Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Russel Thorndike

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Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Doctor Syn Returns (Doctor Syn #3) 3Stars

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Title: Doctor Syn Returns
Series: Doctor Syn #3
Author: Arthur Russell Thorndike
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 154
Words: 74K

Syn is not so bloody thirsty and hypocritical in this one, but I still had serious issues with the liqueur smuggling going on. While I’m not a fan of the government taxing the soul out of us (one of the reasons America kicked the Brits ass back in ‘76 after all), I don’t feel that the smuggling of alcohol is in any way justified. Alcohol is almost as evil as drugs and I’ll go so far as to say that it IS a drug, as bad as meth, crack or marijuana. While we have the God given right to defend ourselves (why I AM in favor of gun running, ghost guns and other such libertarian ideals that are opposed to a tyrannical dictatorship run by a woman who was not actually elected), He did NOT give us the right to get shit faced drunk. So do yourself a favor and get rid of it.

This was the story where The Scarecrow is given life and while we only see him in action once or twice, he’s as great a character as Captain Clegg was. Considering they are both Syn, it’s no wonder.

I’m still on the fence about this series. I can see myself waffling about it right up until I finish it and I can see myself just throwing it away in disgust and dnf’ing at a moment’s notice. Taking this one book at at time.

Even if I do finish the series, it’s not one I’ll ever recommend.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia & Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – click to open

It tells the story of Syn, who has tired of piracy, tries to settle down as the vicar of the little town of Dymchurch in Kent, England.

Syn’s attempt to live an obscure life fails when he is drawn into the local smuggling trade. To protect his parishioners from the agents of the King’s Revenue, Syn becomes the masked Scarecrow of Romney Marsh and becomes leader of the smugglers.

During this time, he falls in love with the oldest daughter of his best friend only for her to die. He also finds his wife, who is on death’s door. She has a daughter by her lover. Said lover pretends to be the Pirate Captain Clegg and dies so that Syn will take care of his baby daughter.

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Doctor Syn on the High Seas (Doctor Syn #2) 3Stars

Title: Doctor Syn on the High Seas
Series: Doctor Syn #2
Author: Arthur Russell Thorndike
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 182
Words: 66K

In the first book, which was the last book chronologically and sees Doctor Syn killed (oh, wait, did I just spoil that for you? Oh boo hoo, I am sooooooo sorry. Get over it, pansy), I wondered how someone who was a man of the cloth could preach what he did and still do the things that Doctor Syn did. Well, from this book it is obvious that his theology never went more than skin deep, if even that. To be blunt, Syn was a hypocrite was the start.

He is not a hero or an anti-hero, Syn is a straight up villain. He pillages, plunders and kills with nary a thought or regret and is the very definition of an Evil Pirate Captain. His revenge is the consuming fire in his life, over ruling every other thought and feeling in his head.

From a purely storywise angle, this was good stuff. Syn is talented, skilled, well off and implacable. Nothing stops him and his adventures here are many. When the local lord kidnapped Imogene and her mother near the beginning, I almost put the book down because Thorndike really had me wondering just how far he was going to go with the situation. Thankfully, while the end goal was stated, it never got there.

I’m really up in the air about continuing this series. It is grand adventure, but Syn is a scoundrel and hypocrite and I find that abominable. I will read the next book and if I still feel this way, I’ll be stopping. There is no need to read about or promote scoundrels and villains.

★★★☆☆

From Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – click to open

Doctor Syn (a Doctor of Theology), a young man at seminary college, meets and falls in love with a beautiful spanish girl. He and his close friend save her and her mother from falling into the financial clutches of a local lord with the worst of reputations. Imogene in turn falls in love with Dr Syn. Stymied, the local lord decides to get his revenge by kidnapping Imogene and her mother and forcing Imogene to marry him. They are rescued by Dr Syn and friend and the local lord is killed, to nobody’s regret, not even his nephew, who now inherits and was a one time suitor to Imogene.

