"Best Age of Sail Reads?" Topic

OK, I'm sure this is in here somewhere before…but I didn't find it.

CS Forester:
Hornblower (11 books), a classic I know.
The Captain from Connecticut. Just read, great book.

Alexander Kent:
Bolitho series (series), another series I get at the library.

Jon Williams:
Privateers and Gentlemen (series). The author of Heart of Oak is a novelist! These books got 4+/5 ratings at Amazon, but I've never heard of them.

What authors/books can I add to this? I don't need lengthy detailed debates, bullet-point opinions are fine. I will use Amazon to check availability as well as get them at the library.

I'm especially a nut for historical detail, authenticity, etc. But I'm not above bending history a little for a great plot, character development, etc!

Thanks!

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. You can't go wrong. I hear that Dewey Lambdin's Lewrie series is particularly good as well, but I haven't gotten to those yet.

Dudley Pope's Ramage series and Buccaneer's series are both good reads.

Kenneth Roberts' "The Lively Lady" and "Captain Caution"

J.E. Fender: "The Private Revolution of Geoffrey Frost: 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". Really! And four more…

James L. Nelson: "The Guardship", "The Black Bird", and "The Pirate Round"; "By Force of Arms", "The Maddest Idea", "The Continental Risque", "Lords of the Ocean", and "All the Brave Fellows"

Julian Stockwin: ten "Kydd Sea Adventures" so far; if you like "Sharpe"…

Allen

Note that Privateers and Gentlemen is related to the RPG of the same title, which also had a miniatures game whose name escapes me at the moment.

Other authors include C. Northcote Parkinson and his Delancey novels. He also wrote a "biography" of Hornblower.

Very hard to find is Adam Hardy's "Fox" series. These are not the best, but I have always enjoyed them. Think of a Lambdin book written in the 70's.

Meacham wrote a three book set about the HEIC.

There was an author named Maynard with three books about a character named Lamb, but sadly the author passed away after three books.

Tom Connery wrote a three book series starting with (I think) Markham of the Marines. Ostensibly about the commander of a marine group on a frigate, most of the action takes place on land during the French Revolution. Very formulamatic per the "Sharpe" series it was still worth the time invested by me. Check the library or the discount racks.

Here is a link to an essay I wrote on authors, their books, and my opinions from an old web site:

link

Yikes! That stuff is over ten years old!!

However it is still a good starting point--it just doesn't cover anything published THIS CENTURY. (Hangs head in shame.)

Hope you enjoy it or find it useful.

Ed

Another nod to Patrick O'Brian. In addition to the Aubrey/Maturin series he did two novels that I also remember being very good. The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore.

As an aside, even though Master and Commander (the movie) hashes up the plot of maybe two or three of his novels, it is an amazing historical movie. Well worth watching on Blu Ray if available.

Read any of Samuel Eliot Morison's biographies, histories of great captains from the age of sail, including Columbus, John Paul Jones and the 2 volumes of the European Discovery of America, certainly not fiction, but well written history.

C Northcote Parkinson – The Devil to Pay, and another I can't recall, along with a 'biography' of your man Hornblower.
Slightly out of period, John James wrote a pair, Talleyman (potato famine link) and Talleyman on the Ice (the only Crimean naval fiction I've come across).

I enjoyed the 'Under Enemy Colours' by Sean Thomas Russell. Only published last year, it seems to be the start of a series set right at the start of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

Full of action and technical detail, as far as I know -I'm a former naval officer, but I definitely prefer gas turbines to sails!

I enjoyed the Patrick O'Brien books, and though I suspect this book does not have quite the same gravitas, it is seriously enjoyable, if that makes sense!

On the subject of Samuel Eliot Morrison, I had the priviledge of working with the fine crew of the USS Samuel E Morrison. Nice to work with a navy that takes history so seriously that it named one of its frigates after a naval historian – mind you he was in the service himself.

Kind Regards,

Sparker

There's a guy called Smalley or Smelley (I think) who wrote a book called "HMS Expedient" – was quite good, as I recall.

Okay who is going to ask next for the best DVD?
VR
James Mattes

OK, I'll bite since I was at the library and they had a ton of Hornblower TV series!

"What is the best DVD?" :)

Alright, we know about "Master and Commander" already…

re: DVD I like an oldie, "Damn the Defiant" with Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, etc

Slightly out of period, John James wrote a pair, Talleyman (potato famine link) and Talleyman on the Ice (the only Crimean naval fiction I've come across).

V.A. Stuart

The Valiant Sailors: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.1
Brave Captains: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.2
Hazard's Command: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.3
Hazard of Huntress: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.4
Hazard in Circassia: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.5
Victory at Sebastopol: Phillip Hazard Novels, No.6
Guns to the Far East: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.7
Escape From Hell: The Phillip Hazard Novels, No.8

I liked her Indian Mutuny series too

Jon Williams

Walter Jon Williams. Roger Zelazny protegee, he writes (wrote?) a lot of SF. Very good writer IMO