Review: Is This Written as a Farce?
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 24, 2013
OK, I've read al of the books in this series and likely will read Admiral's Revenge when it comes out.  That said, this is written almost as if it is a series of Saturday movie cliffhangers from the 40s and the 50s and our Prince Jason (call me admiral) slides so quickly from intelligent judgment to pure emotional reaction without any apparent reason that it's difficult to know whether he's a flaming idiot or we're simply watching the author attempt to show us how his character matures.  Unfortunately, it happens so often and in much the same way that the sense I keep getting is that we're in a closed loop.  Some of the most dastardly (and I use the term intentionally as a flashback to the cliffhanger image) scenes were so campy that they just made me want to burst out laughing.  The other problem I keep running up against is trying to figure out who is loyal to whom and to what, although it's probably safe to assume that most people will end up supporting the prince albeit often in a conflicted way.  All of this said, the series has a certain charm about it, much the same that was in play in the Captain Phule series by Robert Aspirin, although Prince Jason hasn't yet reached that level of maturity.  The 40% of the book that is good carries the 60% that is just plain goofy.