h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks man, I read your interview with Awix, very cool.

Thanks

Sharpe's Enemies.

Sharpe's oldest enemy was the twitching psycopath Obidiah Hakeswill. Hakeswill suffered from a nervous twitch in his face and hideous scarring on the neck when at the age of 12 he was hung and left to die. When his uncle cut him down, Hakeswill began to think he was invulnerable, a man who could not be killed. It was Hakeswill who enlisted "Sharpie (footnote - his name for sharpe)" into the 33rd foot where he framed Sharpe and had him flogged. He later murdered Sharpe's friend Hector McCandless at Assaye.
Hakeswill followed Sharpe into the South Essex, had Patrick Harper flogged and then deserted after the siege of Badajoz. As a deserter he murdered Sharpe's wife Teresa Moreno but was eventually brought to justice.
However, a firing squad was no match for the "immortal" Hakeswill and he had to be finished off with a rifle shot to the head from Sharpe before being uncerimoniously dumped in an unmarked grave.

and hideous scarring on the neck "when at the age of 12 ......"

should read "caused by an event at the age of 12 ....."

Thats excellent

I'll come up with something for some of the other characters over the next few days

Sorted, I'll do the others as and when.

Verc, we seem to have ground to a halt! Want me to try and finish the bits on my chars over the weekend? Then we need to figure a way to split the bibliography/episode list between us, and then find a few links.

Yeah, sorry. If you wouldn't mind doing your characters, and I'll make a determined effort to write up some more of my characters, and then find out what we've got left.

Sure, just checking you were still around!

Sharpe's Enemies...

Major Pierre Ducos

Unusually for Sharpe, Ducos was an enemy who wasn't part of the British Army. A French Intelligence officer, Ducos was a revolutionary who had his own parents guillotined, which shows just what lengths he would go to for the revolution and the Emperor Napoleon.

~to be continued~

Is there anything I can do to help? Sharpe's one of my favourite characters, both the books and the TV adaption.

Let me know what you want me to have a go at, and I'll gladly put something together.

Thanks

Having reviewed the rest of this thread, I've started to put together a list of the books and a brief desription. However, this now hits the snag of not tieing into the TV dramatisations. I hope you dont mind my presumption.

I'm happy to continue this or drop it, and to put emphasis on either books or TV. (Personally I'd prefer books )

I'd prefer to put the emphasis on the books, and maybe do a companion entry on the TV series.

That ok with you Verc?

Since the books where there first(and more books have been written), it would seem to make sense to focus more on the books. However I would like to keep the Quote at the top from the theme tune of the TV series.

I'm sure it will all make a lot more sense as it all comes together.

Yeah, keep the quote, it fits. However, if we just do the list and summary on the books, remove any references to Sean Bean and the TV movies and change the title to The Richard Sharpe Novels or something like that...

Patrick Harper

Sharpe's right hand man, closest ally, and best friend.

He grew up in a small village in Donegal, The fourth of eleven children - he left home at the age of 16 to go to Derry to find a better life for himself. However one morning he found he had joined the army, after a recruiting sergeant had got him drunk...


[more later]

The India Campaign

Sharpe’s Tiger (1997)

Sharpe still only a private face the Tippoo and the Tippoo's professional strongmen, who had interesting ways of putting prisoners to death, using nothing more than a nail, in India. Sharpe meets Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill who will continue to harass Sharpe all through the later India Campaign novels. This is the first book in the Sharpe stories from the character’s point of view.

Sharpe’s Triumph (1998)

Sharpe, now a Sergeant, finds himself alongside Sir Arthur Wellesley at the terrifying Battle of Assaye. Sir Arthur always believed Assaye to be his finest achievement. It was at Assaye that Sharpe meets Wellington and renders him a service. The treacherous 'villain' in this book (apart from Hakeswill) is Anthony Pohlmann, a jovial fellow who began life as a mercenary and rose to became one of India's most successful generals.

Sharpe’s Fortress (1999)

Sharpe's first story as a lowly lieutenant takes him to the daunting fortress of the Tipoo Sultan, Gawilghur. Sir Arthur Wellesley was never one for patience and as such was not as brilliant at sieges as he was at command of a battlefield. When he had to lay siege to great fortresses, and few are greater than Gawilghur up on its vast cliff over the Deccan Plain he reverted to throwing men at the walls. The Fortress finally fell, mainly due to the bravery of one of the Scottish Highland regiments, with a little help from Lieutenant Richard Sharpe.

Sharpe’s Trafalgar (2000)

Huh? Trafalgar? That’s not in India! No, but the book starts there and tells of Sharpe’s journey back to England. Somehow, instead of being on an East Indiaman (the merchant ships of the Honourable East India Company and the usual method for travel to England from India and vice-versa), Sharpe is on a Royal Navy vessel, and is just in time to catch this most important and famous of sea battles.

The Danish Campaign

Sharpe’s Prey (2001)

Sharpe makes it into one of the most obscure campaigns of the whole of the Napoleonic wars. The Danes had a huge merchant fleet, second only in size to Great Britain's, and to protect it they possessed a formidable navy. But Denmark was a very small country and when, in 1807, the French decide they will invade Denmark and take the fleet for themselves, Britain has to act swiftly. Sharpe after much intrigue (and sex with a beautiful foreign women, a theme that runs throughout the Sharpe series) finds himself stuck in the city as the bombardment begins.

The Peninsular War

Sharpe’s Rifles (1988)
Many think this to be the first Sharpe book, as the peninsular campaign takes up most of the Sharpe series, and was the one written first. However, it was actually written later, to tie with the opening episode to the TV adaption. This book begins during the infamous retreat to Corunna, where Lieutenant Sharpe, a quartermaster, finds himself stranded and in charge of a group of chosen men. After attempted mutiny, fighting drinking and general debauchery Sharpe manages to assert his authority and ally himself with a group of partisans, who go one to win a purely fictional battle.

More to come, hope these are OK and are roughly what you're looking for.


Tenaka

Well I'm impressed....

~Ducos Continued~

As part of the army of the revolution, Ducos took part in the civilian massacres of Lyon, Castile and Estramadura.
Ducos first crossed swords with Richard Sharpe at the Spanish town of Adrados in December 1812, where, still mourning the loss of his wife Teresa, Sharpe humiliated him by breaking his spectacles and refusing to surrender. They met again in 1813 when Sharpe was attempting the rescue of the Marquesa de Casares . After the peace of 1814 had been declared between Britain and France, Ducos stole part of Napoleon's treasure and framed Sharpe for the theft, and the murder of Henri Castineau. After hunting Ducos across Italy, to Naples, Sharpe's ally General Calvet charged the increasingly paranoid Major Ducos with reason and had him killed by a firing squad.

For the Bibliography List: Sharpe's Havoc (2003)
Campaign - Penninsular War (1809)
Sharpe and his squad of riflemen are sent to the city of Orporto to rescue two British women, and try and resist Marshal Soult's invasion of Portugal which could spell disaster for the newly arrived Sir Arthur Wellesley.