Yep, Coonts' Flight of the Intruder ranks up there with the best aviation fiction ever. Maybe in part b/c it drew on Coonts' experience as an Intruder pilot operating off a carrier deck on Yankee Station during the Viet Nam War. His subsequent work seems paler by comparison.
Boat books, fiction
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Yep, Coonts' Flight of the Intruder ranks up there with the best aviation fiction ever. Maybe in part b/c it drew on Coonts' experience as an Intruder pilot operating off a carrier deck on Yankee Station during the Viet Nam War. His subsequent work seems paler by comparison.
dhays
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Now I will have to give one of them a try. If I like it, I'll let y'all know. If I don't, I'll just PM you.
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Alistair MacLean, "HMS ULYSSES".
OP
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Knot Fast
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I started his thread 18 months ago. Civilitas and many others suggested the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brien. It is 20 books starting with Captain and Commander (also a movie). Well, I just finished book 20, Blue at the Mizzen. Wow, what a great writer. British, and some American, maritime historical fiction set in 1795-1810. These (kindle) books kept me company while flying around looking for my boat. I bought the boat 14 months ago, and they kept me company aboard in the evenings when I was too exhausted to do any more projects. Now I have finished the series and finished the refit of my boat. Time to re-read the past posts and find some more fiction gems.
Recently I discovered Gale Force, by Owen Laukannen. An ocean-going salvage tug captained by a woman sets out to recover a partially capsized car carrier in the northern Pacific. The car carrier part of the story is closely based on the 2006 Cougar Ace incident. But Laukannen also incorporates money laundering, smuggling, murder and . . . well, read it and see.
Second the recommendation of A Voyage for Madmen, about a 1968 round-the-world sailing race in which one contestant really did go mad.
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If you enjoy historical novels you should try the Sharpes series by Bernard Cornwell. Not a nautical story but really well written. In one of the books he gives homage to Forester by using one of his characters, Rifleman Dodd.
Tom Hanks is working on a movie based on Foresters “The Good Shepard”. It will be called Greyhound. WW2 destroyer on convoy duty. Can’t wait!
Tom Hanks is working on a movie based on Foresters “The Good Shepard”. It will be called Greyhound. WW2 destroyer on convoy duty. Can’t wait!
Comodave
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I don’t know if he has been brought up yet, Wilber Smith has written many novels but two are centered around boats and the sea, Hungry as the Sea and The Eye of the Tiger.
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Not quite accurate, Sharpe actually puts in an appearance at Trafalgar.
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I would suggest that two, both Crowhurst and Motissier were madmen. There is an excellent movie, Deep Water, (3.99 on Amazon), about the race, with a lot of archival film and insightful interviews.
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Comodave
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I thought they were supposed to be fiction.
I’m about two thirds of the way, second time around. I ran out of good alternatives to that era. Start on the Hornblower series. I like them equally.
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Civilitas
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Oh, this is so upsetting. I spent 1/2 hour or more crafting a thoughtful reply and my laptop crashed and dumped it (power issue). Honestly, How often does that happen anymore? Really? I'm going to have one or two rum and Cokes and try to regain equilibrium and re-do it...
OK - re-set. Knot Fast, I'm happy I had a partial hand in guiding you to something unique in the literary world you enjoyed. I found the Aubrey-Maturin novels amazing; I started reading them around ~1994/5 and rued the day O'Brien died.* I read them I think at least two and maybe three times through up until 2010; haven't since then. Maybe in a year or two I'll start again. I recall so many scenes so vividly, from the very beginning of "Master and Commander" where Aubrey and Maturin were at a violin recital in Valetta (?), to the scary southern ocean and the shot from the cabin that sunk the Wakzamheid(?)..
So this is ostensibly a fiction thread so I'll stick my neck out on another recommendation you might like. Last year I got around to reading:
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat (LC, RNVR). RN convoy action, WWII.
