Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Commodore Hornblower by C.S. Forester ISBN: 0-316-28938-8 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 05 April, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (21 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Hornblower goes to Russia, with love...
Comment: In the eighth volume of the series Commodore Horatio Hornblower, with his own squadron of ships, is bound for the Baltic. It is 1812 and Hornblower must protect the trade and stop the spread of Napoleon's empire into Sweden and Russia. Hostile armies, Russian royalty and ice-bound bays are just SOME of the trouble Hornblower will have to deal with. He even gets to meet Colonel Clausewitz! Will Hornblower ever return to his new wife and son, or will he be trapped in Russia with white skinned ladies of the court, drinking vodka and feasting on meals fit for a King?
Rating: 5
Summary: 5 Baltic Battles for Hornblower
Comment: Commodore Hornblower was Forester's first attempt to replicate the pre-war success of his Horatio Hornblower trilogy; Beat to Quarters, Ship of the Line and Flying Colours. After emerging victorious from the greatest war in human history, would his readership still be interested in a more distant conflict? The answer was "Yes", but Forester made sure by including strong parallels between the Napoleonic Wars and World War II. The result, as a historical novel, was as relevant to the readers of the day as if it had been written about WWII. Commodore Hornblower works as a historical novel of the Napoleonic era and as a reminder of the immense struggles and sacrifices of WWII.
Commodore Hornblower begins with Hornblower leaving his new wife and son to return to sea. How poignant this passage must have been for the first post-war readers. Hornblower, now in charge of a small squadron, must take his ships into the Baltic past hostile Danes and Swedes who maintain a sinister neutrality. What follows is a series of naval and land engagements that are typical of this type of novel. However nobody surpassed Forester in telling exciting yet realistic action stories. The battle scenes are both exciting and exhilarating yet horrifying at the same time.
During his stint in the Baltic, Hornblower rubs shoulders with the Tsar of Russia, Marshal Bernadotte of Sweden and the warrior/philosopher Clausewitz. Hornblower must try and win over those hanging onto to neutrality by a thread and those siding with the tyrant Napoleon. As always he acquits himself well although he is his own worst critic.
While Commodore Hornblower works as both an action novel and a historical novel, I think that it might have lost some of the impact that it had when it was first published. The parallels for the British people in 1940 and 1812 are very strong. There is a tyrant dominating Europe who is both willing and able to throw away far more lives than the British could manage or accept. There is Russia siding with the tyrant, invading Finland and ultimately resisting the tyrant's invasion from the west. There is Europe ready for an uprising to overthrow the tyrant. And, of course, there is Britain standing alone against the might of the entire continent until forces can be rallied to defeat the tyrant. Commodore Hornblower is a story of heroism in the Napoleonic era but it was published at the right time to remind the British people of the heroism that they had so recently shown. It's a marvelous sequel and worthy successor to Forester's pre-war efforts.
Rating: 4
Summary: Russian politics and naval strategy
Comment: In Commodore, Forester takes our hero to the Baltic Sea to intervene in the war between the Russians and Napoleon. Now on the top half of the Captains list, Hornblower is given command of a small squadron of ships and sent north in as much of a political gambit as a naval one. There are no real naval threats to Hornblower's fleet, a few coastal raiders on British shipping, but the one they find is easily dispatched. Forester spends time detailing the use of bomb vessels, ungainly ships with large mortars in the center. They are used to shell and destroy a ship in a harbor and enemy positions on shore. When Napoleon attacks Russia he sends one army north towards St. Petersburg along the eastern most end of the Baltic, and of course Commodore Hornblower is there to save the day and negotiate a switch of sides by the Prussians. It's a little short on naval lore and a little long on period politics. A contrived dalliance with a Russian lady gives Hornblower flees, and then typhus. At the time it was written it was pretty unusual to have an adulterous affair in a fiction of this kind. It gives more variety to our understanding of British Naval operations in another area of the world.
 |
Title: Hornblower and the Atropos by C.S. Forester ISBN: 0316289299 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 30 April, 1985 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Hornblower and the Hotspur by C.S. Forester ISBN: 0316290467 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester ISBN: 0316290637 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester ISBN: 0316289124 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 30 September, 1984 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: The Hornblower Companion by C. S. Forester, Samuel H. Bryant ISBN: 1557503478 Publisher: United States Naval Inst. Pub. Date: 25 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
