Customer Reviews

The Guardship : Book One of the Brethren of the Coast (Nelson, James L. Brethren of the Coast, Bk. 1.)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Guardship is a great book! Fast paced and with a real feel for the time period, full of detail that gives it a tone of authenticity. The characters are recognizable humans, but are well clear of cliches. Some people have critized Nelson for not being Patrick O'Brian. Well, he's not. His books are much faster paced, more "page turners". To fault Nelson for not being O'Brian is like saying O'Brian is no good because he is not Melville. The Guardships stands well on its own and I look forward to the rest of the series. If you like a good sea story, you will love this book!

This is one of those books that you find yourself reading so quickly that you wonder where the time went. There is enough true terminology to keep the tale realistic, but not so much as to need a dictionary by your side.

What really makes me recommend this book is the realistic depiction of pirates and the coast of the Carolinas - which happens to be where I make my home. You could almost smell the salt water and pluff mud through the descriptions. And your get real nasty, dirty, vulgar, non-romanticized pirates. These are the pirates that you fear instead of dreaming to joining.

If pirates and/or nautical adventure are your thing, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I stumbled across this book in my local library, having never heard of the author before. I was soon entranced by the terrific story in the unusual (for me) setting.

I'm afraid, much as many writing experts feel that a great novel needs well rounded characters who develop with the story, give me some slightly more cardboard characters any day! Villianous villians, strong heroes, fiesty females ... all set in an exciting cliff-hanger story - these will hold my attention!

To my way of thinking, the style of this book was akin to a sea-going version of my favourite Bernard Cornwall "Sharpe" series of books.

I only wish that, down here far away from the Virginia Tidewater, our library stocked the many other titles that Nelson seems to have written! They already carry all the well-known British naval authors, so maybe a bit of arm-twisting will get them to add this American series!

This is an entertaining book, fast-moving once it gets under way; not what I'd call great literature, but a fun read.

The Guardship is the story of Thomas Marlowe, a planter in eighteenth-century Virginia, who is trying to establish himself in colonial high society. Unknown to the people around him, he has a sinister past. When he's put in command of the ship intended to protect the colonists and their shipping from pirates, his past comes back to haunt him.

The book starts a little slowly, but gains momentum fast; the plot is an exciting one with plenty to hold the reader's interest. There's nothing artistic about the writing style, but in places it is quite vivid. While the characters could have been better drawn, they were adequate, and I found myself caring about their fates. Setting is a weakness, though; one gets little idea of what the Chesapeake Bay landscapes and seascapes look like, nor does Nelson incorporate the kind of small, fascinating details of daily life, weaponry, and so on that really first-class historical fiction authors do. However, he's very good at pirates. His pirates are truly scary, and the pirates' leader, LeRois, is perhaps the best-characterized person in the book.

I recommend this as a reasonably undemanding but entertaining book, comparable, in terms of plot and action, to some of Cornwell's work.

The only problem with this book is not enough pages between the covers. This man, this Thomas Marlow, is very human, very believable and, showing falibility is a character with which the reader can easily identify. James L. Nelson has all of the expertise of Patrick O'Brien or Alexander Kent. His characters, however, can be enjoyed without having to refer to a botany or biology text book. Once the battle scene is set, it is almost impossible to set the book down. I eagerly await the next in the series.

There are so many great things about this book, I don't know where to start. There's a brilliant plot, great period details, a fascinating historic background, and a whole bunch of complex and believable characters. If you love Patrick O'Brian like I do, you should check out James Nelson.

Pirates, intrigue, romance, suspense, believable characters, American history, AND sailing. What more could a person want??

A departure from the norm of Marrayat, Lambdin, Pope, et al. - our hero isn't in the Royal Navy. Great shades of Martin Guerre, a no-body shows up in Virginia to settle down to a life of farming. Fickle Fate denies him, throwing him back to the Sea in defense of his newly chosen home.

But ... now confronted with the potentially wonderful life he has found, will his past rise out of Neptune's deep to pull him back again?

Obviously designed to allow for further installments, this stands alone without leaving you completely hanging at wit's end for what comes next, so that you can enjoy Nelson's other writings of the Revolutionary era.

As always, never judge a book by its cover. The cover art and the packaging suggest that this book is a work of literature, a monument to the times it depicts, both provocative and evocative. And the endorsement from O'Brien (whom I haven't read) encourages the hope of a literary masterpiece.

Alas, The Guardship is none of these things. It's a potboiler; nothing more, nothing less. It is an entertaining if formulaic adventure story, with plenty of battles and sex. The writing is pedestrian, which would not even be worth commenting on except for O'Brien's endorsement. I found The Guardship to be a Saturday-matinee type book; fun to watch but not likely to make any significant impact.

From reading other reviews it seems like you either love or hate this book - I'm in the former category.
A superb, flowing, writing style; subtle undercurrents flowing throughout the story; philosophical and moral stances; thrilling action sequences, worthy of O'Brien - but above all it shows Marlow to be human.
He is not your typical upright do-gooder - he has a murky past and a depatable present, but he has many redeeming features which encourage the reader to root for him in the challenges he encounters.

His lady-love is not what she seems either, and there is a stunning volte-face in the climax of the book, which just begs you to buy the next volume - I did, as well as the other series...

The story is well-researched, based on historical fact, but the main forte of the book is its believability - one can imagine the erstwhile pirate wanting to discard his past life and be assimilated into genteel society, but his past insists on haunting him - is this real-life drama, or what?

I read it far too quickly - gets my *****

This book is ok if you simply must have a high-seas adventure tale, but you could also do much better. It's not that the Guardship is really a bad novel, it's just that it fails to shine in any particular arena and simply settles for mediocrity and banality. In short it is overly technical, somewhat lacking in originality, and ladened with at times hilarious anachronisms such as "move your dumb arse" and "cut through the red tape." While the author certainly has a strong command of nautical jargon and seems to know what he's talking about (I'm a complete land lubber myself so I can't comment on its accuracy) and is capable of constructing a competent tale, the book simply lacks enough of a soul to power it to the end. Subplots are picked up and suddenly dropped without warning, characters fade in and out of the story at an unsatisfactory pace, the ship crews are essentially faceless, featureless masses of men, and the love affair between the main character and the leading lady is predictable and overly contrived.

This is not to say that the Guardship is a terrible novel, for it can be at times quite entertaining. There is plenty of gore, violence, swashbuckling, and high seas mayhem to go round. Certain scenes such as the final confrontation between Marlowe and his arch nemesis are well done, as are some of the descriptions of life in tidewater, Virginia (I attend the College of William and Mary myself, so I can relate). However, the inability of the characters to carry the plot or stimulate much sympathy or interest result in a one-dimensional and flaccid due tale which, while entertaining, is slow-moving and unoriginal.