Customer Reviews

The Last Ship: A Novel

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

Brinkley writes in long, convoluted sentences that I often found hard to follow, with incomplete sentences mixed in to confuse things even more. He uses an awful lot of SAT words, and his descriptions use so many adjectives that they reminded me of compositions created with a magnetic poetry kit.

And yet, I found the book engaging. I like post-apocalyptic stories; this one is about a U.S. ship carrying perhaps the last humans alive after a nuclear war. The book gets you inside the life and mind and worldview of a sailor, which I found fascinating. I was drawn into the quandary of how to create a stable society with such a high male/female ratio (though I didn't believe that their solution would work as well as it did). And I did like one of Brinkley's writing quirks (which some readers may find annoying): he can take three pages to narrate a five-second conversation because he includes so much detail about what's going on in the head of the ship's captain, who's the narrator.

For other non-sailors: The word "ways" can be a singular noun meaning "an inclined structure upon which a ship is built or supported in launching." (I couldn't make any sense of the opening sentence until I looked that up.)

Better post-apocalyptic novels: "Earth Abides," "Alas, Babylon," "The Stand," "On the Beach," and "The Road."

A great premise and much thoughful work, but Brinkley goes on and on and on and on and on and on and what was the editor thinking when he proofed this book when he looked at it and read it and then considered what type of modifications should be made and then he didn't notice that most every sentence is hundreds of words long and that they tend to comprise lenghty paragraphs and drove me up the wall trying to struggle past these elephants in the room to attempt to distill any type of story or pacing or plot or mood because the sentences that Brinkley constructs are limitless and if you move your lips while you read you better take a huge breath or you will suffocate before you finally, eventually, make it to that rare and glorious period that Brinkley may or may not decide to put at the end of a rambling thought that somehow, by the laws of literature, finally come to an end and possibly it is some type type of radioactive mutation that has caused all of the periods to wither and die, maybe.(period)

I will agree with a previous reviewer that Brinkley has a BAD habit of over-using some rather obscure terms. I will also concede that the book is VERY dry and introspective, and that it really doesn't have a long list of 'hero' figures to support. Lastly, the book is NOT Clancy-esque in its technical descriptions and situations, but it is accurate enough for the average reader. Having admitted these short-comings, however, I think it is also clear that Brinkly knows how to write. The dryness and the introspection of the first half of the book help pull the reader, willingly or not, into the character of the narrator (the ship's captain). This character MUST be dry and introspective... heavy issues weigh on his mind, and the reader will share them before the end of the book. While not a typical suspense novel, it has its share of that emotion as well, and the surprises can be like a stake to the heart for the reader.

The Last Ship by William Brinkley had such potential. It could have been a great story along the lines of Alas Babylon or On The Beach. Notice I use the worlds "could have been". This ship should have sunk before leaving port. It had an excellent premise: I.E. the idea of having the only ship to survive a nuclear war. But the poor execution of the premise, just makes The Last Ship a 600-page disappointment. The story is told from a first person perspective (our Captain Tom). As far as I can tell, he spends about 250 pages of this 600 or so page book staring into the sea extolling the virtues of being in the Navy. Every two pages he is looking into the ocean, lamenting about life in the U.S. Navy, or working on his weird inferiority complex about women. After about page 300, you basically want to scream, "BRINKLEY! WE KNOW THE OCEAN IS WET, THAT IT TAKES A SPECIAL KIND OF PERSON TO BE IN THE NAVY, AND WOMEN ARE MYSTERIOUS IN THEIR GODDESS-LIKE WAYS. GET OVER IT!"

This book is a lot like that big present you open on Christmas only to find out its 20 pairs of underwear! A lot of build up and major let down! Basically, the first 120 pages are kind of worthless (it starts in the middle of the story), which would be clever if this was a great story with strong characters. If you want to risk reading this, I'd start on Page 124, when the war breaks out. From here you get some elements of a good post-apocalyptic story. The problem is Brinkley never really develops the characters or takes the ideas anyplace. You have a Russian Sub, a mystery message from the U.S. command after the war, a mutiny, and the promise of a new beginning for mankind. What happens to these characters and ideas you ask? Well, as far as I can tell, the narrative by "Captain Tom Ocean-Navy-Woman-Worshipper" kills any of these ideas before they get off the ground! Characters such as Selman, the Jesuit, and Lt. Girard are never fully developed and just when you start to be interested in them, Captain Tom starts looking at the ocean again for 10 pages.

Also can someone explain the Deliverance Island thing to me? How can they find this huge mystery island and it is not on any of their maps? Brinkley just has the crew of his last ship find it. Now the last time I checked the entire earth has been mapped out by satellites and every piece of land has been accounted for. So it is hard for me to suspend my disbelief when they bump into an island that is over 12 miles in size! Not only is it big, but no one lives on it! Come on!

