’s German ancestor was part of that immigration in some fashion.
JimC says
I believe some of my English ancestry is originally German. I’m mostly German on both sides, actually. Just enough Irish to cause trouble.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Damn, Jim, that’s my ancestry, too: 1/4 Swabian (known), 1/4 Saxon (probable base on surname), 1/4 Prussian (probable based on Milaschewski ancestors), 3/16 Irish! (The other 1/16 the Queen’s English.) We know how to rumble.
JimC says
Right?
Paul McNamee says
Speaking of adventure, I was tempted by this B&N hardcover offering. It had an intriguing table-of-contents. (much more content than what is listed on the page, quite a few short stories) Public domain classics, of course, but nice to have them all together.
Too bad, being a B&N book, it can’t be had on Kindle.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-solomons-mines-and-other-adventure-classics-various/1122822020?ean=9781435162891
JimC says
That’s a great collection at a nice price. Deserves to be on my shelf….
Matthew says
I saw that at B&N a week ago. I thought about buying it, but I didn’t. I went there to buy a book I’d lost. Of course, on the ride home I remember where I put the book I’d thought I lost.
JimC says
Hah!
Keith West says
Dagnabit, Jim (and Paul)! I’ve got so much on my plate at the moment, I can barely get any reading done as it is, and here you both go enticing me and enabling my addiction with great looking titles.
I’m gonna have to put them on the list.
JimC says
We know you are powerless to resist, Keith West…
Keith West says
That is unfortunately true.
Paul McNamee says
We happy few. We band of enabling, page-turning masochists.
Keith West says
While I was buying the first volumes of Conway’s two series, I picked up this from my ALSO BOUGHT list:
https://www.amazon.com/East-Indiaman-Percival-Merewether-Book-ebook/dp/B00W3RTQQM/ref=pd_typ_k_sp_1_4/155-5409497-6002142?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=09YBY0X7VA9EAQFHBECB
So back atcha, guys. 🙂
Matthew says
The rebellious but effective soldier is not without real world comparison. Richard Marchinko who founded SEAL Team Six was a maverick to the point of sociopathy. I remember reading somewhere that he used to harangue his squad during breathing with profanity with a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of whiskey.
JimC says
I know a guy who served with Marcinko and a friend of mine worked on some writing projects with him. He is, it seems, a pirate at heart.
Matthew says
He is, it seems, a pirate at heart.—
That seems fitting for a SEAL.
Breaker Morant says
Another set of books to add to the stack.
Been waiting for a chance to mention John Masters-He was on the Northwest Frontier (pre WW2) and wrote “Bugles and a Tiger” on that time and served with the Chindits and wrote “The Road Past Mandalay.” I have read them both.
He also wrote several novels on India that I have not gotten to yet. Just looked into some of them and I think “Coromandel” may jump high on the list based on the Amazon synopsis.
>>>”Coromandel! By John Masters. Its hero, Jason Savage, was a boy in Wiltshire when he first saw that name on a bloodstained map of India he bought from Old Voy, the poacher, in 1627.”
He had me at “Bloodstained Maps.”
My favorite part of “Bugles and a Tiger” was a stark reminder that the book was written prior to the Politically Correct era.
>>>Lawrence noted the tendency of the Arabs to homosexuality. It was the same among the Pathans, “A woman for business, a boy for pleasure, a goat for choice.”<<<<
Another time he was discussing the young English ladies at Simla(?) and noted that they called one of them 'The Promiscuous Haystack."
JimC says
Masters is definitely someone I need to read. I think I have Bugles and a Tiger somewhere.
“You had me at bloodstained maps” is wonderful.
Black Tyrone says
Yes I am sure you do. Also in the man cave is The Ravi Lancers by Masters. Right next to an ancient copy ,no really an ancient copy of Under two Flags by Ouida. Chasseurs D’Afrique adventure. Search out and mine those old now almost extinct book stores. Best
Rick Schwertfeger says
Breaker Morant: I just finished “Bugles and a Tiger” tonight: June 24, 2018. A terrific book! I kept telling my wife, “This guy could write!” She threatened to make me pay $1 if I said it again. I already have “The Road to Mandalay” coming from Amazon.
deuce says
This sounds rockin’! “Caspasian”? Does the man have Armenian roots? Or is this a case of Conway giving his protagonist a cool-sounding name? It’s fine either way. Certainly no worse than an obvious Austrian national like Schwarzenegger being given top US clearance in every other movie.
BTW, that movie about the Armenian genocide looks like it’ll be good.
JimC says
Cool name, I think.
Black Tyrone says
Talbot Mundy any one? Do you remember King of the Khyber Rifles? Of course you do. My Bobs Merrill Company edition 1920 sits on the shelf.
Best Black Tyrone
JimC says
Oh, yes — the “King” of North West Frontier adventure.
deuce says
Mundy’s novel is good, but SM Stirling’s homage to it, THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, is far better, in my opinion. My hopes were set high before reading KotKR and they were let down a bit. King is supposed to be feared throughout the Frontier, but hardly fires a shot or swings a fist in anger.
I just reread Mundy’s OM, THE SECRET OF AHBOR VALLEY and have come to the conclusion that I like Mundy’s books set in India and thereabouts primarily for the dialogue and insights into the characters of the native peoples. Action is not a hallmark of many of those novels. For that, I’ll read his “Tros” books.
Black Tyrone says
Actually deuce, I have a copy of Told in the East by Mundy in my lap presently 1920 Bobs Merril Pub. I agree with you in most part. What do you think of Hookum Hai? Best Back Tyrone.
Hillbilly Nick says
This is exactly why I have Kindle Unlimited! Cheaper than buying every cool book I come across! Lately though I’ve been on a real Raymond Chandler kick. If you rogues haven’t read him he is right up our alley, or mountain as it were! Reminds me of Lamour. The fact that he and his brother Norm were snipers and published a great series on the history of sniping doesn’t hurt his credibility or knowledge about riflemen!
JimC says
You mean Roy Chandler, right? Author of The Black Rifle and a raft of other frontier tales? I’m thinking I need to jump in now that they’re available in affordable Kindle editions.
Hillbilly Nick says
Yep, sorry for the misprint! I find his work addicting, probably because of his personal knowledge of fieldcraft. Proper historical references play a part as well. If you have Kindle Unlimited most of his body of work is available to borrow.
JimC says
I’m gonna jump in. Any particular volume you’d recommend?
Hillbilly Nick says
I started with Arrowmaker, that turns out to be the best place to start. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while!
Black Tyrone says
Hillbilly Nick Thanks for the smile this am on the “blind hog” line.