by admin on March 6, 2010
Thomas Kydd has again claimed the helm of his beloved sloop-of-war,
HMS Teazer. With him is his old friend Nicholas Renzi. After engaging in some heavy sea action Kydd, a former rakish corsair, is assigned to join in the coastal defenses of Britain against the invasion by Napoleon’s forces. There is a strong sense that invasion from France is imminent, and that only the Navy stands between England and Napoleon.
Meanwhile, Renzi is on a secret mission as a spy in France, seeking to establish a connection to the American inventor Robert Fulton. He is to seek to bribe Fulton into switching his allegiances. Mr. Fulton is developing some new “infernal machines” that can wreak mass destruction from a distance –submarines and torpedoes.
Renzi is eventually successful and is able to bring Fulton to England in one piece. Now the Navy needs to find out whether there is any substance to Fulton’s claims that his inventions will change the future of naval warfare, and – even more important – whether they can be used to destroy the invasion fleet Napoleon is amassing across the channel.
Thomas Kydd, who has some experience in dealing with Americans, is the man assigned to the role as liaison with the somewhat demanding and quite difficult American inventor. More and more Kydd becomes convinced that the infernal machines of Fulton will work, and that they can contribute to the defense of England. And the fate of England is at stake.
But there is much to do – improved designs, lots of testing, gaining support from the powers that are to get access to the needed resources, and so on. And Thomas Kydd is the man for the job.
Invasion is an interesting book in many ways. But there is less naval action than we are used to in this series, and instead more spying and more about politics. I am not sure I like this so much. Also, I feel that the characters of Kydd and Renzi are developing in the wrong direction. Kydd’s main concern seems to be to become a gentleman. Renzi is becoming a kind of philosopher/clerk/spy and a bit of a whiner – a kind of person for which you don’t expect to find in the Royal Navy at the time and who isn’t a very interesting hero.
To me, this whole book feels a little bit like an interlude and as if Stockwin is testing the limits of his increasing skills as a writer. I hope he returns to the style of earlier books instead. The book is, of course, an interesting book for followers of this series, but I cannot recommend Invasion to new readers.
by admin on February 27, 2010
This is a novel in the Horatio Hornblower Saga by C. S. Forester. It is now 1810 and the Napoleonic Wars are still raging. Captain Horatio Hornblower has now been assigned command of a fine ship of the line, a two-decker, and 74 guns, called HMS Sutherland.
Hornblower’s love Lady Pamela Wellesley has married 
an admiral whose ego considerably outweighs his talents, and as faith will have it Hornblower has been appointed into his squadron. With very little time to prepare and very short-handed, the Sutherland is sent to sea to first do convoy duty and then later to harass Napoleon’s flank, and blockade the Mediterranean coast of Spain to prevent supplies from reaching the French.
Sutherland does a good job during the convoy duty, and then afterward Hornblower is fortunate enough to be let loose to cruise the Catalonian coast. Now Hornblower stages an astonishing sequence of solo raids against the French in the span of just a few days. Each raid is more challenging and inventive than the previous and each requires his cunning ability to calculate risks to the fullest. Needless to say, Hornblower wrecks considerable havoc. As a result he captures a number of prizes and makes a large amount of prize money. But even so, his Admiral is not very pleased with him.
The end of this novel is a spectacular cliffhanger. Hornblower is more or less forced, partly by his admiral and partly by his own fear of being viewed as a coward, to engage four French ships of the line on his own with Sutherland with the rest of the squadron just over the horizon. With such odds, his concern is not with winning, but with doing as much damage as he possibly can. The resulting battle is one of the most gruesome ever in the Hornblower saga – a truly epic battle.
This book really is a book that you will probably find very hard to put down. There is so much action and excitement that I could hardly take a break from it. In addition it is very well written by C.S. Forester. Ship of the Line is clearly among the best in the Hornblower Saga.
by admin on February 14, 2010
This first book in J. E. Fender’s series about Geoffrey Frost, a new nautical fiction series, introduces us to the setting – the North-Eastern coast of America, 
and the main characters. Most of the action in this book is set in New Hampshire and up along the coast to British Canada. We are in the beginning of the American Revolution, and the British are the bad guys. Geoffrey Frost has returned from an adventure in the Caribbean with an English prize and somewhat reluctantly turns himself into a privateer because friends and country need him.
