Mr. Cornwell,
Let me first suggest you are probably the best military historical fiction writer out there. Let me suggest in the second I will buy whatever you write! Sharpe is the greatest! He has totally eclipsed the Horatio Hornblower. I want him to have a happy retirement someday watching Patrick Lasan’s explioits or otherwise!
I’ve probably bought every book you’ve ever written. Some more than once! In paper, or in later years audio, as my own combat experiences over the last 15 years or so have eroded my attention span (this is a semi-legitimate excuse, but I will ever view it as my own defect that I have eroded as a reader of paper books over the years).
There’s this problem I have though….. The Starbuck Chronicles are both great and I feel unfinished. There is a finish there which leads into Starbuck becoming something else, him fleeing to the UK after the death of the Confederacy or his or Lasan’s children with Sally Truslow, fighting in WWI, the 2nd Boer War or both!
I could totally see a scarred and cynical Nathaniel Starbuck as a similar character to the old Colonel portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins in “Legends of the Fall” a good story, if overly melodramatic! WWI is a great source of stories! Frankly I wish I had your talent and could tell those stories myself!
I’m a dedicated “reader” no matter what. Thank you for being a great storyteller who has improved my life and inspired me to learn about the real people who lived lives like the fictional ones you have constructed! I have and will continue to enjoy every moment of your stories!
I want to tell you too that as a die hard Sharpe and also Uhtred fan, Nathaniel Starbuck’s “Russian Roulette” moment with the yellow leg officer with the self inflicted skin condition who unknowingly insulted Sally Truslow was one of the best scenes you ever wrote! I loved it all through!
Gregory Krause