History Literature / AlexisCarew

** GenderFlipped with Alexis, who has a ''very'' sharp wit. Her first night aboard ''Merlin'', an older midshipman, Roland, starts making "gay sailor" innuendos about her bunkmate Philip Easley, wondering if she took the top bunk or the bottom bunk.

** This all leads to a minor surprise in the third book: New London's ''army'' actually has plenty of women in it, the reasoning being that if ground troops are needed, they're either operating on foreign soil, or the shit has hit the fan at home and there are more pressing concerns than the opinions of fringeworld yokels. Here the limitation is not sex ''per se'', but rather physical fitness: the PoweredArmor and MiniMecha used in the "cavalry" require crew members to be able to service their machines in the field so the lower average strength of women can be an issue [[RealitySubtext (as seen when the US military began allowing women to serve in combat in the 2010s)]], whereas there are almost as many female aircraft pilots as there are men.

-->'''Bosun:''' Aye, sir. [[BrickJoke A quite limited repertoire]], these Coalsons have.

* AsYouKnow: A ''lot'' of {{exposition}} is done via people explaining things to Alexis, everything from port and starboard to how FasterThanLightTravel works. {{Justified}} in that until she signs onto HMS ''Merlin'' she's never been off-planet before and cared more about farming and logging and export prices.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: {{Justified}} by the second-wave Earth colonies having been settled by individual nations, instead of trying for melting pots as happened in the first-wave colonies, and instead having them fall apart in sectarian warfare.

* SchizoTech: The widely varying tech levels in the series means that people on Dalthus often die waiting for an animal-powered vehicle to take them to the only source of high-end sci-fi medicine on the planet. This includes Alexis' grandmother, who died in childbirth. See also loading and firing [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]] by hand (they're at least breech-loaders). {{Justified}} in the latter case by the fact that any other style of weapon would be AwesomeButImpractical in darkspace: incorporating the necessary amount of gallenium to shield missile electronics or ship's power supplies to a laser isn't cost-effective. The third book shows off a French non-FTL cruiser that ''does'' have such weapons: it is a giant compared even to ships of the line, since its size isn't constrained by the complexity of the sailplan needed for FasterThanLightTravel. Alexis starts wondering how one might counter such a defense, although any possible solution has yet to come up in the series.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The comparisons to Creator/DavidDrake's ''Literature/{{RCN}}'' series are unavoidable and frequent in reviews.

* TaughtToHate: During the bidding on land parcels for the settlement of Dalthus IV, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Dunholm Carew happened to outbid Rashaed Coalson on several properties]]. Rashaed got it into his head that Dunholm was intentionally targeting him, causing a FeudingFamilies situation when Rashaed taught this version to his sons and grandsons: [[spoiler:his heir Daviel turns out to have murdered Alexis's parents because of it]]. [[spoiler:The CycleOfRevenge is broken by Rashaed's grandson Edmon, who is initially antagonistic (trying and, but is impressed when Alexis returns home a war hero years later. He unexpectedly takes the Carews' side in amending the colony's inheritance laws so that she can inherit the family estate.]]

** ''Into the Dark'' (2014)
** ''Mutineer'' (2015)
** ''The Little Ships'' (2015)
** ''HMS Nightingale'' (2016)
** ''Privateer'' (2017)
** ''The Queen's Pardon'' (2018)

* ''Spacer'' (2018)
* ''Smuggler'' (2019)

*** The Accords also ban OrbitalBombardment, but Alexis, desperate to buy time for badly outnumbered ground troops, discovers on a close reading that "space" is defined in the Accords as "above a planet's mesosphere". [[spoiler:She has her barque's hull stripped of masts and sails to fly through the lower atmosphere and begins blowing holes in the Hanoverese columns.]]

* AppealToForce: If you're a SpacePirate, do not think that the tiny woman in Royal Navy uniform will bend if you try to negotiate away her ultimatums. She will [[BoomHeadshot shoot you in the head without a word]] and ask your NumberTwo.