Dr Syn and Imogene marry and move to Romney Marsh. But it is too gloomy for Imogene and she goes back to one of the big towns to “help her mother”. She meets her former suitor and they seduce each other and run away to Spain together. Dr Syn gives up the cloth and vows revenge. He begins to chase them down.

He is then captured by pirates but because of his brains and skill at sword play, kills the pirate captain and takes over the crew. He loots the sea to fuel his fortune to hunt down Imogene and the Seducer. He blows up the pirate ship he is on, killing all the pirates and takes the treasure for himself. He continues his chase but each time, never quite catches them. He goes pirating again and repeats the same formula as before.

Eventually, Imogene and the Seducer drop out of sight and Dr Syn makes his way back to Romney Marsh to settle down to what unsettled peace he can have. The book ends with the ship he is on crashing on the shores of Romney Marsh and Dr Syn swimming for shore.

Saturday, April 27, 2024

Doctor Syn (Doctor Syn #1) 3.5Stars

Title: Doctor Syn
Series: Doctor Syn #1
Author: Arthur Russell Thorndike
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 209
Words: 69K

This was NOT at all what I was expecting, not one tiny bit. I remembered vague bits of an old Disney show called “The Scarecrow’, a Zorro’esque creature fighting evil and righting wrongs. And that is what I expected here, a man in disguise fighting corrupt authority figures while Robin Hood’ing it for the little guy.

Ha!

This is the final book, chronologically, in the Dr Syn series. It is however, the first published book. I suspect Thorndike wrote this as a standalone story and then just went back and wrote all the rest of the prequels when he needed money.

Dr Syn, a clergyman of all things, is also the Scarecrow, a leader of the smugglers in the Romney Marsh area. He’s smart, well organized and not above sending anyone who gets in his way to an early grave with a bullet in their heart. We also find out that he was an infamous pirate captain that roamed the seas pillaging and looting with the worst of them.

I kept waiting for the redemption arc, but it didn’t happen. Every revelation about Dr Syn just makes him out to be worse and worse and there is no repentance on his part at all. While he has embraced the lifestyle of a clergyman, he has in no way taken to heart anything he apparently preaches on. Complete and utter hypocrisy. I kept waiting for the curtain to come down and his good intentions to be revealed. And it just never happened. It actually shocked me at the end when he is captured and then killed by a harpoon, because he’s in full on pirate mode at that point.

I really wondered if I wanted to read more. I think I will though. I want to see how Syn got the point he’s shown at in this book. In many ways, Syn is a Vader without a Luke and I want to see if the downward trajectory was the same. Redemption, or the lack thereof, is something I’m always interested in when I’m reading a story.

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia

Captain Collyer, a Royal Navy officer assigned to smash the local smuggling ring, uncovered the deception and Dr. Syn’s true identity, thanks in part to the tongueless mulatto (who had been rescued by Collyer years before and who had been serving Collyer as a “ferret” seeking out hidden contraband) who recognized Syn as Clegg. Syn evaded capture while at the same time making sure that Imogene and Squire Cobtree’s son Denis (who had fallen in love with Imogene) would have a happy life together (they were eventually married), but was murdered in revenge by the mulatto, who then mysteriously managed to escape, leaving Syn harpooned through the neck. As a last mark of respect, Collyer ordered that Syn be buried at sea, rather than have his body hung in chains.

Mipps escaped in the confusion of Syn’s death and disappeared from England, but it is said that a little man very much like him is living out his days in a Buddhist Monastery somewhere in the Malay Peninsula, delighting the monks with recounting the adventures of Doctor Syn and the eerie stories of the Romney Marsh and the mysterious Scarecrow and his Night Riders.

Friday, April 05, 2024

Currently Reading: Dr Syn

Currently reading Dr Syn by Russell Thorndike. Pirates and smugglers! And a 12 year old boy who drinks rum and wants to be a hangman and swing his schoolteacher from the gallows.

Come on, is that just pure awesomesauce or what?