31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
well-written, but a few problems, April 24, 2005
This is a decent book if you enjoy naval fiction of the Napoleonic
era. It is about the sudden rise from second lieutenant to
commander in the career of Charles Edgemont and his subsequent
initial adventures. Edgemont is called up from the gun deck to take
command when the captain and first mate are killed in battle, and he
gets credit for the good results that really did not stem from any
action on his part. Admiral Jervis promotes him to the rank of
commander and awards him captaincy of a 28-gun frigate. There are
elements here that gave me considerable unease. In most naval
fiction, the usual idea is that the hero should captain a ship or
perhaps command a small fleet: he should be the actor in charge,
and not simply a lower-ranking person who is part of action
outside his control. Curiously, war novels on land usually take
the opposite approach--the hero is not a general or other high-
ranking officer [who are usually far behind the front lines]. So
what we have in the novel is a mechanism to elevate Edgemont to
independent command as quickly as possible. My intuition would
suggest that under remarkable circumstances a 2nd lieutenant might
be promoted to commander, and a ship suitable for a commander
might be given to that person--say a 12-gun brig. Captaincy of a
28-gun frigate was post-rank, not commander, I believe. Even in
wartime there would be a long list of post-captains ashore looking
for a ship--especially a frigate, and many of most would have some
influence at the Admiralty.
Commander Edgemont has a number of small battles with the enemy,
and in particular with his nemesis the Santa Brigida, a 40-gun
frigate. Edgemont seems remarkably skillful in his tactics for
someone who has never commanded a ship--this also leaves me a bit
uneasy. There is an encounter with Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower,
which I felt was getting much too cute.
The book is well-written, and the battle scenes are engaging. It
would be nice for Edgemont to have a few character defects--
O'Brien's Aubrey and Lambdin's Lewrie have defects--it helps make
them more human, and they also make mistakes.
Lord Cochrane was a real (nonfictional) naval hero of that time--
his skills and exploits have been used extensively by Forester,
O'Brien, Lambdin, and others, and in many ways serves as their
model. Cochrane worked best with small independent commands--away
from the restrictions and politics of being one captain in a fleet
of, say, 15 men-of-war. He was the model protagonist. I wish I
could see more naval fiction where the hero was not in charge of
the action, not the protagonist. The early Lambdin novels, with
Lewrie as a midshipman and lieutenant are the most enjoyable--
and I'll be forever grateful for Lewrie's slow rise across many
novels to post-captain rank. Edgemont at the start of the novel
is 25 years old, having been at sea since he was 13, as I recall.
I would very much have liked to see much more of those formative
years. We have seen Alan Lewrie in his first days at sea learning
the ropes [literally!], making mistakes, changing from a wastrel
to an enjoyable and engaging character--we see how his skills and
abilities were formed. There's not enough of that in most naval
fiction--and I would have enjoyed seeing it in this novel.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A new series to keep the wooden ships alive, June 9, 2005
I just finshed Sails on the Horizon and am trying to decide what Commander Edgemont's distinguishing trait is. Hornblower's was honor. Lewrie is a scoundral. Bolitho's was loyalty to his people. Aubrey was the ultimate sailor. Ramage's temper was ever close to the surface. Bentley is still finding himself.
Edgemont's appears to be honesty.
Edgemont was a competent, but not particularly noteworthy lieutenant who finds himself in command at the tail end of a battle that is won. Credit must be awarded, and it falls on Edgemont who doesn't particularly seek it, and tries to minimize his role, which was - minimal. He is promoted in any case, given a ship, and set in a position to dual a larger Spaniard frigate off and on for the rest of the book.
In the meantime, he meets his true love by accidently breaking her arm. She is a Quaker, and we soon find out she is more than a match for him. She may be the most interesting character in the book.
This is a fine start of what I hope is a long series. I miss Hornblower, Aubrey and Bolitho, and personally need to know that there will continue to be new careers to follow of those though fought the wooden ships.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely cliche-worthy, April 30, 2005
Whenever I am asked to review a book, particularly a novel written by someone just now making the leap from "phrase spouter" to "author", there are several questions I ask in order to clarify the direction in which the debut writer wishes to go. A few of these questions include:
"Excuse me? Were you talking to me?"
"Are you sure?"
"Fine, whatever."
The answers to these questions tend to shape the content and style of my review. It is with this in mind that I must say that this is by far, bar none, the single best novel I have ever read that was written by anyone who was my father.
Not being a writer myself, I fear I must resort to common cliches to describe Dad's first effort:
"A real page-turner"... at least half-way. I discovered that with this book, the plot moves much more naturally if you only turn every OTHER page. You see, the story itself begins on page 3, which warrants turning after you have finished it. This is followed by page 4, but if you turn page 4 when you reach the end of it, you end up back at page 3. This is still a wonderfully written page, but the story begins to stale after an hour or so if you don't break loose and jump to page 5.
"A must read"... note to all people who have parents: if one of them publishes a book, you must read it, if it's not about parenting.
"Brilliant - a masterpiece!"... this is not a cliche so much as a series of words that a lot of people use when reviewing books that they hope to get a piece of after the author dies.
The novel itself I think is fantastic. As indicated by the title, the story contains predictably distant horizons, as well as more than a few sails. Mix a little prostitution and hardcore naval combat into the... er, mix, and you have a book that's a winner in my - umm... in my book. This writing stuff is not easy!
In high school, I learned that a good story had to have some sort of struggle in it, and that struggle had to fall into the category of man against man, man against nature, man against the Yankees or man against chocolate. I may have missed one or two categories, but you get the idea. Without giving away too much plot, I can tell you that Sails on the Horizon pushes the envelope in this regard. Some of the struggles you'll find include:
Man vs. Spaniards
Man vs. a bunch of other men who don't like their jobs
Man vs. Woman
Man vs. that woman's father
Man vs. that woman, her father, and her unwavering belief that everything you stand for is pretty much directly opposed to everything she stands against (except the Spanish... well, except really, the fact that you stand against the Spanish is sort of the reason she stands against what you stand for - or rather, she stands against you standing against things.)
As you can see, this is a very well-written book. This may come as a shocking announcement to anyone who has seen the picture of my father inside the back cover. I love him, but the man looks like he's trying to figure out which teeth the ham is stuck between, or possibly where the truck is parked. I must encourage anyone who reads this review to read the book before looking at the picture, lest they think they have somehow been duped.
In summary, please buy the damn thing. When my Dad went into a bookstore to see it on the shelves for the first time, the young lady behind the counter mistakenly thought he was asking for "Sales on the Horizon". If we all work together, we can make her vision come true.
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