Amazing. Still widely read, huge hit when it came out, major movie. But the book is moving on multiple levels, had me choked up a few times. He was an accomplished writer/part of the "smart set" in London pre-war, but volunteered and ended up on smallboys in the North Atlantic. This novel is fictional and it lets him be both literary but with a grounding in the sea and war that is rarely matched with such talent. He also has a string of other maritime and naval stories; I have not read them yet but will this winter.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/183586.The_Cruel_Sea
I read William Brinkley's The Last Ship this past spring. It is quite good. I know there is a cable series ripped off of it, but it's not the same. The novel explores both the nature of command, cold war psychology, and they duty the sea and service demand. I can't help but think Brinkley (an accomplished print and screen writer) was channeling Melville but decided to take the proposition "I am not insane." Honestly, this book blew me away on many points. I think it has been massively underrated, in it's humanity, it's anti-sexist POV, it's trans-nationalism. I think this book is going to be taught a lot in the future and many PhD's will be minted on Melville vs. Brinkley. I wish I was younger, I'd do it. I have no knowledge of the TNT show so don't conflate the two. As far as I can tell, they just ripped off the title for the TV show.
Brinkley is a lot like Monsarrat, an experienced sailor, journalist, exposed to war and compelled to write about it.
Ok, off Fiction but I think I have a few NF in mind you may be interested in. First off:
William F. Buckley's Atlantic High and Racing Through Paradise. The first a trans-Atlantic story; a meditation on sailing, crews, planning, navigation, lifestyle and life. The second very similar and about a trans-pac. Both taught me things; I read them in the early 90s when I was on the east coast and sailing all the time; have not re-read them since then, but he's a great thinker and writer, they are worth checking out.
Now if I have your trust I'm going to delve in to some more interesting Non-Fiction that has amazed me for a decade-plus. I'm talking about the works of the Professor-Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison (now how often do you see those combined epithets?). It's not going to happen, but I'd love to die with "Professor-Admiral" on my tombstone...
Morison was a Harvard (boula-boula!) professor, New-England blue-blood, but a man of thought and action. Before WWII, he decided to try to re-trace Columbus' voyage on his own, navigating with only what Columbus could have used, re-tracing the voyage and adding context to the hand-ed down history. Common literary or adventure journalism now, but in 1939?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1413941.Admiral_of_the_Ocean_Sea
I highly recommend "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." You will not buy the PC version of Columbus if you read a real history. But wait, there's more:
So when America entered WWII, Morison decided he'd go to the Navy department, volunteer to be their historian if they sent him in harm's way (great John Wayne movie, btw) and let him write about it. They said, "Go away, old man,' (kinda just like the Navy did to me in 2002 when I tried to re-activate my commission to go the Gulf, but that's another story!). But Morison had resources use mere mortals do not.
He was personal friends with FDR. He shrugged off the BuNav rejection and just went to the White House and sold FDR on it. FDR ordered he be given a USNR 0-6 Captain commission and free reign to go where he wanted. So he spent the war moving around the Navy interviewing who he wanted, cruising on ships he wanted, tracking battles or their aftermaths. Unparalleled access, observation, recording.
After the war, Harvard gave him space and the Navy gave him support staff to put it all into books. He wrote 15 volumes between ~1947 and ~1961 on the chronological actions of the US Navy on both fronts. They are all stand-alone readable. I spent my years in grad school ducking my science work, curled up or in my condo reading these - several times over. There are other books on Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, etc., but none so infused with authority, literary quality, unique maps, and the unique feature that the author was (sometimes/rarely) there, but always had unlimited access to participants, interviews, naval records. This is like Thucydides on steroids.
OK, I've bloviated on a lot. If you have the stamina for all of Patrick O'Brien, and you like amazing sea tales, check out the real ones from Samuel Eliot Morison and the History of the United States Navy in World War II. I bought all the books piecemeal or in chunks off Ebay at the time (2002 to 2003), but a few dollars can get you a used copy. Get the hardbound books as the maps, orders of battle, etc. are not going to translate digitally.
OK, I guess that rum and coke helped re-frame my mood and I ran on a bit...
*My Christian name is John, my family name is difficult to pronounce it your aren't German (even the Dutch mess it up, but they seem to be lazy IMO). But my middle name is from the progenitor of Clan McDonough in Ireland - Brian/Bryan, from Bryan Boru. So I always like the fact I had a tie back nine or ten centuries to Patrick O'Brien.
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FF
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The Lord Ramage Novels Series in Order - Dudley Pope ...
https://www.fictiondb.com › author › dudley-pope~series~the-lord-ramage...