The lengthy subtitle of this work, Being an Account of the Life and Times of Geoffrey Frost, Mariner, of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, as Faithfully Translated from the Ming Tsun Chronicles, and Diligently Compared with Other Contemporary Histories well describes the contents of this very readable work.
With the excellent sloop “Jaguar” at his command, and with more than two hundred volunteers eager to go hunting for British prizes, Geoffrey Frost embarks upon a career as a licensed privateer funding the American cause. The book is full of action, both at sea and on land. Frost sets out to liberate American prisoners in Louisburg and capture English ships. And by employing some clever tactics as well as engaging in heavy and fierce fighting, he achieves his goals. And our hero Frost reveals a flair for tactics and coolness under fire that bodes very well for his wartime career.
J. E. Fender knows his subject matter, has done some excellent research, and writes well. I view this as a very good first book for the series. The Private Revolution of Geoffrey Frost is an entertaining read and provides a fresh and interesting perspective as well.
by admin on February 10, 2010
The action in Battlecruiser takes 
place from 1942 onwards. Battle cruisers shared the very large main armament of battleships, usually were of the same size and had about the same armament. However, they were lighter, had less armor and were faster than battleships. The perhaps best known example of a battle cruiser is HMS Hood (see picture below). The ship Reeman features in Battlecruiser is HMS Reliant, presented as a sister ship to HMS Renown, HMS Repulse and HMS Hood. A huge, powerful ship.
At this time, the seas
are haunted by Hitler’s deadly U-boats and cruisers. After the mysterious death of the Reliant’s last captain, Captain Guy Sherbrooke, one of only eight survivors from a ship sunk by a German battle cruiser, the HMS Pyrrhus, is given command of this ship. A symbol of everything the Royal Navy stands for, the battle cruiser boasts the speed of a destroyer and the firepower of a battleship.
Battlecruiser is one Reeman’s many good navy fiction novels. There is lots of action on land as well as on sea. The story is very well told, and we follow Captain Sherbrooke in his relationships to his admiral – a somewhat gung ho guy, his fellow officers and in a romantic affair on shore. The action flows smoothly and is well paced. There are major gunnery duels with a German heavy cruiser and an Italian battleship. And the ocean battles are also complimented by flying scenes which are every bit as exciting as the naval clashes.
Reeman’s writing is realistic and good. Battle cruisers at this point in time were basically outdated – along with the battleships – and of very limited practical use, and Reeman shows us why this is the case. Also, he shows in a very realistic fashion how the battles in the book were much less are one-sided than they might seem: a single 8-inch shell could pierce the battle cruiser’s flimsy armor, while the battleship’s greater strength may be outweighed by superior gunnery.
From some points of view – technical, in terms of research – this is a more solid book that for instance Alastair Maclean’s more famous HMS Ulysses. However, Battlecruiser is not quite as suspenseful as Maclean’s Ulysses. Still, it is a good, very well written and suspenseful book that I liked a lot.
by admin on January 31, 2010
The Golden Ocean is a relatively unknown tale of the sea by Patrick O’Brian. This was the first historical tale of the sea by Patrick O’Brian, written in 1956, before he started on the Aubrey Maturin series. It is a wonderful book that fictionalizes the incredible adventures of Commodore George Anson (later Admiral Anson
, 1st Baron Anson PC RN (23 April 1697 – 6 June 1762), a 
British admiral and a wealthy aristocrat, noted for his circumnavigation of the globe and his role overseeing the Royal Navy during the Seven Years’ War) and his small fleet of ships that set out intent on circumnavigating the globe. They experienced some of the most gut-wrenching tragedies that are imaginable and lost the majority of the men (his force went from 961 to 335 men) on the first leg of the journey, around Cape Horn. Most of them died to scurvy (lack of vitamin C).
