Kent Family Chronicles Part Three

This book is the first one to pass off the narrative flow to another generation, and I find Philip's son Abraham (named after his maternal grandfather Abraham Ware from the first two books) to be a generally likable and fitting successor to Philip Kent. Philip on the other hand has soured quite a bit over the years and I no longer find him a likable individual, his beliefs and actions are no longer consistent with his views during the first two books.

This book also begins to examine a slightly different spirit that resides in the younger generation during the westward expansion than existed during the time of the Revolutionary period. Many of the Revolutionary war veterans have lost the revolutionary spirit and have instead become gentrified and very conservative in spirit.

This book has some surprising twists and turns. I began this blog when I was approximately one third of the way through the book, and soon after it changes protagonists to Gilbert Kent, Abraham's half-brother. Gilbert is an even more likable character than Abraham, who suffers a character reversal after the murder of his wife and becomes a disreputable low life. Soon after the viewpoint shifts again to Abraham's son Jared.

In this series John Jakes seems to revel in throwing us curve balls, there are many episodes in this book wherein distasteful things happen to the main characters, which is realistic and interesting, but it's beginning to make me think the Kent family must be under some kind of a curse because their luck collectively isn't very good so far...Hopefully things will start looking up for them in subsequent books...

I have noticed that when a generational switch is about to occur, John Jakes has a penchant for pretty much dropping all the sub-plots surrounding the old generation even if they are not quite resolved. The character from the preceding generation, even if still alive, becomes a non-entity. When John Jakes switched from Philip Kent to his sons Gilbert and Abraham, the character of Philip had been changed completely, the change in his personality being barely explained by a throw off line that as people age their politics tend to become more conservative. But one of the things that bothered me is that by the second book nothing is mentioned any longer about the James, Duke of Amberly, Philip's father. I would have liked to know at least when he died, there had been some letters exchanged between Philip and James, so in the event of his death there should have been some effect on Philip and the family in the Americas.

Jared Adam Kent is by far my favorite character in the series so far. He's tough, resourceful.

Kent Family Chronicles Part Two

After a brief hiatus I am back into the Kent Family Chronicles or Bicentennial series by John Jakes and I have been enjoying it immensely. This period of history never interested me much the way it was presented in my school textbooks, and I never started to develop any interest in the events or people involved in the Revolutionary period of American history, but this started to change once I became interested in Genealogy. Now reading these books I am gaining a new perspective and interest in the events and people involved, and it's beginning to tie some loose ends together in my head (English history up to the Restoration has always been of interest to me, and thanks to C.S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cornwell I became interested in the Napoleonic Period as well). All in all this series has been a great romp so far with some intriguing twists and turns. I have enjoyed following the life of Phillipe Charboneau aka Philip Kent. John Jakes seems to have a willingness to let some of his main characters suffer through things that other mainstream writers wouldn't which heightens the level of interest and suspense for me. There are times I find myself sneaking a peak a couple of chapters ahead because I suspect a character I like is going to suffer through something horrible, and many times my fears have been justified, but the narrative still pulls me along. It definitely adds more realism to the tale.

Weirdness in Florida

I don't know what they put in the water in Florida. This is one of the most off the wall books I have ever read, at least since the last Hoke Mosley novel I read by Charles Willeford. Great location, interesting (and very unusual) characters, weird stuff always coming out the blue. This one was a sheer wild romp from beginning to end and almost every character becomes endearing in their own special, quirky way by the end of the book, even the bad guys.

A Brief Hiatus from from Epic Historical Novels

If this book is a good indication of the general quality of these Hard Case paperbacks I'm going to have to get them all for sure. The packaging is awesome, trying to emulate those old Fawcett Gold Medal paperbacks and doing a wonderful job of it. The cover on this one (by Art Suydam! no less) is superb. The guy with the knife looming in the doorway has some very Frazetta-esque styling to him, but I just love this painting in general. I started this book yesterday and I finished it this morning just reading it in my breaks between other work and I enjoyed every minute of it. I think I have only read two books by Mickey Spillane before, one was called Day of the Gun or some similar title, not a Mike Hammer novel if I remember correctly. I remember enjoying the book, but when I was younger I only read crime, mystery and thriller novels sparsely, basically only reading Science Fiction and Fantasy type novels. Recently I have been discovering that most of my favorite stylists are from the mystery field currently - Guys like Charles Willeford, Carl Hiassen, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, etc.

This is one of Mickey Spillane's last novels ( he was working on four at the time of his death) with the last couple of chapters finished by Max Alan Collins. I like the writing in this book, it's spare and to the point with some nice turns of phrase. You get the feeling sometimes in this book that the modern world has passed the characters (and Mickey) by. The plot is the weakest part of this book, the McGuffin being some nuclear material that is handled in ways not even the dumbest criminal would attempt, but for me plot is become more or less incidental to my enjoyment because really there are only so many ways things can play out. I'm more interested in my enjoyment of the authorial voice and the resonance of the characters and I found a lot to like here. I'm going to be reading some more Mickey Spillane novels in the coming weeks, but right now I decided to segue into a Carl Hiassen novel and then I'm going to circle back to the long Historical series that I recently started to read (John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles and Wilbur Smith's Courtney Cycle of novels).

Randomness

Currently reading Monsoon by Wilbur Smith and I am enjoying it immensely as it combines many of my favorite things in one novel, i.e. Nautical fiction, hints of Africa, the Spice Trade, and it's close enough to my favorite period in history (the Elizabethan Age) that I feel at home. It's a huge book but it's so enjoyable to read.

I just finished reading John Jakes' first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, The Bastard, another excellent historical novel. I'll probably read the second Kent Family Chronicles volume The Rebel when I'm done Monsoon. At this point I can't even conceive of writing a novel like these but maybe someday. It would be fun just to have an excuse to immerse myself in the research. Right now I just want to get some headway on a stripped down 200 page novel that plays to my current writing strengths and at least get one completed novel under my belt before I try something more ambitious...