Customer Reviews

Command: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures)

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Julian Stockwin's "Command" is the seventh book in his Kydd series. These books are set in the Napoleonic-era Royal Navy and follow in the same vein as C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books.

In "Command," Kydd finds himself unexpectedly in command of a small (16-gun) brig sloop that is just being completed in Malta. Kydd is responsible for fitting her out, giving her sea trials, and molding a new crew from scratch. Kydd feels the elation and weight of command as he, and he alone, is responsible for the successes and failures aboard his command. However, just as Kydd gains confidence in himself and his ship, peace "breaks out" and Kydd is sent ashore without a ship or job. Kydd is then faced with desperate times as he faces the loss of his livelihood and his best friend.

"Command" is another great novel in the "Kydd" series and is a must-read for anyone who enjoys military historical fiction or the Napoleonic era. I eagerly await the next book.

This novel starts as a standard Royal Navy adventure with Thomas Kydd receiving a promotion to Commander, and taking a brig sloop into action in the eastern Med with some detached duty. It has a good description of fitting out a ship and acquiring a crew, as well as action on land as well as at sea. That part of the story comes to an end with the Peace of Amiens, and Kydd finds himself like a lot of other officers "on the beach" unemployed at half pay.

That is followed by the second part of the novel (this is like two novels in one). Kydd finds he is over-qualifed for various positions that might be available (I remember hearing that phrase after I received a PhD). A commander simply cannot be put into a position where a lieutenant is required (Kydd had put in his time forward, and apparently did not consider using an assumed name to ship out on a merchant ship). Attempts to enter the merchant service as a deck officer are met with questions revealing his complete lack of knowledge in dealing with the merchant trade.

That brings Kydd into a situation where he ends up as master of a convict ship, and some adventures in far off Australia. I won't go into all the details, but you will learn a lot about the original settlement of Australia.

Kydd's friend Renzi decides to try his luck establishing an estate in Australia. He has no experience as a farmer, but he has a book. Some of this part really gets funny. You learn a little more about the settling of Australia.

The novel ends with Kydd preparing to return to England. We all know that the war started up again, so we wait with anticipation to see what is in store for Kydd.

Once again, Julian Stockwin has given us a fantastic narration into the life of Thomas Kydd, who was originally pressed into the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman, and rises to become a Captain, an almost impossible feat! This book is action packed, and a real page turner. If you liked the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S. Forester, then you're in for a treat. Julian Stockwin continues on with that tradition, and then some. I don't know which is more interesting; the story of William Kydd's life, or the interesting historical setting and information that accompanies his story. Definitely "a good read"! I can't wait for the next one.

Mr. Stockwin's writing is as good as Alexander Kent and David Donachie. His characters are alive and vibrant. The history is brought alive by exploits. 19th century British naval stories do not get any better.

