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| Company of Spears (Matthew Hervey 08) | 
 enlarge | Author: Allan Mallinson
Publisher: Bantam Books
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.38
You Save: £7.61 (95%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 84102
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0553816756
EAN: 9780553816754
ASIN: 0553816756
Publication Date: March 1, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: We ship daily from the United Kingdom
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Incredibly detailed but incredibly boring January 11, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Mr Mallinson has done tremendous research on the British cavalry in the 1820s and his knowledge is wonderful.Sadly he has put far too much of his information into this book so instead of it being exciting -"my horse" = my reading got stuck in the quagmire of incredible detail !
"My horse" almost fell at Becher's Brook :our hero's incredibly detailed and boring conversation about horse diseases with Sam Kirwan,the vet on pages 116-123.Sadly "my horse" never left on the ship out of England to the excitement of the Zulu war. I just gave up reading !
We have to read a 100 pages before a sabre is rattled - a skirmish at Waltham Abbey gunpowder factory . It could have been more exciting.
In fact the editor should have chopped out much of the story in England !
Bernard Cornwell combines great historical detail with excitement and action. I hope that Mr Mallinson will do the same very soon !
 Tiresome. August 31, 2006
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
I regret that this series went sharply downhill after The Sabres' Edge and has continued its' sad descent unchecked. I struggled to keep awake whilst reading Rumours of War and declined to buy An Act of Courage as I thought the whole plot irksome.
My feeling is that Company of Spears is worse than Rumours of War. It was like ploughing through a haystack trying to find excitement in this story. I agree with the reviewer who described the battle at the end as 'pathetic'. It is and it really does feel like an add-on. It is some achievement to make the colonial frontier tedious!
However, please bear in mind that I prefer the likes of Anthony Conway and Bernard Cornwell and in that respect, the earlier novels of Allan Mallinson are a world apart from this volume. That's why I find the decline so disapointing.
What Direction? May 23, 2006
12 out of 22 found this review helpful
Ok I have read all of the other books in the series and like what Mallinson does with Hervey(Never sure what rank is is when)and will continue to but but after this one I do not know why. To begin with the author presumes that the reader fully understands how the 6th Light Cavalry a Kings unit suddely can be reassigned to the Cape as a part of the Company? This is done without the new commanding officer. Just somewhat confusing but lately Mallinson seems to enjoy that. Common error for all authors who find themselves in a serious rather than a single book is that they get predictable and Mallinson is certainly getting that way. One suggestion for any period piece is to at the end of the book explain the terms and organozation that the author inderstand but those of us who were in other armies do not.
 Hervey deserves better April 17, 2006
19 out of 22 found this review helpful
Start at the end. Not literally but the "cliffhanger" end of this book is contrived and pathetic and appears to be an afterthought. Those of us who have followed and will continue, I presume, to follow the rather flat adventures of Capt/Major/half Colonel or whatever he is Hervey also deserve better. The whole genre so far would make one rattling good book perhaps two. Mallinson gives the impression that he "knows his stuff", more so than O'Brian with his Georgette Heyer overkill of the period but he lacks O'Brian's unparalleled skill in putting what he does have across in a way that really engages the reader. Brig. Mallinson must get sick and tired of the comparison with O'B but he has just as much going for him, a cast of strong interesting characters and good plotlines, he has extracted his hero from the struggle against Napoleon and the mire of Waterloo with the added danger of continually tripping over Sharpe, Gerard etc., given him a relativly unexplored series of events to operate in, why then do he and his not come fully alive?
Let us hope that his daughter turns out to be another Jo March, Kezia another Moll Flanders (in bed of course), Peto another (sorry)Jack Aubrey. Let's have a bit more rollick more swash to our buckle and what is more a bit more humour which when it comes is good but rare.
Do not be put off by the preceding the series is very good and the present book is acceptable and very interesting but won't stand alone, if you haven't met Hervey read the previous novels and catch up.
Finally that jacket photo, they changed P.O'B's to something less grim, smile Allan smile! Better still grin and reserve your earnestness for your cavalry histories.
p.s. I shall like other reviewers continue to follow the adventures of this man I only wish he would trip over a bucket of whitewash occasionally. Didn't you ever miss a stirrup Brig?
Oh Dear April 10, 2006
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
If you are perusing these reviews, the chances are that you have like me and many others already read the preceding books concerned with our eponymous hero.Indeed you may have already decided to buy the book on the basis of Herveys previous rip roaring adventures and are merely reading this as a mini preview; It is with regret that I inform you of the demise in my eyes of this particular literary Hero. The Progression of his career and fortunes have kept me interested through the entire series until the previous book which i felt began to taper away from the pacey writing style I had come to enjoy and expect; this book continues with the same sad trend. There is indeed little to commend it (other than the authors usual meticulous and sometimes pedantic attention to history and historical military detail) except perhaps a rather uninteresting incident towards the 'cliffhanger'end. I suggest that if like me you found the previous book also a little stodgy ,you may find this book even harder to digest.
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