Battlecruiser (The Modern Naval Fiction Library) [Paperback]

Douglas Reeman (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Modern Naval Fiction Library | Publication Date: September 1, 2003

It's 1943, and the seas are haunted by Hitler's deadly U-boats and cruisers. After the mysterious death of the Reliant's last captain, Guy Sherbrooke is given command of the legendary battlecruiser. A symbol of everything the Royal Navy stands for, the battlecruiser boasts the speed of a destroyer and the firepower of a battleship.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Douglas Edward Reeman, who also writes under the name Alexander Kent, joined the British Navy at 16, serving on destroyers and small craft during World War II, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant. He has taught navigation to yachtsmen and has served as a script adviser for television and films. As Alexander Kent, Reeman is the author of the best-selling Richard Bolitho Novels. His books have been translated into nearly two dozen languages.

From AudioFile

Here's a nicely told saga of the last British battlecruiser, the HMS RELIANT, as she goes about her final tasks in WWII. With more than 12 million copies of his books in print under his own name and that of Alexander Kent, Reeman knows how to tell a terse, technically accurate, somewhat predictable war story. Reader David Rintoul continues Chivers's tradition of engaging, highly competent British actors; he makes each character come alive with intonation alone. D.W. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: McBooks Press (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159013043X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590130438
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #914,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aged Ship Battles German Navy in WII, July 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Battlecruiser (Chivers Sound Library) (Audio Cassette)

Battle Cruisers were designed to have the speed of cruisers and the firepower of battleships. The trade off was light armour which resulted in 3 of their breed being sunk at Jutland in WWI and the Hood being sunk during inital salvos against the Bismarck in WWII. Battle Cruiser features one such ship and its crew from the latter part of 1942 until the Allied landings in Sicily in 1943.

I have read several of Reeman's novels in quick succession and they are formulaic. Typically, the captain is a man of uncompromising character who, while he made have doubts, maintains a solid, calm and humane face to the crew. There is usually a second character in the ranks who is similarly heroic or is developed further as the story flows. Both usually have love interests that don't run smooth initially. In this case the second character is a Canadian pilot flying from the ship. More often he is the second in command.

Battle Cruiser is one of Reeman's most polished efforts. The action at sea and on land flows smoothly and we have few extended breaks between the battles at sea. The ocean battles are complimented by flying scenes which are as exciting as the naval clashes. The climactic scene at the Sicilian invasion is a real nail biter.

Reeman has written a lot of these stories and they are very similar. By the time Battle Cruiser was written, Reeman had polished his craft. None of his books are War and Peace but they are entertaining when done well and, with what Reeman tried to achieve in Battle Cruiser, he did well.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Authentic WWII naval yarn with a human side, February 13, 2005

By 

T. D. Welsh (Basingstoke, Hampshire UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Battlecruiser (The Modern Naval Fiction Library) (Paperback)

This is a fast-paced, entertaining story of the war at sea, and one of the few to be set on board a capital ship. Gunnery duels with a German heavy cruiser and an Italian battleship are both shown to be less one-sided than they might seem: a single 8-inch shell could pierce the battlecruiser's flimsy armour, while the battleship's greater strength may be outweighed by superior gunnery. As always in war, nothing is certain except that death or injury are only an eyelash away.

The book is by no means one-sided. The action sequences take up only a fraction of the time, leaving plenty of room for character development and even one or two romantic subplots. There is nothing two-dimensional about even the least of Reeman's people.

However there does seem to be a rather breathless quality about the book, as if it had been written in too much of a hurry. Although its technical accuracy is perhaps slightly greater than that of a more emotional novel like Alastair Maclean's famous "HMS Ulysses", it lacks the steadily mounting tension that made that book impossible to put down. Especially towards the end, some of the scenes seem to be almost perfunctory.

The author's grasp of detail and atmosphere is flawless, which is not surprising as he joined the Royal Navy in 1941 and served in the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Arctic. This is Reeman's 32nd book, not counting another 23 written as Richard Kent.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reeman nearly writes a classic, September 20, 1999

By 

John Stedman ([e-mail]) (Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battlecruiser (Chivers Sound Library) (Audio Cassette)

Douglas Reeman plunders history again to write this semi-documentary novel about a supposed sister ship to HMS Repulse and HMS Renown. As usual he focusses on a hero, here the Captain Guy Sherbrooke who is, of course, a man with a turbulent past. Unfortunately we also have to put up with his reflection, a Canadian pilot called Rayner who does not really capture the imagination at all. In contrast, the female interest is very well handled by the author and Sherbrook's blossoming romance really saves the book.

Although Douglas Reeman tries to play around with the chronology of the story, he is not very successful in building tension or in foreshadowing events. His writing style seems very dated and unadventurous. His attempt to give the ship a "mind of its own" is not convincing and gets in the way of the (dramatic) human issues.

What a pity that the ending is so predictable and that no attempt is made to subvert the genre. When HMS Reliant goes into action against the Italian battleship Tiberio (Littorio class), we know that quite a few of the B-list characters are going to perish. Pointedly, we never meet the foe at all and the promise of an anti-war book is not met. The book ends with an unsatisfactory epilogue that seems again to miss the point by focussing on the fate of the ship rather than the people

Historians can amuse themselves by spotting references to many real events, including the shelling of Oran and the invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). This is problematic, as narratives of these actions are far more engaging than fiction

For all its flaws, this is still a good book. What a pity that someone of Reeman's obvious ability could not have written a great book