The complete series list for - The Lord Ramage Novels Dudley Pope . Series reading order, cover art, synopsis, sequels, reviews, awards, publishing history, ...
https://www.fictiondb.com › author › dudley-pope~series~the-lord-ramage...
The complete series list for - The Lord Ramage Novels Dudley Pope . Series reading order, cover art, synopsis, sequels, reviews, awards, publishing history, ...
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Sailor of Fortune
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I enjoyed those books years ago and recently re read Hungry as the sea. Very fun read
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I read Tod Moran stories when I was a kid. Great reading.
dhays
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I posted a while back that I would check out one of your books. I just finished reading “Circle of Bones” the 1st book in the second series you mentioned above. I enjoyed it and have now got the second book in the series to read.
I really appreciate that you actually know what your writing about when it comes to sailing and boating in general. There are a few details that would make many TFers happy (anchoring, gasoline engines, use of radar, etc...). The genre is not normally one that I am drawn to (conspiracy theory mysteries) but it is well written and fun.
She is on Kindle now. I am in the middle of one of hers "Surface Tension" at the moment and enjoying it immensely.
An enthusiastic two thumbs up for the Hiscock recommendation. They were impressively salty mariners who shared their experiences with modesty and a spare but eloquent narrative voice. When a young sailor, I bought and read their entire ouvre. The Hiscocks' thoughtful reflections on boatbuilding and seamanship offer a lot for anyone to think about. Though we never met, I was saddened to learn when they had passed away
rgano
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Okay, I just saw Greyhound, and read the book it is based on earlier in the year. I enjoyed both and recommend them without hesitation. That said, for the nitpickers and nautical buffs, yes, I am one of those, here are some observations.
Despite what was in the film, the book is more believable from an anti-submarine warfare point of view as of February 1942, the period of the film. Our destroyers and crews were PITIFULLY behind the power curve without radar and inadequate SONAR without the adjunct gear like sonar recorders and other peripheral equipment rapidly developed and placed aboard the ships as the war progressed – these pieces of gear made tracking and attacks more successful. The whole operation was carried on by the bridge personnel with reference to the guy in the SONAR “closet (it was tiny) at the back of the bridge – no CIC with under-lighted dead reckoning trace (DRT) table with people plotting nice submarine limiting lines of approach and all that handy stuff. That any subs were sunk at all in the early months of the war was a miracle. I was actually trained on some of that WWII equipment in ASW officer school because we still had some ships equipped with it in 1970.
The Fletcher class “can” is too early in Feb 1942 because the first Fletcher was commissioned four months after this movie’s time, and they were not routinely involved in escorting merchant convoys, but using museum Fletchers was what the filmmakers had to go on. CS Forster posited a more likely Mahan class, but I believe they all served in the Pacific anyway. We had mostly WWI four-stackers on the east coast at the beginning of the war, probably lacking any SONAR at all.
Uniform. The underway uniform for US Navy officers would have been based upon wash khakis with “organizational” i.e. foul weather gear worn over the khaki. Those black shirts in the movie were not brought into service until many years after the war. NOBODY wore a combination cap at sea like Hanks did, and the dress blues Hanks has on at the end (my favorite uniform) were definitely for shore-going.
GQ alarm. An “aoogah” as in a sub’s diving alarm, really? The surface ship GQ alarm is a gong, gong, gong.
CIC or “combat.” This concept was not brought about until well into the Guadalcanal campaign in late 1942-43. XO in CIC at GQ was probably a good practice then, but when I was XO, the captain placed me on the bridge and fought the ship from CIC where all the information was.
Radar. The few radars fitted to our ships in early 1942 did not have PPI scopes but rather A-scopes which were extremely difficult to use and even involved actually stopping the radar antenna from scanning and sweeping it left and right across the suspected bearing.
Radar range in heavy seas is ridiculously long in this movie in one case seeing a conning tower at six miles.
40 mm gun mounts. First, quad forties were not aboard any destroyer in early 1942. I was most amused by the low sound level clicking in the sound track as the mounts were trained. They were electrically driven and did not “click.” The radar dish seen on one of the quad mounts was a fire control piece of gear I had on 3-inch guns in the 1970s but were doubtless put on 40’s in the 1950s before they were phased out in the mid-fifties by the 3”/50 .
