Ship of the Line

Rating:
Summary: Excellent. One of the best of the Hornblower Saga
Review: A great read. Full of action with a great ending. The saga is less enjoyable after this one.

Rating:
Summary: You feel like you're walking the deck.
Review: After returning home from a very successful voyage to the Americas Captain Hornblower is assigned to a larger ship of the line with two gun decks, the Sutherland. He is assigned to the fleet blockading the Mediterranean coast of Spain where Napoleon's French fleet and the Spanish navy are prevented from supplying Napoleon's armies. In classic Hornblower style Hornblower isn't content to sail idly back and forth, so he finds ways to attack harbors, canals, and a French army near the shore. After several courageous engagements Hornblower becomes the only English ship between 4 enemy vessels and their safe harbor. The remainder of the English fleet is over the horizon, several hours away under sail in light winds. Following orders from the fleet Admiral Hornblower attacks all four, severely damaging three of them before the superior weight of the more numerous enemy fleet renders his ship useless. The wreckage drifts down current into the lee shore and a Spanish harbor where Hornblower is captured. As usual, Hornblower is filled with self doubts. If he ever escapes will he be stripped of his rank or even hanged for losing his ship? Will he ever see his beloved Barbara, wife of the Admiral, again? The detail of ships and sailing in the early 19th century make the Hornblower series must reading for any man who loves the sea.

Rating:
Summary: A pleasing complexity for a derring-do story
Review: After seeing a spate of Hornblower TV features, I finally picked up one to read. I expected a sort of gung-ho boys' book. Instead, Ship of the Line draws a complex, interesting character who lacks either the saccharine of many "boys' books" of the late 19th or early 20th centuries or the "grit over good" tone of the rather ridiculous "tough mercenary kills all" modern cheap war paperback. I will immediately proceed to read the other ten, and I advise the reader to do so as well. Forester is trying to give us a naval social history lesson, wrapped in a complex heroic figure, and he by and large succeeds.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling writing
Review: As the preceding volume, Beat to Quarters, shows the end of a long voyage, so here we get to see the curious activities attending on the the start of another--the captain personally responsible for acquiring his crew and his victuals (and to be repaid from prizes possibly awarded from the sale of hoped-for captured enemy ships). Second in the original series (#6 in the whole), Ship of the Line soon sees Hornblower in the Mediterranean serving in a squadron of four under his near-lover's stodgy Admiral-husband. (We remain as achingly puzzled as Hornblower how the smart Lady Barbara could ever condescend to marry this wart.) Whenever Hornblower manages detached duty he is at his best, terrorizing the French, and their army(!), on the Catalan coast, where the sea crashes into the Pyrenees.

The action in this type of novel is not much fiction, but artful transformations of actual events from the long-running Napoleonic Wars, down to actual ship manoeuvres. As you read other naval novels, you will recognize certain episodes repeating, like the "cutting out" expedition here. Always they are put in different contexts, however, featuring a different cast of idiosyncratic characters. It is hard to devine why Hornblower has such fear and doubts about his own abilities, when he is worshipped by his men (more perspicacious than he!), and becomes absolutely possessed in hot battle, a human computer! He is a great contrast in this regard to O'Brian's stolid Capt. Aubrey, but that is one way in which each series is uniquely worth reading (similarly with Lambden's racy, or Woodman's severe, traversals of much of the same naval territory, up the same ladder of command).

Maybe I read too many modern novels, with their grimey action and prose to match, but C.S. Forester stands out as an impressively good writer because he lacks the crutches of gore and sex. I could not put this down; even though the author gives you chapter breaks, his measured cadence and rolling words just kept me going into the wee 'ours. There's a palpable joy to reading Forester. You become aware what an artful choice of words can do. I think if I read the whole Hornblower series one right after another, I would begin to sound like him! If the language of sailing ships is a mystery to you, the new DVD of A&E's TV mini-series on Horatio Hornblower includes a glossary. But Forester does not delight in obscure, archaic expressions as does O'Brian. Having a nautical reference handy makes the confusing swirl of the climatic battle a little less of a muddle, although its horrifying devastation is quite clear enough already.

Rating:
Summary: ENDS ON CLIFFHANGAR
Review: Excellent book. But just remember...BUY FLYING COLOURS AS WELL. This book ends on a cliffhangar that you cannot concentrate on DeCartes' theorems in class because you are aching to know what will happen next.

This books completely set the stage for the internally-evntful FLYING COLOURS, especially with the frequent haunting memories of young Horatio. Full of foreshadowing, we cannot help but pity our Captain as he hits rock bottom after so much good luck.

Makes ya wonder why everything HAD to happen to him. *sad*

Rating:
Summary: Another Excellent Book In An Excellent Series
Review: I have finally acquired all the books in the series and have been reading them in chronological order of Hornblower's career.

This is a great book. A little slow in the beginning. Hornblower has to get an aging Danish two decker (74) outfitted and manned. The book goes over all the difficulties of manning a ship after nearly 15 years of war. All the best seamen and topmen are exempt due to working in the Honorable East India Company. As is to be expected, most of his new men come from the press gangs and the jails. Landlubbers all....

But once at sea, he shapes them up and molds a crew that will fight. He is part of a small squadron of ships that is sent to harass Napolean's flank. They are sent to interdict the supplies coming from Barcelona.

As can be expected, Hornblower does a comendable job. He has several immediate astonishing successes. When his new admiral comes on the scene, the failures begin to happen. The admiral appears to not be quite the seaman or tactician that is required for this venture. He apparently received his command through the influence of his new wife's (Lady Barbara Wellesley) family.

During these failures, Hornblower saves the day by rescuing the admirals flagship, accomplishing a strategic withdrawal from a land attack after the Spanish abandoned him and finally...

The end of the book is quite surprising. Hornblower discovers a French squadron of ships of the line, four in all, including one three decker of over 80 guns. He knows the strategic value of slowing or stopping this squadron. After 24 hours of shadowing this squadron, he makes the decision to fight it out. Knowing that his ship will become a wreck and that most of his crew will be killed or maimed, he goes at them.....

This is a good book and a fast read.

Rating:
Summary: Hornblower's Personal and Poffesional Woes
Review: In 'Ship of the Line' daring British sea capatin Horatio Hornblower fights not only the French under the tyrant Napoleon, but his own heart as well. After falling in love with Lady Pamela Wellesley his hopes are shattered when she marries an admiral whose ego considerably outweighs his talents. What is worse Hornblower's conscience is racked with guilt over his disloyalty to his own wife, Maria. But before this becomes too much of a soap opera Forester plunges Hornblower into the dangerous swashbuckling sea where he uses every trick in the book to ensnare his French opponents. The ending is perhaps the greatest cliff hanger in all the series which leads into the next novel, 'Flying Colours.' Only a writer of Forester's genius can create so well both the moving human story and great adventure that is 'Ship of the Line.'

Rating:
Summary: One of the best in this series of novels.
Review: It seems that by the time Forester wrote the predecessor to this novel, "Beat to Quarters" he had gained maturity and considerable ability as a writer. By this point in the series he is writing a whole lot more about what Hornblower is feeling and thinking and that makes this a much better novel than some of its predecessors. I think the battle scenes too have gained quality and are even more exciting now. I very much look forward to starting the next novel in the series.

Rating:
Summary: This is an exciting, action packed novel.
Review: Lots of great sea battles, it is one of the best books in the Hornblower saga.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best in the series
Review: Mr. Forester is on his game in "Ship of the Line". From the problems of molding a crew from the scum of the impress gangs, to jelosy of the man that married his girl to the most dramatic pitched battle of the series, this book has it all.