I'm realizing that I can't remember the books that I've read very well, so I'm going to start trying to write "book reports" when I finish them. Maybe that'll help. Maybe not. Maybe I'll remember that I'm really bad at writing book reports. Oh well. Nobody reads this blog anyways ;)
Yesterday, I finished The Fiddler's Gun by A.S. "Pete" Peterson. This historical fiction is a beautiful tale of loss, love, action and pirates!
The setting for most of the book is colonial Georgia, around the 1770s. It doesn't take a historian to know that there is a lot of action to be found there, and Peterson finds it, to be sure. The protagonists is a young lady named Fin Button who is a stereotypical Tom Boy who is thrown into a set of circumstances that very unusual. At every step of the plot, the scenes, feelings and conversations are so decorated with imagery, that the reader is not only taken to 1770s Georgia, but he enjoys every nuance of the surroundings.
Not all of this book would be appropriate for young readers. There is death and slightly course language (though not nearly as much as one would expect, given the subject matter).
The weaknesses of the book were in the action scenes. They meandered and were sometimes hard to follow. Other than those blemishes, the book flows smoothly and the story is well-crafted.
The Fiddler's Gun is the first of a 2-book series. The last volume, The Fiddler's Green is due out on December 7th, 2010 and it is already on my Christmas list.
These book are (or will be) available at https://store.rabbitroom.com/
*SPOILER ALERT*
If you want to read this book, don't read any more of this blog post. It'll give away most of the plot.
Fin Button was born to a couple who had 12 girls. Her father was so disappointed that she (the 13th) wasn't a boy, that she was abandoned and sent to an orphanage in Ebenezer, GA. I wonder if this is a veiled allusion to Bilbo Baggins having 13 companions on his journey in The Hobbit.
She was a tough girl, living up to her fathers expectations (though he was completely out of the picture), beating up most of the boys in the orphanage... except Peter. Peter is the man she fell in love with and would eventually be engaged to.
One day, she was assigned to help Brother Bartimaeus in the kitchen. Because she was a teenager, and had antipathy for most authority figures, she grumbled. But she acquiesced. She came to love Bartimaeus (don't call him Bart) and he taught her how to play his violin. In the violin case, he also kept Betsy, his blunderbuss. Eventually, Bartimaeus (or was he Bart at this point?) used Betsy to save Fin's life after she ran away. This brought Bartimaeus out of the hiding he had been in and led directly to his being hanged for his past sins, when he was Bart. That of stealing, pirating, murder.
This ripped Fin up. She briefly took over for Bartimaeus in the kitchen until 6 British soldier came in demanding a meal. One of them was a near-victim of Bartimaeus's knife and Fin couldn't hold herself together. She killed all six of them and went on the run.
She left Ebenezer for the first time and landed on The Rattlesnake, a merchant ship headed by Captain Creache. Creache was a greedy, vile man who stayed in his quarters most of the time. Jack was the first mate and a bear of a man. He and Fin got along well, but her best friend on the ship was Tommy Knuttle. Knut was a shell of who he used to be, his life-force and sense beaten out of him by Creache some years ago.
Creache's greed put the crew in harm's way and Jack led an overthrow of the ship. The captain and his loyalists were set adrift and the rest of the 'Snake's crew took over.
Creache found land, reported the 'Snake's crew and what they had done and they were branded pirates. The British army wanted them for the Privateering they had done and now the colonies would hang them if they could find them. They had nowhere to go.
Eventually, the were captured and put on a British prison ship (the Justice), which they overthrew. This was rather worthless because the vessel was barely sea-worthy. As they sailed away, two British ships were easily gaining on them and when the ship-to-ship battle commenced, the colonial Marines stepped in to save the day. (It should be noted that the author is a US Marine.)
Jack, Fin and the rest of the crew make for Ebenezer which becomes the epicenter for the final battle scene. Creache discovered a map that Fin had, which told of a large cache of gold that Bartimaeus had buried at the orphanage. (Yep, 6 prepositions in that sentence.)
Creache was looking in the wrong place and Fin now knows where the gold is, but she doesn't dig it up.
The last action scene of the book shows Fin killing Creache, but losing a good crew-mate in the process. Also, Jack has lost the bottom half of one of his legs. I guess the pirate stereotype has to be achieved somehow, eh?
Peter rides in on a horse and tells Fin of the house that he has built for them. But both of them know that she has to run. She is wanted by the British for murder and she can't return unless and until the colonies win the war.
The book ends with Fin officially being made Captain of the Rattlesnake. They're sailing out into open waters to see how they can help the colonies win the war.
