What do You think about Rebel (2001)?
This is the first Cornwell book I have read. I am told I should start with the Sharpe series but I fell into this one so there you have it. I was immediately drawn in by the story. Nate Starbuck (I thought about coffee constantly during this book) is a yankee who hates his crazy, abolitionist preacher father. He steals money and flees to Virginia with his floozy girlfriend who immediately takes the money and leaves Nate. As it happens, Nate lands in Richmond just after the fall of Ft Sumter (For those of you non US types, this is more or less the opening battle of the US Civil War) To say the least, this is not the greatest time to be a Bostonian in Virginia. Nate is saved from a date with some hot tar by respected landowner Washington Faulconer, the father of his college friend. Faulconer, it seems, is forming up a "legion" to defend his beloved Virginia from the coming Yankee apocalypse. Nate joins the legion and is commissioned a lieutenant. At this point, we enter the middle third of the book which was a plodding, boring slog where you could see characters being slotted into the tracks they were going to take for the rest of the series. Only Cornwell's sterling reputation caused me to continue.After surviving the middle third of the book, I was rewarded by the first battle of Mannassas. Cornwell really shone in his battle scenes. They were exciting, fairly realistically grim and made the book well worth reading.Without the boring middle, this would be a 4.5 to 5 star book. as it is it gets a solid 3.5, recommended with reservations.
—Ed [Redacted]
This was the first book by Bernard Cornwell I ever read, and I did so in 7th grade. I've said for years that the Starbuck and Sharpe books were the only things that got me out of junior high in one piece.That being said, Cornwell's unflinchingly graphic with battle scenes, and though this one is two-thirds character- and world-building, the First Battle of Bull Run is no less bloody than any of Cornwell's other battles, and just as richly detailed.The need for Cornwell to introduce the characters and transform Nathaniel Starbuck from naive Yale divinity student to veteran soldier means that this book drags more than his others. Cornwell usually gives you an introductory battle, followed by another halfway through the book, before getting to the epic centerpiece of the novel, but here there's only First Manassas. No problem there, but this one is difficult to pick back up again once you've been through the others. When I reread the series next, I'm considering either starting up halfway through Rebel or skipping it altogether and going straight to Copperhead.If you've never read the others before, start here. It's the start of a hell of a journey.
—Brandon
I might never have picked up this book to read if it hadn't been written by Bernard Cornwell.I am not a big fan of Civil War novels, "Cold Mountain" notwithstanding. This volume is the first in the four book "Starbuck" series featuring Nathaniel Starbuck, a conflicted ex-theology student and son of a fiery abolitionist preacher. He is seduced by an actress who dumps him in Richmond, Virginia at the start of the Civil War. He is rescued from tar and feathering by his best friend's father Washington Faulconer. He joins Faulconer's Legion, a fictional unit and is caught up in the First Battle of Bull Run fighting against the North.The story starts slowly but picks up about 100 pages in and moves quickly after that.The thought process that Starbuck goes through to justify his choices makes his decision to fight for the Confederacy believable. I read another book years ago, the title of which escapes me, in which a Northern student at VMI ends up choosing to fight with his classmates rather than with the North. I am sure there are many other examples on both sides so Starbuck's choice is not that surprising.As always with Cornwell's books, there are a number of sub-plots which tend to make the story more interesting, in my opinion. There is also, as usual, a love interest for Starbuck, an uneducated, strikingly beautiful mountain girl. Lastly, the battle scenes are drawn with the usual realistic care that Cornwell brought to the Richard Sharpe Series. I believe that nobody writing historical fiction describes battles better than Cornwell, although Patrick O'Brian comes close in the Aubrey/Maturin series.I will withhold judgment on comparing the Sharpe Series with the Starbuck Series until I've read at least one more of the Starbuck books.
—Ed
