Book Review: "An Infamous Army" by Georgette Heyer

I'm an enormous fan of Heyer's romance novels. I enjoy her mysteries, although not at the same fan-girl squee level. Her "straight historicals" bore me to tears. I never managed to make it through My Lord John despite several tries. Unfortunately, An Infamous Army falls solidly into the "bore me to tears" category, despite the reprise of some very enjoyable characters previously appearing in Devil's Cub and Regency Buck. But the personal interactions of old friends and new, and the veneer of what might have been an enjoyable romance-at-cross-purposes are a thin and all too shaky framework for a ponderous text, bloated with a fatal case of researcher's disease, that provides a blow-by-blow catalog of the personnel, movements, correspondence, actions, and idiosyncrasies of Wellington's "infamous army" and the battle of Waterloo.

Heyer had an astounding talent for creating witty characters dodging their way through tangled and improbable adventures to win well-deserved true loves. I'm not entirely sure whether she simply had no similar talent for making actual history come to life in an engrossing fashion or whether I'm doing her a disservice by attempting to read history as if it were romance. But as An Infamous Army purports to be both, I have the right to judge it a failure by at least one of those measures. A pity, as I'm coming towards the end of my unread Heyer and would love to discover another story or two that stand with my favorites.

Movie Review: POTC4 - On Stranger Tides

Very briefly: Having an actual independent story behind movie #4 made all the difference between a tired franchise being squeezed for yet another drop or two of blood and an entertaining summer flick that I might even buy the DVD of. Plus, I was pleased that Tim Powers' novel was credited with "inspired by" rather than "based on". Quite likely I was able to enjoy the movie better for having not yet read OST the novel -- the strongly idiosyncratic recurring characters would probably have caused some tooth-grinding if I were running them against the original in my head. But I just might add it to the to-read shelf now, if only to do a compare-and-contrast.

Judgment: if (like me) you swore after POTC3 that you'd never waste your time and money on the franchise ever again, be willing to consider a mental erase-and-reboot back to POTC2 and give this one a chance.