Books - Review

Hornblower and the Atropos, The Happy Return, and A Ship of the Line. Nelson's funeral, El Supremo in S. America, and attacks on the Spanish coast respectively.

Jolly good.

Hornblower joins the Renown as junior lieutenant under crazy Captain Sawyer, but when Sawyer conveniently falls down the hatch and is rendered unfit for command Hornblower gets his chance to show how much cleverer than all the other lieutenants he is.

Jolly good, and, interestingly, written from Bush's perspective rather than Hornblower's.

Hornblower messes about in the Baltic with his bomb ketches etc., and, rather improbably, gets to show Clausewitz a thing or two at Riga about how to defend a siege.

Jolly good fun except when poor old Mound dies.Re-read 21 Sept 2009.

The story of Captain Krause's first Atlantic convoy in 1942, just after the US joined WW2. His first command of a destroyer, and first convoy command, he has to withstand the pressures of constant decision making, when every tiny decision could result in the death of his allies, or a lost opportunity to sink a U-boat. Called Greyhound in the US and in the film version (Tom Hanks).

Pretty good really, I've marked it down a bit because it came over as very dry, even though there was almost constant action - attacking submarines, dodging torpedoes, rescuing survivors and making calculations about which ships have enough fuel/depth charges left to be useful. Not as good as the Hornblower books, but very interesting.

Hornblower, new captain of HMS Sutherland, pops over to the Spanish Mediterranean to chase privateers, capture and burn Napoleon's supply vessels and even attack the French army who rather shortsightedly march past on the coastal path, within range of the Sutherland's guns. Also has to pull his slightly inept Admiral out of danger.

Great, very entertaining!

Opens with the beautifully described canal boat journey where Hornblower has to help out with running the boat. Then he has to organise Nelson's funeral procession up the Thames, then off to the Med with the young European royal as his newest midshipman, where he is tasked with retrieving treasure from the seabed right under the guns of the treacherous Turks.

Great stuff. Lots of peril, as per, but Hornblower stays as staunch as ever.

Hornblower jousts with French coastal forces, destroying a shore battalion, sinking a few ships, and also missing out on a fortune when he diligently pursues a French ship of war instead of joining the attack on Spanish treasure ships.

Jolly good.

Hornblower has been captured and is held in a Spanish jail along with a gravely injured Lieutenant Bush (leg gone) and the strong and faithful Brown. During transportation to Paris for trial and (they assume) execution, they escape and make their way down the river Loire, steal a captured English ship and return heroes. Meanwhile his wife has died in childbirth.

Great story.

The true story of the 9-day voyage of the German battleship Bismarck beginning when she left her harbour in the Baltic Sea on 18 May 1941 and sailed out into the North Atlantic to challenge the Allies' shipping convoys.

All true of course, except he had to invent dialogue etc. I liked the bit where a Rear Admiral shouted "Hooray!"

Hornblower has made it to Admiral! He commands a smallish squadron of smallish ships in the West Indies and has to deal with slave-traders, pirates, south American revolutionaries and kidnappers. And, I have just realised, all without his faithful Bush.

I read this in the UK on the amazing UK-Aussie trip. Dad and I debated whether we had read it before and concluded probably, yes. Not the most exciting Hornblower book, but I'm so happy he got to be Admiral!