O’Brian tells the story masterfully and very engagingly. The tale is told mostly from the perspective of a young Irish midshipman – Peter Palafox, son of an impoverished Irish parson – and it is tempered with subtle humor, wonderful irony and sidesplitting hilarity.
During the journey the fleet is continuously reduced, until they in the 
end have only one of the originally six ships left – the flagship HMS Centurion. This ship, and Lord Anson (see picture), is famous not only for having sailed around the world, but also for having captured one of the richest prizes even – a Spanish galleon full of riches – and returning to England laden to the gunnels with an incredible fortune. Wikipedia writes:
The indomitable perseverance he had shown during one of the most arduous voyages in the history of sea adventure gained the reward of the capture of an immensely rich prize, Nuestra Señora de Covadonga, possessing 1,313,843 pieces of eight, which he encountered off Cape Espiritu Santo on 20 June 1743. Anson took his prize back to Macau, sold her cargo to the Chinese, and sailed for England, which he reached … on 15 June 1744. The prize money earned by the capture of the galleon had made him a rich man for life, and it enabled his heirs to rebuild Shugborough Hall, the family estate.
The Golden Ocean tells a tale of hardship, illness, cold, shipwrecks, hunger, courage, ambition and sea battles. The writing in this book is as good as in the later and more famous novels. Here, as in O’Brian’s other novels, the characters live and breathe, they love and hate, they veer off the straight and narrow and they feel very, very authentic.
When young Peter Palafox sets out on this journey together with his lifelong friend, Sean, he hopes to find his fortune. They live through some of the worst hardships imaginable, but he does, in the end, return home with a vast fortune. The Golden Ocean is a great book, worthy of the creator of the marvelous Aubrey-Maturin series, and a delight to read for any fan of the series!
by admin on January 17, 2010
We have extensively reviewed the remarkable Master and Commander series of historical fiction novels,
featuring Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey and his particular friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, by the unsurpassable Patrick O’Brian. You can find reviews of all the books, and a lot of materials about the author Patrick O’Brian as well, by following the link above.
The movie about Jack Aubrey and his crew, also entitled Master and Commander, is no less spectacular than the book series (C.S. Forester’s book series about Horatio Hornblower has also been filmed – see our review here). In the capable hands of director Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a seafaring adventure like no other, impeccably authentic, dynamically cast, and thrilling enough to give any classic swashbuckler a run for its money.
In adapting two of Patrick O’Brian’s enormously popular novels about British naval hero Capt. Jack Aubrey, Weir and co-writer John Collee have changed the timeframe from the British/American war of 1812 to the British/French opposition of 1805, where the HMS Surprise – a ship that appears in many of the novels – under Aubrey’s confident command, is patrolling the South Atlantic in pursuit of the Acheron, a French warship with the strategic advantage of greater size, speed, and artillery.
Russell Crowe plays Jack Aubrey, and gives one of his best performances. Aubrey is firm and fiercely loyal, focused on his prey even if it means locking horns with his friend and ship’s surgeon, played by Crowe’s A Beautiful Mind costar Paul Bettany.
Employing a seamless combination of carefully matched ocean footage, detailed models, full-scale ships, and CGI enhancements, Weir pays exacting attention to every nautical detail, while maintaining a very human story of honor, warfare, and survival under wretched conditions. We experience sailing, sea tactics, and life on board a ship of this era. Raging storms and hull-shattering battles provide pulse-pounding action, and a visit to the Galapagos Islands lends a note of otherworldly wonder, adding yet another layer of historical perspective to this splendidly epic adventure.
I simply loved the movie. From beginning to end, it was extraordinary, very authentic and suspenseful, and wonderful entertainment. Anyone who enjoys action and drama will enjoy Master and Commander. It ranges from great battle scenes with the tang of salt spray to human drama.