The biggest disappointment I had with the book was finding out that the author was in the U.S. Navy and yet he was unable to really translate that experience into the story effectively. For example, you some see flashes of it with the war, and the initial meeting with the Russian sub, but really nowhere else. But with other key plot points, that real world experience does not come over into the story. The mutiny in the story is so poorly done because you find it hard to believe the situation would be resolved the way it is in the story. It is more like a polite disagreement than a mutiny!

Finally, don't even get me started on Brinkley's issues with women. You would think a character that is a captain of a destroyer would have more confidence with and understanding of women. I figure the only thing this Captain Tom needed to do was come into port in uniform and the ladies would be all over him! Nope, our captain is a bit different, kind of like the Ffolks character in that Roger Moore film that bombed! But imagine an insecure Ffolks that really needs some prozac. He is more of a knitter than a man of action. Captain Tom had some issues with his mother and needs some therapy. By the way, there is some major Freudian symbolism here that is about as subtle as a baseball bat to the skull. The women in his crew play a big role but it's very unrealistic on how they come to their big arrangement on the island. Very utopian and too happy for my tastes.

I think when it is all said and done, The Last Ship needed: 1) Effective editing. It would have made a good 300 page novel. At 600 pages, it is 1/2 filler! Take out the ocean staring and it would be a 3 star review and not a 1 star review. 2) More emotional conflicts between characters. The supposed mutiny, need I say more! 3) More background in the story. We have World War III happen and we don't have any details of what caused it? That's a major let down. How about more meetings with survivors? The few survivors we meet don't do anything or say much really. 4) A better character telling the narrative. Captain Tom is not a man of action. He is more of a manic-depressive who worships women. He doesn't really inspire major interest or draw out the characters of his crew. Overall, this book is like a car-crash, you can't turn away. But at the end, you wish you did.

This story and author make my all-time favorites list. Brinkley's complex writing style, where sentences often stretch to paragraph length, is well suited to his thoughtful exploration of morality and character. He places his believable characters in unthinkable situations, then spends a great deal of time inside their heads, shedding light on the impossible decisions they make that drive the plot of the story.

In the story, the captain and crew of an American destroyer launch their nuclear missiles toward a Russian city, then speed toward the south Atlantic in a frantic effort to escape the inevitable retaliation. The ship and crew survive after a hellish journey through a radiation-soaked nuclear winter, only to find themselves alone in a world that offers few, if any, places of refuge.

Where they go, how they survive, and their search for a future in a shattered world, bring the story to a satisfying conclusion, but set the stage for a sequel. Mr. Brinkley, I have to believe that anyone who has read your story is eagerly awaiting your next effort, and hopeful that it will be the sequel to The Last Ship

I just finished reading this book and enjoyed it very much. It was a terrific lesson in vocabulary building, and I've heard more than one person mention their dictionary being nearby. What I had to keep reminding myself, however, was the era that this book was supposed to take place. It had all the feeling of a 40s or 50s author, in the story itself, and especially in the dialog between the characters. The captain seems almost too professional in his handling of issues, too melodramatic. "I shall not turn this ship around!" I may not be a sailor, but I am fairly confident that today's navy officers don't talk like that. Not that the dialog was bad or poorly written, but I did have to remind myself that the story was taking place in the present time. I thought the book handled the ethics of many issues well, showing the range of reactions by the crew to everything: nuclear war itself, wanting to see home, seeing some human and animal survivors, the sexual arrangement once they did find a new home. I thought the story did gloss over the problem and eventuality of love while on the island, in fact ignored it with a couple of exceptions. Still a great book with enough interesting events to keep the reader continuing on. I have a tremendous admiration for the author's writing talents.

This was, without a doubt, an excellent book. I think the only sticky point here is that you should probably be a fan of the military genre before you pick it up.

The criticism I see about this book centers around two main points. First, that the writing style is verbose and sometimes rambling, and second, that the storyline itself is unbelievable, whether it be through characters' actions or the events themselves.

I didn't find either to be the book-destroying problem that some have made it out to be.

It is written the way it is written because the captain of the ship is the sole caretaker of the English language at this point; he's made that clear in the beginning of the novel. Of course he's going to try and use the "$40 words" whenever he can. The man is recording the tale of his ship for the preservation of knowledge. You'll notice that he locks up the encyclopedias for the same reason.

One man mentioned here that Brinkley didn't really know what he was talking about on the technical side of things. For example, zig-zagging to avoid a submarine. It's still done, pal. The intent is to prevent the sub from getting an accurate track on your course before it has launched, and then evade the torps once they've been launched. It's quite possible to evade a wire-guided (not homing, because most if not all torps are wire guided) torpedo. So I'd have to say that Brinkley has done his homework.

