Review of Brutal Valour: The Tragedy of Isandlwana

[Hatethouself]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Brutal Valour: The Tragedy of Isandlwana" by James Mace.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Brutal Valour: The Tragedy of Isandlwana by James Mace is a piece of historical fiction set during the wars between the Zulu kingdom and the British empire otherwise known as the Anglo-Zulu war. It tells of a time when the British high command in Africa started an unsanctioned invasion into Zulu land.

Before I dive into it, I just want to state that this is coming from someone who is ignorant of both the period and the conflict, I know nothing of the history that the book is based on. I will not be commenting on its historical accuracy or authenticity. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the book. There is not much good in this book. Luckily the aspect that it does execute decently happens to be the main show of the book as well, and that is the battle itself. The descriptions can be detailed, but it never interrupts the illusion of motion, or the "movie" playing in your head as you read. It has a sense of progress that is crucial for writing compelling battles and I am also satisfied with the portrayal of the less glorious factors of war, such as logistics. It is covered in a way that grounds the story while adding tension without boring a reader who might not care about it. Unfortunately, that's where my compliments end.

The book is reminiscent of a quite dry history textbook because it is without exaggeration all exposition. The book violates "show don't tell" so much that it should honestly be tried in The Hague, it's a war crime, is what it is. It seems like a conscious choice from the author to write it this way, and I can't tell if that makes it better or worse. When you are introduced to a character, you are also introduced to a chunk of text, which is basically that character's biography. I think the only reason why I even got through the book is that I'm used to this style of writing as I consume educational content all the time and because I have an interest in wars and battles. I don't know how any sane man can finish a book when every page has a new character with a new biography you have to read. From this I can infer that it seems the author cared more about portraying the history and the fine men involved because of how much characters are involved and how spread out the attentions is on each of them. Any author who writes with the priority of entertaining would probably cut off the screen time of 90% of the characters because a lot of them didn't really matter. There are so many characters and the attention is so spread out that in the end they all just blend together which makes the exposition even more infuriating. What was the point of all that if I can't differentiate them in the end? Let's talk about the "dialogue". The dialogue is also just exposition, they do not talk like humans at all. They're just mouthpieces for the story and for each other to awkwardly characterize and talk about other characters. The drama falls flat. And the characters, like the book is lifeless.

I give the book a 2 out of 4 stars. Even to someone who is interested in these sorts of stories, the expositional writing style, and the lifeless characters are too much of a deal-breaker. The battle raises it to a two but even with the well-executed battle which takes a good third of the book, it's still not enough for it to be considered good.

I recommend this book to no one, if you like this era and conflict, I implore you to find and read anything but this.

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Brutal Valour: The Tragedy of Isandlwana
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[OTrain D]

As someone like myself who is from South Africa and who has heard a lot about this war, am so well interested in reading it, even though you said you found it very tedious with its very unnecessary information. Your review was very insightful.

[Hatethouself]

glad you found the review helpful. I hope you enjoy the book!