When it comes to genre of nautical historical fiction set in the late 18th to early 19th century there are two series that are a must read. Though the C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower may be better known, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is at least its equal and in some ways it's superior. Both modeled their main characters on Lord Thomas Cochrane a daring naval officer with radical bent to his politics.
Though the character of Aubrey is loosely based on a real person and many of the events in the stories are based on real events, it is not all entirely accurate and there is far more action taking place during the years 1813 through 1814 than in the previous 13 years. But that's why it's called fiction so don't get too bent out of shape over it.
The real story here though is the ever evolving relationship between two opposites. Jack Aubrey, the brilliant naval commander, his world revolves around duty, ships and the sea with little understanding or patience for anything else, and Stephen Maturin, the naturalist, surgeon and sometime spy, highly educated, perfectly at home in the world of politics and intrigue, but totally lost when it comes to naval matters.
The contrast between the two characters allows O'Brian to use one or the other as a reason to explain things to the reader without having to step out of character and offers many opportunities for humor as they take their turns being out of the elements.
O'Brian brings just the right balance between action and technical details. His depiction of life in the Royal Navy during this period has been described as second to none. His writing style stays as much in character as the characters themselves with heavy does of naval jargon and period idioms that take some getting used to if you are not already familiar with them, (there are whole books written now to help readers understand what exactly it all means). After a while though you soon become accustomed to the style and it all seems perfectly natural and gives the whole series a far more authentic feel than many of the other series' in this genre.
I have one caution to give on this series though, that is to not judge the entirety of the series based on the first book in it. Master and Commander, (unlike the movie) deal mostly with Aubrey's life ashore and his rather poor attempts at courting. Things pick up once they get to sea and the series continues to improve from there. The movie of the same name is actually based on events from Master and Commander, HMS Surprise, The Letter of Marque and The Far Side of the World.
Dudley Pope's entry into the historical fiction arena is the Lord Ramage novels. Set between the years 1796 and 1807, the action is fast paced and the details of the ship handling is sometimes overwhelming, but at least it's educational. You can almost picture yourself knowing how to handle a ship of the line by the time you complete the series (almost..). Pope's knowledge of the subject mater, both historical and nautical shows through in every chapter.
Lord Ramage himself is a likable character, heavily dependent on luck, he bounces from one adventure to next, always seeming to be in the right place at the right time to be in the midst of all the major events of the time. When ever things seem hopeless, Ramage reaches into his bottomless bag of tricks and comes up with some new twist to confound the French and accomplish his mission with minimal losses and maximum damage.
Pope's writing is everything you want in an adventure book, well paced, engaging and entertaining. The characters go through various growth moments through the series but never lose their essential qualities that make you like them from the start.
Simon R. Green's Nightside series is one of the more recent entries into the sf/fantasy mystery genre. Joining the ranks of Glen Cook's Garrett, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake and Jm Butcher's Dresden Files just to name a few. Green's approach to the genre is more in line with Cook's, a classic hard boiled detective mixed with a twisted sense of humor and good dose of parody.
Somewhere near London exists the Nightside. The place where all those things that we don't admit to existing polite society hang out and where all your dreams can become reality. Whether you like it or not. John Taylor is a detective and just his name can be enough to scare most the locals into giving him what he wants. Taylor's gift is to be able to find things. He can find anything he sets his mind too, but using his gift can have a price. Everything in Nightside has a price.
Though each book is a self contained with it's own resolution at the end, the series itself follows Taylor's quest to find out who he is, where he comes from and who really controls the Nightside. Taylor embarks on his adventures with a number of various companions, side kicks and enemies from all walks of life, death and miscellaneous realities. Green's back ground in Space Operas (the Deathstalker series) can be seen here in the unique characters he brings to his work.
The Nightside series is probably Green's best work to date. Good plots, interesting characters who, unlike many of the more one dimensional arch types often found in this style, go through some character growth and display occasional bits of of depth. All in all they are good fun and enjoyable reads.
Alxeander Kent's Bolitho novels is yet another series set in the Age of Sail, set around the Napoleonic wars and the American Revolution. Instead of focusing on the major battles like most of his colleagues, Kent sends his hero, Richard Bolitho to those lesser know but theaters of war bringing the reader a little wider view of conflicts of the period not normally seen in these period pieces. Unfortunately thats about the best I can say of this series. This work is not so much historical fiction as historical melodrama.
As the stories follow young Bolitho from Midshipman to Admiral, the character totally fails to develop any additional depth or show any signs of change other than the title before his name. Time and again we are told of Bolitho's charisma and his inspiring leadership, which is a good thing since we would never know it from the actions of the character himself. Kent portrays Bolitho as a somewhat distorted mirror of Nelson, often making comparison between the two and having Bolitho follows in his footsteps both in his career and his social life, with the primary focus being on the social life.
With a lot of other historical fiction of this period you can usually at least count on some good history. Not here, the war itself is more of backdrop to the melodrama being played out by the characters. There is more attention paid to the social and emotional affairs of Bolitho than to the events in the world. They are almost portrayed as merely an inconvenience to their otherwise busy lives.
Occaionaly mention of major historic events are made just to remind the reader that there are major events unfolding in the world. Even the descriptions of the battles are more done as more hand wave to period. A few repeates of "On the Uproll", "As you bear, Fire!" followed by "Stop you vents, Sponge Out, Load, Run Out" and repeat. Little is made of tactics and the technical side of ship handling is summed up by the repeating of the lines "Main the braces", "Put helm down" and "Main sail haul" I often found myself wondering this is a result of cut and paste or a keyboard macro, either way it gets very tiring to read.
If you like stories of this period go read Foster, Pope or O'Brian
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