The conning officer and helmsman/lee helmsman order and response dance aboard a naval vessel has a VERY strict sequence, cadence, and rhythm to which no captain will brook any violation. Rudder commands in the movie are all over the place and messy to my ear. Commands like “meet her” without a follow-up course to steer or being steered by the helm and just ordering “reciprocal course” were just plain wrong. The order to zigzag followed by a rudder angle – just wrong. Zigzag plans were very specific and timed. There were lots of others, but I just let them wash over me as I watched the action on the screen.
U-boat hubris. I never read of a U-boat crew taunting escorts over the voice radio - they were too busy sinking ships or being sunk to engage in idle radio banter.
White flashlight on a nighttime bridge for captain to read message – whoa!! NO!
Springfield 1903 rifles used as firing squad – accurate.
The crowded and compact red-lighted bridge with all the talkers and the complications of listening to and comprehending three or four people and radios at once, especially in the darkness in the lead up to firing guns and depth charges put me right back on several destroyer bridges during ASW exercises . The tension and just palpable bit of potential confusion developed by the filmmakers was accurate if not all the teeny tiny details were.
Coming off the bridge after many extra hours nearly crippled by shin splints, even as a young officer, if not the bloody feet like Hanks, was so realistic to me, my legs ached all over again. Hell, I was doing that on destroyers until I was 59 years old. Some people never learn. Duh.
When the movies we were issued by the Navy Motion Picture Service came aboard before each underway period or we swapped with other ships at sea, we always checked out whatever the previous viewers had thought of the flick as indicated by scribblings in ink on the three- or four-reel olive drab cases they came in. Those marked with “GFF” (standing for good f____g flick) were snapped up first, usually by the chiefs’ mess. I give Greyhound the high accolade of GFF.
Here's a photo I took of one of those Fletcher beauties in 1968 pulling away from the ammo ship I was on. That's the mountainous terrain of Vietnam in the background. Note mount 53, the middle one has been removed from this ship.
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rgano
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Given the confusingly rapid pace at which change was being effected on British and US ships, Forester can be forgiven some his technological errors. Many of the errors committed in the movie could have been ironed out with some technical consulting early on before they got into the graphics development. All in all, a fine movie and book. On the non-technical front, I noted that they lifted the added grind of a divorce from the poor guy's mind as written by Forester and gave him the hope of what appeared to be a second chance at love. That guy's life was GRIM.
OldDan1943
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I like books on tape because I can listen to them anywhere and any time..
I have suggested to them, put is a sleep timer so I can drift off and immediately start where I left off. I'm still waiting.
Rick Campbell is the author I have enjoyed. He has written a few books involving nuc subs.
Only minor mistake when it comes to activities aboard the subs. The rest is most definitely fiction.
Now, if they had audio for books like Voyage under Power..... SIGH
Maybe a book or two on RADAR instruction and the operation of a sextant etc, the world would be a better place. Great for 'following along.'
I have suggested to them, put is a sleep timer so I can drift off and immediately start where I left off. I'm still waiting.
Rick Campbell is the author I have enjoyed. He has written a few books involving nuc subs.
Only minor mistake when it comes to activities aboard the subs. The rest is most definitely fiction.
Now, if they had audio for books like Voyage under Power..... SIGH
Maybe a book or two on RADAR instruction and the operation of a sextant etc, the world would be a better place. Great for 'following along.'
OldDan1943
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Clive Cussler has written many paperbacks, most with a nautical theme. My favorite is his 'Oregon' series, that being the name of a tramp steamer for appearances-sake that is really a high-tech spy ship. Yes, the story lines are predictable, but the books move fast with lots of action, great reading when you're on the hook. And the main character always gets the girl, which is the most important.......isn't it?
A lot of CUSSLER'S are books on tape too.
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Mike Lowthian
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Boat books - fiction
I also loved The Cruel Sea by Monsarrat. Have read it at least 3 times over the last 40 years, first time as a teenager.
I also loved The Cruel Sea by Monsarrat. Have read it at least 3 times over the last 40 years, first time as a teenager.
