![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's 1805. Young, eager Horatio Hornblower has been given captaincy of the Atropos, one of his Majesty's smallest ships worthy of a captain, and only carrying 22 guns. She's still fitting out when Hornblower arrives in Portsmouth after a journey from Gloucestershire on a fast canal boat. His wife, Maria, is within days of giving birth to their second child. His first order is to organise Nelson’s funeral procession up the Thames. Then he's sent to join the Mediterranean fleet, so with his new daughter barely hours old, he sets sail. His first officer is a little dull and unimaginative, and he has a European prince on board as a new midshipman. Gradually he sets everything in order. He has to retrieve treasure from Marmeris Bay off the Turkish coast, without alerting the Turkish authorities. It's a difficult and dangerous mission which he completes by the skin of his teeth. After that he rejoins the Mediterranean fleet andengages the Catillia. It's really a collection of short stories strung together, but it hangs together as a novel. Christian Rodska's reading is good, though his first Lieutenant sounds just like Mr Bush in previous novels.
Audiobook.
Although this is number three in the chronological list of Hornblower stories, it’s one of the last to be written. It’s choc full of technical sailing ship details, most of which went over my head, but I presume everything is accurate, so I’m full of admiration. The detail is not indigestible by any means. We begin with Hornblower’s ill-advised marriage to Maria which he is going through with simply because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. She calls him Horry, which makes him squirm. He’s been promoted to the rank of Commander and been given the captaincy of the three-masted Hotspur, small in comparison to the naval ships of the line. He’s managed to request Mr. Bush as his first lieutenant and their friendship is strong enough for Mr. Bush to call him ‘sir’ instead of (as it was before Hornblower’s recent promotion) the other way around. The Peace of Amiens is still holding, but it’s looking like the war with Napoleonic France will soon reignite, so Hornblower and the Hotspur are stationed off the port of Brest, keeping an eye on shipping and estimating the strength of the French navy. Various adventures, naval confrontations and personal dilemmas make this a gripping listen. It’s well narrated by Christian Rodska
I read a lot of Hornblower books as a teen, but that's a long time ago and the details have blurred. This is the second Hornblower book, chronologically, following on from Midshipman Hornblower which I recently revisited via the TV series. Forester starts off with a bang, right into the high-tension meat of the story with a paranoid Captain Sawyer rapidly sliding into madness and all the officers - including a very junior Lieutenant Hornblower - trying to follow naval regulations on a ship where the captain's word is, quite literally, law. To remove the captain from his post would be mutiny and a hanging offence, but eventually the lieutenants meet in secret to discuss the matter, only to be discovered and in the confusion as they scatter, the captain falls down a hatch on to his head and is disabled, but not dead. Did he fall or was he pushed? The rest of the story is sailing, sea battles, pirates, hand-to-hand fighting and Hornblower's first independent command, plus his most difficult dilemma, his landlady's daughter Maria. It's all written from the viewpoint of Mr Bush, the Lieutenant immediately senior to Hornblower, which works well in this case because of the did he fall or was he pushed question. This is #2 chronologically, but is #7 to be written out of an 11 book series. It's read by Christian Rodska, who does an excellent job with both the voices and the action sequences.
This is the first Hornblower book chronologically, but the sixth in publication order. The series was written in the 1930s, through to the 1960s. This particular one being published in 1950. I can understand why these books made such a good TV series (1998 to 2003). Its nature is episodic and each chapter makes a good story in itself. Set in the French Revolutionary wars, Horatio Hornblower, a green seventeen-year-old midshipman is doubly green when seasick on his way to his first position, Seasick at Spithead are the words that dog his early miserable experiences of being a midshipman under a senior midshipman bully, and a weak captain. He comes into his own when transferred to the Indefatigable, presided over by the excellent Captain Edward Pellew. I read this book in my teen years, then watched the eight-episode series with Ioan Gruffudd perfectly cast as Hornblower, and Robert Lindsay as Pellew. There’s the story of the duel of honour, the cargo of rice, the fireship incident when Hornblower’s examination for Lieutenant is interrupted by an attack on the British fleet in harbour. Forester’s writing is as fresh today as it was when I read it in my youth. I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Hornblower on audiobook, beautifully read by Christian Rodska.