* {{Cliffhanger}}: ''Privateer'' ends on one. [[spoiler:Alexis is forced to AbandonShip during her invasion of the SpacePirate port Erzurum, and the book ends with her and her crew having landed in the planet's jungle.]] The author's notes state that the book ran longer than planned so he broke it in half, to be continued in ''The Queen's Pardon''.

** Second, a fellow privateer accuses Alexis of betraying them into a trap when the SpacePirate forces at Erzurum prove tougher than expected. [[spoiler:Alexis disables him in their duel, but can't bring herself to deliver the CoupDeGrace and so spares his life.]]

Appointed a midshipman by the kindly Captain Grantham aboard Her Majesty's Sloop ''Merlin'' while her grandfather lobbies to have the laws changed, Alexis, now the only female officer in the Fringe Fleet, battles pirates and sexist shipmates and superiors alike, as war brews with the neighboring Republic of Hanover. It's basically ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' [-InSpace-] if Horatio was, instead, Horati''a''. But ''not'' if Horatio was [[Literature/HonorHarrington Honor]]. That's a different story, altogether.

** Despite the ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' [-InSpace-] stylings of the series, the main conflict between New London and Hanover is surprisingly more reminiscent of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII than the UsefulNotes/NapoleonicWars, with culturally British and trade-oriented New London opposing culturally German and militarily expansionist Hanover mostly by itself for an extended period, and trying to get friendly but militarily neutral powers into the war on their side.

* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Imprisoned by culturally French Hanoverese naval forces after [[spoiler:HMS ''Hermione'''s mutineers sail her to the Berry March (Alsace-Lorraine [-InSpace-])]], Alexis befriends Lieutenant Delaine Thiebaud while arranging better treatment for the crew (who, not being officers, cannot give parole and be housed in the town), and falls in love with him. [[spoiler:He later provides evidence exonerating her of the mutiny at CourtMartial and showing the extenuating circumstances, and in ''The Little Ships'' she seeks him out to gain the Berry March fleet's help against Hanover and loses her virginity with him.]]

* SpaceIsAnOcean: Leans ''really'' hard on the WoodenShipsAndIronMen [-InSpace-] styling. Darkspace is treated as the open sea, complete with shoals and storms, SpaceSailing is done by harnessing its currents, and ships navigate by dead reckoning and fight in broadside duels using hand-loaded single-shot laser cannons aimed by eye (because darkspace dampens electricity and otherwise resists any attempts to study it). The landlubber protagonist is also often befuddled in the first book by the constant use of archaic naval terminology.

** Alexis is assaulted by a drunken spacer, Alan, in ''Into the Dark'', but she fights him off and then refuses to press charges because she didn't want to see him hanged on her account for a drunken mistake. She starts training in hand-to-hand combat with the ship's Marine complement after this. [[spoiler:Alan stops drinking afterwards and becomes a model sailor, rounding up would-be deserters and ultimately doing a HeroicSacrifice to save her life.]] She's also threatened with it a couple times, but informs a sexist midshipman in ''Mutineer'' that if he so much as touches her, his next meal will be "nutmegs and sausage".

* CombatPragmatist: Alexis was already taught to brawl a bit by foremen on her grandfather's estate, and was taught that if a man laid his hands on her with ill intent, she was to hurt him however much she had to to neutralize him. After her near-rape Alexis starts training with the SpaceMarine contingent. Her first trainer teaches her to fight dirty to compensate for her small size: she demonstrates it by breaking a muggers' fingers later.

** A comedic example in ''HMS Nightingale''. Alexis attends a dinner party hosted by Edmon Coalson, but the men and women split up into separate rooms for after-dinner discussion. Edmon wants Alexis to stay with the men, but in order to get the lot of them back for their sexism, Alexis goes with the women. She regrets this shortly afterwards because, given her naval career as opposed to the more traditionally feminine pursuits of the other Dalthan ladies, she finds the conversation irredeemably ''boring''.

