You'll enjoy this one. Fraser is the same guy who wrote the Flashman books (and my personal favorites, the MacAuslan books). He can write.
MacAuslan? Never heard of them, what sort of books are they? Read and enjoyed all the Flashman books tho'.
A sci-fi author whose name escapes me refers to some of the W. Va. heroes of his 1632 series of books as "Hill-billy hard-*sses", much as this writer describes them.