Fenwick Travers and the Years of Empire: An Entertainment

There are a great many similarities between Fenwick Travers and George MacDonald Fraser's, Harry Flashman. The back cover of the Fenwick Travers and the Years of Empire certainly reads like a description of Flashman: "...a cheating, drunken, sycophantic libertine, a charlatan, an adulterous, cowardly, gluttonous blackguard, a bounder, a dastardly, caddish, philandering mountebank, a poltroon, a besotted, lecherous, scheming toady, a roué, a sybaritic rapscallion, a rakehell, and an All-American Hero!" Except for that last part about All-American Hero, it sounds like there could even be a family connection between Saunders' character and MacDonald's... Like Flashman, Fenwick's stories are supposedly based on his memoirs. The protagonist is a soldier, a good horseman, and very successful with the Ladies. Fenwick is a bastard (literally). He describes his father as an ex-soldier (an officer) who met and seduced his mother in 1874. We know that Flashy was in the United States in 1875. Is it possible that he was there a year earlier? In any event, this story recounts Travers' adventures in the American army. Along the way, he meets great figures in American history. In this, the first book of a trilogy, Saunders writes of "Fenny's" formative years from growing up in southern Illinois and his subsequent service in the American Southwest and the Indian Wars. By luck and/or blackmail he ends up with an appointment as a cadet to West Point, which leads him beyond, to a leading role in the Spanish-American War in Cuba. Naturally, there is a pretty New York socialite and another pretty senorita involved. There are a few differences between this book and those from GMF's Flashman series worth noting. First, and most importantly, Saunders isn't quite the writer Fraser was. Readers looking for the quality battle scenes that Frasier's books are known for will be very disappointed. Additionally, Saunders does not include the copious historic footnotes that George MacDonald Fraser liberally included in the Flashman novels. However, Saunders' books are all around good fun (I read this one while on a trans-continental flight) and I recommend them for fans of Flashman (who can accept the differences and enjoy the similarities) as well as those interested in America's "imperial history" -- just make sure to take the "history lessons" with a grain of salt.

I found this first of three volumes of the purported memoirs of Fenwick Travers to be vastly entertaining. There are enough references to historical figures and events to add an aura of authenticity to these "memoirs." This isn't meant to be great literature, but it does include enough characterization to make Fenwick a real, albeit not always admirable, presence. Events move swiftly in this book, with plenty of challenges for our "hero" to keep things interesting. The book delivers exactly what it promises, which is to be an entertaining read.

I have read several of the Flashman books, and I enjoyed them. I find them slow reading, however. The Fenwick Travers books are fun, enjoyable and a fast read. I didn't notice what the other reviewer mentioned about using the "He said" crutch. If I ever go back to re-read these books, I hope I have forgotten what he said...

Raymond Saunders' character, Fenwick Travers, leads us through his formative years from growing up in southern Illinois to service in the Southwest to West Point and beyond. Travers is arrogant, a lier, and a scoundrel, but we enjoy his adventures never-the-less! I only hope that Saunders writes more volumes.

As a military officer and history buff I am a long time fan of the Flashman series. The similarity in cover design to MacDonald Fraser's books caught my eye. Fearing a Flashman "rip-off" I purchased this book with some trepidation. While not up to the same humorous level as MacDonald Fraser, Saunders acquits himself nicely with a very enjoyable yarn. I purchased the other two books in the series and look forward to them too. MacDonald Fraser takes a lot of time between titles, Fenwick Travers misadventures fill the bill until Flashy appears again.