Not Quite Scaramouche

Guardians of the Flame #9

by Joel Rosenberg

Several of them, in fact. He's the heir to an empire-but he doesn't want to be. And nobody believes that he could or would walk away, and give the job of ruling the kingdom to someone else.

In this roller coaster of a sequel to Not Exactly the Three Musketeers , it looks like the stage is set for a major shake-up in the kingdom. Jason's help in keeping everything from blowing up are the self-appointed soldiers of the errant Jason, sent by that wily off-worlder Walter Slovotsky to keep Jason in one piece . . . more or less.

There's Kethol, the long and lanky redhead with an easy smile, who's quick with a quip and quicker with a sword; Pirojil, the ugly one, whose looks deceive and whose might and loyalty are worth a kingdom; and the fledgling wizard Erenor, a man who tries to stay two steps ahead of his enemies--as well as one step ahead of his friends. They're all part of the Cullinane retinue, sworn to protect the Cullinane manse and the sometimes-heroic Jason Cullinane and they have their hands full.

Because no one likes a vacuum--or one too many contenders for power, Jason's soldiers are going to have to do some fast adventuring to make it all turn out all right.

Next in Joel Rosenberg's bestselling Guardians of the Flame series, Not Quite Scaramouche continues the adventures of the journeyman soldiers of Castle Cullinane (and their sometimes ill-fated leader) in all their raucous glory.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Classics, Audiobook, Dragons

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Note: This is a different person than the political/thriller author, Joel C. Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg was the author of the bestselling Guardians of the Flame books as well as the D'Shai and Keepers of the Hidden Ways series. He made his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Reviews

[Mary Quite contrary · Rating 2 out of 5]

The build up was too slow, and the ending was not detailed enough for me! It would have been cool to see Leria handle Parliament for Kethol/Forinel. I'd like to have heard about Thomen's reaction. Was Miron going to start a fight? Maybe these questions will be answered in 'Zenda.

[Taddow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was almost a two star book (the ending is the only thing that BARELY saved it from being so). I'm not sure what happened to the Guardians of the Flame series as I've noticed that the later books are getting progressively worse and uninteresting. This series is one of my all-time favorites with its first book, The Sleeping Dragon, being one of my favorite books of all time (I actually own two copies of it because my first copy is coming apart from all the re-reading that its been through).

I suspect (and this is my humble opinion of course) that with the main threat of the slavers greatly diminished by book five and the politics of the main characters involvement in being a part of and running a kingdom, the author didn't really have a firm direction on where to take the story. Surely the focus on the original main "other world" characters contributed highly to the interest of the series (seeing how they looked at this new world with the outside knowledge of another that we, the reader, were very familiar with) and as these characters stepped back into more supporting roles and Karl's three henchmen (Pirojil, Durine and Kethol) became the main characters the story starting falling flat. I got the sense that the author just cranked out these little plots (the magical breach in Faerie, the tamed dragon threat by a contender for the kingdom's crown, and in this book the missing heir) that were great ideas that should have been more involved story length or book number-wise than just one-shot novel stories that took far too long to develop and far too quickly to resolve.

For example, the story in this particular book took 3\4 of the book to finally come to light- the locating of the missing Baron Forinel. Prior to this the book was stagnant with the political bickering, a failed assassination attempt on Jason and no real resolution of these things (which I can only hope will be addressed in the next and last book in the series). When the search and location for Forinel is finally started and ended it takes less than a hundred pages (and represented a 3rd of the book page count) and that I believe was a failure as that quest in itself could have been a great adventure and instead became a lost opportunity.

[James]

Several of them, in fact. He's the heir to an empire-but he doesn't want to be. And nobody believes that he could or would walk away, and give the job of ruling the kingdom to someone else. In this roller coaster of a sequel to Not Exactly the Three Musketeers, it looks like the stage is set for a major shake-up in the kingdom. Jason's help in keeping everything from blowing up are the self-appointed soldiers of the errant Jason, sent by that wily off-worlder Walter Slovotsky to keep Jason in one piece . . . more or less.There's Kethol, the long and lanky redhead with an easy smile, who's quick with a quip and quicker with a sword; Pirojil, the ugly one, whose looks deceive and whose might and loyalty are worth a kingdom; and the fledgling wizard Erenor, a man who tries to stay two steps ahead of his enemies--as well as one step ahead of his friends. They're all part of the Cullinane retinue, sworn to protect the Cullinane manse and the sometimes-heroic Jason Cullinane and they have their hands full. Because no one likes a vacuum--or one too many contenders for power, Jason's soldiers are going to have to do some fast adventuring to make it all turn out all right. Next in Joel Rosenberg's bestselling Guardians of the Flame series, Not Quite Scaramouche continues the adventures of the journeyman soldiers of Castle Cullinane (and their sometimes ill-fated leader) in all their raucous glory.

[Acidrazzor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this 5 stars because I like the guardians of the flame series so much but this is another book that is fumbling around with no direction. Once Carl was killed the wheels started coming off of this story and this is a 3.5-4 star book. Either Carl should have been miraculously saved, they should have gone on a mission to have Arta Myrdhyn bring Carl back or we should have immediately started on his quest. An audio format would make this so much easier to read.

[L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doesn't quite have the soul of the original series, but serviceable...

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another entry in the Guardians of the Flame series, it's difficult to distinguish at times which is which as they tend to run together.

[Fatbaldguy60 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the first trilogy.