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I don't want to derail this thread, since we're talking about one of the best authors and books ever. But I read a lot, and someone asked on page 1 about Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. Here's my entirely subjective opinion on it and a few others. Bolitho is entertaining, if not as well-written as O'Brian (but frankly none of the other series are). Richard Bolitho has kind of a twentieth century moral code, and does his best for his crew and their families as he can within the confines of the Royal Navy. It bogs down later, when his love life begins to sound like "Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, if they were _awesome_", but picks up again when Kent focuses more on his illegitimate nephew. I liked reading the series, and the action scenes are great, but Kent doesn't make you feel for the characters themselves as much as O'Brian. Alexander Pope has his Lord Ramage series, and it's a good bit more fun to read. Ramage is a bit more realistic, and the characters seem less stuffy than the Bolitho series. Ramage himself is a young, educated nobleman who takes a page from Lord Cochrane's bio when it comes to ship-handling and strategy. He's also handsome, speaks several languages, is rich as hell, carries a throwing knife in his boot, has a posse of multicultural crew members that follow him from ship, is in love with a real-life princess, and sounds like exactly the kind of Mary Sue that a bad writer would make up. But it's really good, and he's actually entertaining. Then there's C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower. Like everyone else is saying, they're great action stories, but not that well researched. Give the guy a break. He was the first modern author to write in this genre, he started halfway through (Beat to Quarters) Hornblower's career, and sort of ret-conned his way backwards and forwards from there. Besides, the guy wrote the African Queen, and the A&E version with Ion Gruffudd was what got me into the genre to start with. Think of Hornblower as a quick watercolor sketch and Aubrey/Maturin as an oil painting of the same time-period. But the guy I recommend above any others is Dewey Lambdin. Alan Lewrie is the anti-Hornblower, the Costello to O'Brian's Abbot, and one hell of a lot of fun to read. Lewrie would rather be on shore wasting his father's money, screwing and drinking every night of the week in London. But he's basically blackmailed into the Navy, and finds out that he's actually pretty good at it. His characters are unique and full of life; as is London and British society at the time. Lewrie is an unashamed toady and catch-fart to anyone with more money or a higher rank than him, he's cheap and nasty to anyone of a lower rank (he gets better) and pretty much is the 19th century equivalent of that stereotypical rich jock who everybody hates. This is counterbalanced by the brass set of balls he has in any conflict (battle or arguments), and his bloody-minded determination to make his way in the career he hates. The guy is awesome, and just gets better every book. Lambdin also goes out of his way to call bullshit on naval cliche's and stereotypes. For example, in every one of the other series, the Ship's Purser is always a cheating bastard, who issues spoiled food and drink to the crew, takes false deductions from dead sailor's wages, and out of their kid's mouths. In real life, it was very difficult to break even, never mind turn a profit, as a Purser in the navy. Lambdin makes the ship's purser in the first few books an actually decent human being, who goes out of his way to help Lewrie without any thought of reward. And to top it off, he names the guy Cheatem  So yeah, tl;dr version: There's a lot of Naval Historical Fiction out there. Dewey Lambin is awesome, and you should go out and read The King's Coat as well. He makes it fun. Also, the movie, Master & Commander, takes stuff from like 5 books in the series, and is well worth watching (it doesn't spoil anything, really). Even though I always envisioned Aubrey and Maturin as kinda like a battle-scarred John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, the relationship between the two is well done. And after reading the books, the minor characters will just pop out at you. Killick's surliness, Bonden's skill, Padeen's mute gentleness, Awkward Davie's scariness, etc.
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Mar 28, 2011 00:05
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 05:39 |
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