Another complaint was that the Jesuit, for example, approved of the "arrangement." The question here becomes one of alternatives. What ELSE are you going to do to rebuild the human race? Take it with a grain of salt if you must, but remember that these are extreme circumstances, and this is a work of fiction.

With that out of the way, I have to agree totally and say that this book was exquisitely written and Brinkley wove together one of the most intricate plots I have ever seen. It is truly a brilliant book. The main points that people raise against it have, in my perception, no teeth. Brinkley has indeed created literature, not just pop fiction, and I think this book is a must-read for anybody with an interest in the subject.

Brinkley starts with an intriguing premise, that of a U.S. navy destroyer which survives a nuclear war and searches the world for a place to settle its crew. The situation is complicated by the presence of 26 women with 150 men as the ship's crew. However this novel is so flawed as to be a disaster. His writing style is grossly overblown. If 10 words will do, he uses 500. Lines of dialog are many times separated by two pages of mental rumblings. This 600 page book could be condensed to less than 100 pages with nothing lost. Has the author ever heard the expression "less is more?" I had to read some Dashiell Hammett as an antidote.
Word selection also is extremely pretentious. Perfervid, fructuousness, flocculent, parturient, ineluctible, noctavigations (couldn't find this one in a dictionary) fausse maigre, coruscation, plangent are all used throughout. There are some puzzling references to Vesalius, a Belgian anatomical artist who lived in the 1500s. It's enough to wear out your Funk & Wagnalls. He uses the word obloquy in a document which is read to the crew. Can you imagine all the head scratching going on?
In the middle of this high flying prose, the author has inserted sex scenes of substantial revulsion, the prose descending abruptly into the most vulgar style. Now I have whiplash along with a worn out Funk & Wagnalls.
It was hard to judge whether the author ever was in the Navy. Some details were right on, but others seem to come from WWII. Zigzagging to avoid a submarine? Not with today's modern fast attack subs with homing torpedoes. Extensive use of lookouts was mentioned and no mention made of the ship's radar. Yet the ship's active sonar was left on to track an unknown sub. BUPERS is mentioned instead of later name of NAVPERS.
Characters act out of character. The Jesuit priest on board actively promotes the promiscuious "Arrangement." The priest says Holy Ghost not Holy Spirit as they do today. Even the U.S. Navy acts out of character. Two men are swept overboard in heavy seas, yet the Navy does not court martial the captain for allowing men to be topside during a violent storm. These deaths were mentioned in passing.
Technical errors abound. VLF can't be transmitted by a sub's trailing wire antenna and go halfway around the world. The Navy uses aircraft to communicate at VLF. I'd be surprised if any destroyers are fitted with VLF gear. The antennas are miles long. Officers walk around in dungarees, not wash khakis. Is it believable that Russian nuclear fuel rods are compatible with U.S. destroyers? Why does the radiation cluster over every continent and not over the sea? Who would want to nuke anything in either Africa or South America? The U.S. Navy does not send destroyers (or any ship for that matter) alone on the high seas to sit off the coast of an unfriendly country. The Navy learned that lesson when the USS Pueblo was hijacked by the North Koreans. They would at least have air cover or several other ships as escorts.
The ending is hopelessly contrived with all the faults listed above. Other reviewers have said that there is no sequel to this mess, and I say thank God! I only finished this thing because I was on an airplane for hours on end. In case anyone hasn't guessed by now - this review is full of obloquy.

I read every ''end of the world'' type of book I can get my hands on and this one was a real treat because I didnt expect to enjoy it so much. I'm a woman who doesnt ordinarily have an interest in the military side of these stories but this one hooked me and held me to the point I couldnt put it down (even though I'd checked it out from the library and it was a heavy hardcover which isnt my preference). I was especially impressed with its realism ... alot of these types of books are pretty far fetched but this sounded true to me and I loved the ending - shocking. I've also read those indicated by other reviewers here and found this one to be one of the best so I dont understand the negative opinions.

I am a 29 year old woman who doesn't really care for the ocean. I generally find the genre of "war novels" to be predictable and immature. That said, this book has some of the best writing, the most clearly developed characters, and the most affecting situations that I have ever read. I don't pretend to know a great deal about the navy, or warfare, or the innermost workings of the military. However, the story is impeccably written, and I literally could not put it down. The author doesn't condescend to the reader, and there is no Clancy-like jingoism or sermonizing. There are some astounding plot turns, yet they remain believeable. The first few chapters-particularly after...well, I won't spoil it...are harrowing. Brinkley's style of writing is actually more akin to Melville, than anything out today. If you like your reading intelligent, exciting and thought-provoking, this is a terrific choice.