To TANSTAAFL-If You Happen to Check In-GMF Stuff

[Spock]

and see this. Also for any other GMF fanboys here.

I know you share my fondness for George MacDonald Fraser and "Quartered Safe Out Here."

This might be of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeN8u0QHYHc

Michael Jecks (a very prolific historical fiction author of which I had never heard) has a YouTube channel called "Writerly Witterings" and in his 15 minute video on George MacDonald Fraser said (among other things) that he based his soldiers in a Battle of Crecy time historical fiction trilogy on the soldiers in "Quartered Safe" as that is how real soldiers act and joke around and talk to each other and so forth.

The trilogy consists of
1) "Fields of Glory"
2) "Blood on the Sand"
3) "Blood of the Innocents"

I immediately ordered the trilogy and put them near the top of the TBR list.

As a side note-I encourage any fellow GMF fanboys to read "The Private McAuslan" stories after you read "Quartered Safe."

I consider them to be 2 peas in a pod and are my 2 favorite books of all time and they will NEVER lose that slot.

I already own the McAuslan stories in a few formats-but I could not resist this cover so that one jumped into my order pile as well.

https://www.amazon.com/THE-COMPLETE-MCA ... 13d670b6bc

[earendel]

and see this. Also for any other GMF fanboys here.

I know you share my fondness for George MacDonald Fraser and "Quartered Safe Out Here."

This might be of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeN8u0QHYHc

Michael Jecks (a very prolific historical fiction author of which I had never heard) has a YouTube channel called "Writerly Witterings" and in his 15 minute video on George MacDonald Fraser said (among other things) that he based his soldiers in a Battle of Crecy time historical fiction trilogy on the soldiers in "Quartered Safe" as that is how real soldiers act and joke around and talk to each other and so forth.

The trilogy consists of
1) "Fields of Glory"
2) "Blood on the Sand"
3) "Blood of the Innocents"

I immediately ordered the trilogy and put them near the top of the TBR list.

Jecks is the author of a 17-book historical mystery fiction series featuring a Holmes and Watson-like pairing. I first discovered him after reading the Ellis Peters Cadfael series and was looking for similar works.

[Spock]

and see this. Also for any other GMF fanboys here.

I know you share my fondness for George MacDonald Fraser and "Quartered Safe Out Here."

This might be of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeN8u0QHYHc

Michael Jecks (a very prolific historical fiction author of which I had never heard) has a YouTube channel called "Writerly Witterings" and in his 15 minute video on George MacDonald Fraser said (among other things) that he based his soldiers in a Battle of Crecy time historical fiction trilogy on the soldiers in "Quartered Safe" as that is how real soldiers act and joke around and talk to each other and so forth.

The trilogy consists of
1) "Fields of Glory"
2) "Blood on the Sand"
3) "Blood of the Innocents"

I immediately ordered the trilogy and put them near the top of the TBR list.

Jecks is the author of a 17-book historical mystery fiction series featuring a Holmes and Watson-like pairing. I first discovered him after reading the Ellis Peters Cadfael series and was looking for similar works.

Did you enjoy the Jecks books?

I can't find many people, any actually, that are Private McAuslan fans. Among GMF fanboys, Flashman aficionados and "Quartered Safe" people abound. But I can't find many fellow McAuslan guys.

For dry, understated British humour you can't beat it. It just struck me that you (Earendel) might enjoy it.

Here is a passage from when he was in charge of a garrison (Circa 1946) at an old (Haunted?) fort on the edge of the Sahara Desert in modern-day Libya.

>>>"Four sentries, one to each wall – and only my imagination could turn the silhouette of a bonneted Highlander into a helmeted Roman leaning on his hasta, or a burnoused mercenary out of Carthage, or a straight-nosed Greek dreaming of the olive groves under Delphi, or a long-haired savage from the North wrapping his cloak about him against the night air. They had all been here, and they were all long gone – perhaps. And if you smile at the perhaps, wait until you have stood on the wall of a Sahara fort at sundown, watching the shadows lengthen and the silence creep across the sand invisible in the twilight. Then smile."<<<<

Fraser, George MacDonald. The Complete McAuslan (p. 210). Skyhorse Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[earendel]

[Did you enjoy the Jecks books?

Yes, I did, and I'm looking into the trilogy that you mentioned.

[Spock]

[Did you enjoy the Jecks books?

Yes, I did, and I'm looking into the trilogy that you mentioned.

Yeah, they are right at the top of my list-jumping over the thousands of other unread books I own-It is my sickness.

But anyway, I was paging through the list of characters in Book 2 and the name "Grandarse" on the list is a direct shout out to the pseudonym for one of GMF's section mates in Section 9 from "Quartered Safe."

[Spock]

Halfway through Book 1 of the Jecks Trilogy and there are definitely some episodes taken from GMF's "Quartered Safe Out Here."

GMF describes the behavior of the Section following the death of a fellow Section mate and said he had never read of anything similar in fact or fiction, but he suspected that it is as old as war.

Well, Jecks used that for starters.