* ISurrenderSuckers: Notably this is considered a violation of the rules of war: if you strike your colors you are not allowed to rejoin the fight or resist boarding parties, and if you are captured and give your parole you may not attempt escape (but can be rescued). Alexis still successfully uses it in a WoundedGazelleGambit to capture a Hanoverese cutter, later noting when she's called on it that she never struck nor ''explicitly'' surrendered, only ''implied'' it by saying, [[ExactWords "It would appear that I have no choice in the matter."]]

* SpaceSailing: Ships in TheVerse are propelled through darkspace via charged sails that harness the "winds" of dark energy, which tends to flow towards massive objects like planetary systems. Since nothing electrical works in darkspace unless shielded with expensive [[{{Unobtainium}} gallenium]], this means the sails have to be set by hand, and complexity and cost of sailplan governs the size of interstellar ships. In deference to 3-D space, the masts are mounted at the bow in a circle perpendicular to the ship's movement axis.

** Flogging with the cat o' nine tails is a standard naval punishment for enlisted crew (Alan is flogged by Captain Grantham for being drunk on duty when Alexis refuses to press charges of AttemptedRape), but Captain Neals in the second book is noted as a "Tartar", a captain very free with the cat, and regularly orders that the last man down the mast at shift change be flogged. This naturally results in the crew throwing safety to the wind in their haste to reach the bottom, eventually resulting in two of them going overboard and being lost in space. As a midshipman Alexis cannot be flogged no matter how much Neals wants to, [[spoiler:until he disrates her for disobeying his demand to KneelBeforeZod and promptly gives her twenty lashes on general principles. The log of his excessive floggings is eventually his undoing at CourtMartial: it's revealed that he did it roughly twice as often as the tribunal would expect of even a captain with an ''extraordinarily'' unruly crew.]]

%%* Barbarous Barbary Buccaneers: ''Privateer'' and ''The Queen's Pardon'' (originally a single novel that was DividedForPublication after it got too long) take place in "the Barbary", a sparsely settled and difficult-to-navigate region of space between TheVerse's major powers where SpacePirates run rampant. Alexis takes command of a privateer ship and eventually tracks the pirates back to a DeathWorld called Erzurum where thousands of spacers have been enslaved by the pirates

* BarbarousBarbaryBuccaneers: ''Privateer'' and ''The Queen's Pardon'' (originally a single novel that was DividedForPublication after it got too long) take place in "the Barbary", a sparsely settled and difficult-to-navigate region of space between TheVerse's major powers where SpacePirates run rampant. Alexis takes command of a privateer ship and eventually tracks the pirates back to a DeathWorld called Erzurum where thousands of spacers have been enslaved by the pirates

''[[http://alexiscarew.com/series/alexis-carew/ Alexis Carew]]'' is a series of SpaceOpera novels by Creator/JASutherland.

The series contains the following works.

* SchizoTech: The widely varying tech levels in the series means that people on Dalthus often die waiting for an animal-powered vehicle to take them to the only source of high-end sci-fi medicine on the planet. This includes Alexis' grandmother, who died in childbirth. See also loading and firing [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]] by hand (they're at least breech-loaders). {{Justified}} in the latter case by the fact that any other style of weapon would be AwesomeButImpractical in darkspace: incorporating the necessary amount of gallenium to shield missile electronics or ship's power supplies to a laser isn't cost-effective. The third book shows off a French non-FTL cruiser that ''does'' have such weapons.

* SchizoTech: The widely varying tech levels in the series means that people on Dalthus often die waiting for an animal-powered vehicle to take them to the only source of high-end sci-fi medicine on the planet. This includes Alexis' grandmother, who died in childbirth. See also loading and firing FrickinLaserBeams by hand (they're at least breech-loaders). {{Justified}} in the latter case by the fact that any other style of weapon would be AwesomeButImpractical in darkspace: incorporating the necessary amount of gallenium to shield missile electronics or ship's power supplies to a laser isn't cost-effective. The third book shows off a French non-FTL cruiser that ''does'' have such weapons.