- Actors: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd, James D’Arcy, Edward Woodall
- Directors: Peter Weir
- Writers: Peter Weir, John Collee, Patrick O’Brian
- Producers: Alan B. Curtiss, Bob Weinstein, Duncan Henderson, Harvey Weinstein
- Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC
- Language: French (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
- Studio: 20th Century Fox
- DVD Release Date: April 20, 2004
- Run Time: 138 minutes
(You can get the movie with other Region settings and subtitles as well.)
by admin on January 12, 2010
Command is the seventh book of the very interesting Kydd series by Julian Stockwin. Very unexpectedly, Thomas Kydd is appointed Commander and master of his own brig-sloop Teazer (16-gun). However, the sloop is
far from ready for sea, and Kydd must race against the clock to make her battle-ready.
Kydd feels the elation and weight of command as he, and he alone, is responsible for the successes and failures aboard his command. However, as we have come to expect, Kydd rises to the challenge, his determination and resourcefulness coming to the fore. He has worked his way up in the hierarchy of the Royal Navy all the way from the bottom, and he is not about to give up now. And he adapts to the new situation admirably. His is a leadership based entirely on his personal qualities, blessed with the common touch, and his competency as a blue water seaman.
We follow him on missions where he makes mistakes, but gradually learns and builds confidence. And, as well, he eventually succeeds in the course of a successful sea battle against La Fouine, an action which brings him revenge for an earlier exchange where the French ship almost had the better of him. Unfortunately, in the midst of this, peace “breaks out” and Kydd is sent ashore without a ship or job.
Kydd is then faced with desperate times as he faces the loss of his livelihood and his best friend. To make ends meet, he agrees to transport convicts to Australia. Little does he know that his friend Renzi, weakened by illness and embittered with the service, is also bound for that colony as a settler. There they will be forced to face their deepest fears and prove themselves against all odds.
Command is another great novel in the “Kydd” series. It is exciting and interesting. The turnaround in the relationship between Kydd and Renzi is very interesting and intriguing.
by admin on December 27, 2009
1. A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945, by Russell Spurr
A first rate military history 
book. A Glorious Way To Die: The Kamikaze Mission Of The Battleship Yamato, April 1945 dramatizes the final mission of this Japanese battleship which was the biggest battleship ever built in the history of naval warfare. Russell Spurr tells the day-by-day historic, tragic, violent events surround the final days of the battleship Yamato from both the Japanese an Allied points of view. A Glorious Way To Die is fascinating naval history and “must” reading for all World War II military studies collections.
The Battleship “Yamato” (Anatomy of the Ship), by Janusz Skulski
A detailed description of Yamato – the biggest 
battleship ever.
The battleship Yamato was a tremendous achievement for the Imperial Japanese Navy. With the greatest displacement, biggest guns and heaviest armour of all time, Yamato and her sister Musashi were the ultimate battleships. Everything about them was gigantic – for example each main-armament turret had a total revolving weight of over 2500 tons – and they proved dangerous opponents to the US Pacific Fleet. Fittingly for such a subject as Yamato, this contribution to the ‘Anatomy’ series has twice as many drawings as a standard volume. The ‘Anatomy of the Ship’ series aims to provide the finest documentation of individual ships and ship types ever published. What makes the series unique is a complete set of superbly executed line drawings, both the conventional type of plan as well as explanatory views, with fully descriptive keys. These are supported by technical details and a record of the ship’s service history.
A fascinating book about a very fascinating ship.
Battleship Missouri: An Illustrated History, by Paul Stillwell
This book has technical data on the Battleship Missouri, and much, much more. 
It gives the reader a thoroughly enjoyable view of what it was like to serve on this famous warship.
Missouri was one of the four Iowa Class Battleships (New Jersey, Missiouri, Iowa and Wisconsin). These huge ships are considered by many naval experts to be the perfect blend of speed, firepower and protection. Only the Japanese Yamoto and Musashi were bigger. When these ships were designed, no one knew that the day of the battleship was over, naval air power and aircraft carriers reigned supreme in the contest of the Pacific. There were never any huge Battleship battles such as many had imagined.
This book by Paul Stillwell is much more than nuts and bolts of the Missouri. It gives the stories behind the steel, the men who crewed the ship, providing a rare glimpse of what it was like to be a sailor aboard a mighty ship from June 1944 at her commisioning to her service in the Korean War, the Vietnam war and finally, the 1991 Gulf War. [click to continue…]
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