Governor Ramage R.N.

by Dudley Pope

Book Overview

Lieutenant Lord Ramage, in command of the Triton brig, is escorting a convoy from Barbados to Jamaica, normally a routine and tedious chore. But this time Ramage has to be especially vigilant to guard... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0006166520
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Fontana
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Another fantastic read

I know these are older novels and I'm just catching up, but Dudley Pope was a great writer and I am really enjoying his books. On the plus side I don't have to wait for new editions.

Heavy weather sailing sets high water mark in series

Lash yourself to your reading chair and let Lieutenant Lord Ramage steer you through the most intense hurricane you'll experience in scores of Atlantic crossings. The description is so long and detailed that it's reminiscent of Patrick O'Brian (Aubrey/Maturin). The book's ostensibly a mystery. And it's a taut one involving the obvious Caribbean bounty - pirate treasure. There's more characterization of Ramage in this book than in some of the previous ones, but it's more C.S. Forester (Hornblower) than O'Brian, despite the magnitude of Ramage's logistical and management nightmares. If you like wilful British sailors solving maritime mysteries, you could do worse than David Donachie's Privateersman series.

Reminiscent of Dirk Pitt's best

The fourth Ramage carries on with the tradition of highly entertaining naval action . The dialogue, descriptions of scenes and actions, and character behavior are first rate. The hurricane scene is what reminds me of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt. I've not read a better account of existence in the middle of a hurricane, rivals the best Pitt action scenes.

Fast-paced seafaring

This 4th volume picks up the events in the eastern Caribbean following Lt. Ramages's FREEBOOTER adventure. You really should read this series in order, if only because at first opportunity some character will recapitulate the previous volume's heroics. In this fast-paced story Ramage endures 1797 convoy duty, suffers from his family's nemesis again (RAMAGE #1), sees a new heartthrob, spots a skulking privateer, is terrorized by a hurricane, hunts treasure, obtains a prize of no interest, is subject to another court martial, and pursues an ugly vendetta. This time out Pope teaches us about convoying, the muster book, hurricane colors and frights, estimating distances at sea, ship weights, and the then value of gold. Pope writes pretty well, with great pace, plot, and crystal clear action. The structure of the stories is dramatic, moving from small to large troubles with pauses for strained humor. Scenes are dead on, but the overall plot is so improbable you don't want to think on it. His characters are interesting but so predictably one-sided you soon learn to recognize the clues who will turn out good or bad. An authorial tic is interrupting long climactic action sequences with dry disquisitions on naval minutiae that could easily have been put in the slow parts instead. Or perhaps Pope is trying to show the thought processes of a somewhat naive leader who is at his best only in angry action (vide his model, Hornblower). Pope doesn't give away upcoming events in his chapter headings (none), unlike Kent's stories of Bolitho. The language is unoffensive; the blood and guts of battle is simply not strongly felt, and we never learn whether Ramages's new infatuations actually betray his first love. The characters' emotions are restrained, like a contemporary painting by Ingres or David rather than the horror of Goya or Blake. The book design by Paperwork is a fine job. (368 pp only.) Hardback copies of Ramage are way up in value.

Very entertaining, except for cheesy romance

This book is very similar to the first three books in this series: some good action, so-so dialogue and characterization, and a couple of brief (fortunately) romantic scenes that are so bad that it is hard to believe that Pope's editor and friends did not give him the advice to either change these scenes dramatically or ditch them altogether. Maybe they did and he just didn't listen. Anyway, there is some good action in this book, although there is less battle action than in the previous books. There is a truly great scene where Ramage and his crew are fighting to keep their ship afloat during a hurricane. The hurricane scene is one that has been done many times in this genre, but Pope does it very well in this book. Pope spent a lot of time sailing around the Caribbean and he obviously accumulated a lot of knowledge of the area; he does a great job describing the islands. Ramage makes some clever legal and political moves to try and defend himself from the attacks of his enemy, the evil Admiral Goddard. At times this book almost reminded me of an episode of JAG (which isn't really a bad thing). In summary, this is a pretty entertaining read, but I hope that in future installments Pope stops having Ramage fall in love with a new girl in every book only to completely forget about her and fall in love with a new girl in the next book. (I know Ramage is supposed to have a bad memory but give us a break!)