* LoopholeAbuse: Alexis achieves some of her more improbable victories by skirting the ExactWords of the [[FictionalGenevaConventions Abbentheren Accords]].
** [[ISurrenderSuckers Giving false surrender or rejoining a battle after striking one's colors is forbidden.]] [[spoiler:Alexis captures a Hanoverian customs cutter with a WoundedGazelleGambit by implying she was surrendering but never actually explicitly saying so, and never striking, thereby tricking them into docking so she could board them.]]
** Similarly, joining in an escape attempt after giving your parole is forbidden, but being rescued is allowed. [[spoiler:Imprisoned by Hanover after the mutiny on HMS ''Hermione'', Alexis refuses to give parole, then plans and executes a breakout after the Berry March fleet is recalled to guard the Hanoverese interior with the expectation that their next jailors won't be as accommodating, even stopping to pick up her UngratefulBastard captain and the other officers and midshipmen.]]
** The Accords also ban OrbitalBombardment, but Alexis, desperate to buy time for badly outnumbered ground troops, discovers on a close reading that "space" is defined in the Accords as "above a planet's mesosphere". [[spoiler:She has her barque's hull stripped of masts and sails to fly through the lower atmosphere and begins blowing holes in the Hanoverese columns.]]

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: {{Downplayed}}. Most chapters of ''The Queen's Pardon'' contain a stanza from a sea shanty that, as becomes apparent, is about Alexis's adventure in the duology, [[spoiler:and turns out to have been written by Nabbs, one of her crew members]].

* FictionalGenevaConventions: The "rules of war" in this setting are laid down by the Abbentheren Accords and observed to the letter, lest the other guy not do so next time the tables are reversed. If you strike your colors, you are considered to have surrendered and may not resume combat, and if you give your parole to a captor you may not take part in any escape attempts (but you ''can'' be rescued). Orbital bombardment is also banned, and punishable by death.

** Given a CallBack in ''Privateer'' when a young lieutenant tries to pick Alexis up in a bar, thinking her a local lady rather than the war hero and privateer captain she really is. She starts in on him with the CO's routine of giving {{Pop Quiz}}zes to young officers. He calls her a bitch for embarrassing him in front of the whole bar, and she boredly tells him to go ask his bosun for some better insults.

* {{Cliffhanger}}: ''Privateer'' ends on one. [[spoiler:Alexis is forced to AbandonShip during her invasion of the SpacePirate port Erzurum, and the book ends with her and her crew having landed in the planet's jungle.]] The author's notes state that the book ran longer than planned so he broke it in half.

* SexualExtortion:

* PintSizedPowerhouse: Alexis is one of the CombatPragmatist variety since she's way too small to meet strength with strength.

** ''The Queen's Pardon'' (2018, forthcoming)

* AttemptedRape: Alexis is assaulted by a drunken spacer, Alan, in ''Into the Dark'', but she fights him off and then refuses to press charges because she didn't want to see him hanged on her account for a drunken mistake. She starts training in hand-to-hand combat with the ship's Marine complement after this. [[spoiler:Alan stops drinking afterwards and becomes a model sailor, rounding up would-be deserters and ultimately doing a HeroicSacrifice to save her life.]] She's also threatened with it a couple times, but informs a sexist midshipman in ''Mutineer'' that if he so much as touches her, his next meal will be "nutmegs and sausage".

* OrbitalBombardment: Banned under the [[FictionalGenevaConventions Abbentheren Accords]] after the Republic of Hanover achieved independence from ''Deutschstirne'' by [[ColonyDrop bombarding multiple planets with asteroids]], killing billions. [[spoiler:However, Alexis discovers a {{loophole|Abuse}}: the Accords define "space" as "above a planet's mesosphere", meaning flying to a lower altitude and then firing broadsides is perfectly legal.]]