This is the seventh in the series of naval adventures about Thomas Paine Kydd, a pressed landman who discovers himself a natural sailor, who seizes his opportunities, and who has now advanced to the quarterdeck. Stockwin is never going to be a threat to Patrick O'Brian, whose literary abilities were much deeper and more sophisticated, but they're good stories nonetheless. Each of the previous books covered roughly a year in Kydd's advancing career but this volume skips forward more than two years following the Battle of the Nile and the Siege of Acre in 1799, in the latter of which he had the chance for personal distinction. Now, ejected from his position of second lieutenant of Tenacious (on patrol in the Mediterranean) by a new captain who is an old enemy, Kydd fears his career may be at an end. He reports despondently to the admiral at Malta, expecting to be shipped home, but finds himself instead given his step to commander in a small brig. (Though it's called a "sloop" because a commander can't be in command of a brig. Such are the traditions of the Royal Navy). This is the turning point in any young officer's career: The lion's share of the glory in a successful action, and full responsibility in the event of failure. And such a small, unrated vessel almost always operates independently at whatever errands and tasks the fleet commander conceives. Kydd goes on patrol, hunting privateers and searching out the French, and he makes a few blunders and errors in judgment along the way, and learns quickly from all of them and comes under the admiral's approval. And then disaster strikes. The Peace of Amiens in the spring of 1801, by which a weak British administration rather shamefully sought terms from the French, results in the navy being mothballed and most of its officer corps being dumped on the beach. Not having independent means, Kydd has to scrabble to make a living and ends up as master of a convict ship to Botany Bay, a experience that scars his soul. But he knows the peace won't last long. Moreover, the previous war was fought against the excesses of France's republican revolution, while the new war must contend with the imperial ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Stockwin is most proficient at the details of naval life and at describing and making real for the reader the general world in which Kydd moves. His plotting can be a bit more problematic, with Kydd moving up the ranks at a breathtaking rate and taking part in nearly every major naval action of the time. But that was also true of Hornblower and Aubrey; otherwise it would be a pretty dull story. And the author is constrained, obviously, by the actual course of history as it occurred. But Kydd has a close friend in Nicholas Renzi, an educated gentleman in self-imposed exile for what he regards as his aristocratic family's social sins. (Renzi is clearly becoming the series' "Maturin" in various ways.) And Renzi is rather annoying in his tendency to prickly logic and turgid emotive scenes generally. It's a bit of a puzzle how the blunt and practical Kydd can put up with him, frankly, and I find Renzi the least interesting and least convincing continuing character in the series. I also think Stockwin made a tactical error this time with the transport run to Australia -- a six-month voyage in an extremely different set of circumstances from what Kydd has been used to, and which he could have used to explore in depth the other side of life at the turn of the 19th century. The author (whose family emigrated to Australia when he was an adolescent) obviously has strong feelings about the population's origins and how they built their new country, and it all should have been developed into its own volume in the series. Instead, one chapter ends with Kydd beginning to grapple with things as they leave the Thames -- and the next chapter opens with landfall at Sydney Harbour. This entire segment is crammed into the last eighty pages of the book. A wasted opportunity. Nevertheless, the series is an often fascinating fictional biography and I'm guessing that, at the present rate, there are potentially eight or ten more volumes in prospect before Kydd hoists his flag and Napoleon meets his Waterloo.

I thoroughly enjoy this and all the Kydd series books. My only regret is that when I receive the latest one I will not have the thrill of starting the series anew.

I highly recommend the entire series. Julian Stockwin is a master story teller.

Another in the interesting adventures of a British seaman during the French and Napoleonic wars. Good reading.

I have come to expect a lot from Julian Stockwin and his Kydd novels. Mr. Stockwin is very knowledgeable and can put the reader right in the middle of the story. This book, however, left me unsatisfied. It has two distinct parts. The first is the usual fare--some good action in the Mediterrenean. This is all good stuff. Then, peace is declared and the only work our hero can find is as caption of a transport ship to New South Wales. Great--we're going to have some great adventure here, right? Well, not really. Who shows up on deck unexpectedly? His old buddy Renzi. How both Renzi and Kydd end up on the same ship on their way to OZ is a miracle, but acceptable for the story. However, all Renzi does is brood the whole way. He's no longer a friend to Kydd and has become an unsympathetic character for the reader. You just start thinking, "Why doesn't Kydd just throw him overboard?" That would have made the whole book better. Well, he doesn't, and they end up in NSW. Here, there are some good adventures, although I thought they could have been more in depth.
Maybe in a later book, I'll understand the whole Renzi-thing, but right now, he's dragging down the series.

This is a good sea story. I's not finished with it yet and found it just a bit slow to get going but, in part, that is because there is interesting detail of some of the small mistakes an eager young captain can make.

Julian Stockwin is a great author. He makes you feel that you are there watching, hearing, and in the thick of things. He lets you see all of shipboard life not just the main characters narrow vision. A truly talented Author. I can't wait for his next book in the Kydd Sea Adventures.