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Post by ripper on Nov 28, 2017 18:32:45 GMT
Any fans of Douglas Reeman out there? He was a prolific writer of mainly naval fiction. Under his Alexander Kent penname he wrote books set in the Napoleonic era in the 'Richard Bolitho' series. As Douglas Reeman he concentrated on the WW2 period, though he also wrote a number of books chronicling the adventures of generations of the Blackwood family in the Royal Marines from the 1850s to the 1970s. I have read about a dozen of Reeman's books, all WW2 or Blackwood adventures. Genrally, I do enjoy them, though his inclusion of a romantic sub-plot for the protagonist does come across as something he thinks he has to include for the sake of including it, and is an aspect that I feel could be ditched with no effect on the story; indeed, I sometimes skim quickly through the romance to get to the action. If you like naval fiction then Reeman is a good author to try. His books aren't up there with 'The Cruel Sea', but they are not bad at all in depicting life on board a naval vessel during wartime.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 28, 2017 19:46:34 GMT
I collected the translated Bolitho back in the 80s. I also read a few Blackwoods. I can't remember how many Blackwoods they translated, I have a hazy recollection of 3 novels. I have to look it up to be sure. It was a long time ago. I also have one or two Reeman's. He was quite successful in Germany at the time, he found his home with the publisher of Forrester. I think they bought the rights of 90% of his work. WWII nautical adventures don't interest me much. Maybe today I would appreciate them more.
I read Kent's Bolitho novels regulary; at the end I lost interest when it became a kind of generational saga and never read the last ones.
You are right, the romantic sub-plots seemed to be a bit dutiful. Sometimes he followed the Forester template a bit too faithful. The same could be said about the token character of Bolitho's man-servant, the dutiful man from the ranks whose purpose in life seemed to be to serve the hero. At least these were memorable characters. Stockdale and Allday?
After Forrester and Kent I sampled a few other of these series, but the very sameness of the genre killed my interest. Some time ago I discovered that a Fantasy writer whose work I used to love, Thomas Russell, is writing historical nautical adventures now. But I still havn't sampled this.
The Bolitho novels had some good and memorable plots. I remember the American War of Independence novels quite clearly. Always wanted to re-read this.
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Post by ripper on Nov 28, 2017 20:09:53 GMT
The Napoleonic-era series don't interest me that much. I have read a few--a couple of the Fox series by Adam Hardy and a Sharpe book where he gets caught up at Trafalgar, but I much prefer the more modern WW2 and later eras of naval fiction.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 28, 2017 20:54:55 GMT
Which of the Reeman's would you recommend to start with? As far as I remember these are all stand alone novels?
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Post by ripper on Nov 28, 2017 22:36:16 GMT
Which of the Reeman's would you recommend to start with? As far as I remember these are all stand alone novels? The last two books of Reeman's that I have read are Killing Ground and The Destroyers. Both are good imo, pretty typical of the author's work and not a bad place to start. So far as I know, all of Reeman's WW2 set books are stand-alones. The Blackwood saga series, starting with Badge of Glory, features different generations of the Blackwood family's service in the Royal Marines. If you haven't read Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea, then that is a superb book, and perhaps the definitive fiction about the Arctic convoys. Also, I highly recommend HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean, another novel set during an Arctic convoy. Both manage to avoid the romantic elements which slightly mar Reeman's books; in fact I don't recall any female character in HMS Ulysses.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 29, 2017 10:48:49 GMT
Thanks ripper.
I discovered two of his novels on my shelf. The Greates Enemy and Send a Gunboat. I think I bought them with a lot of some military adventure novels like V.E.Stuart and Duncan MacNeil, which then I never read.
As I gathered, both Reeman are post WW2 novels.
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Post by ripper on Nov 29, 2017 19:31:50 GMT
I don't think I have read those two, Andy, or at least I have no recollection of doing so, but I would expect they would follow Reeman's usual formula. One thing that I like about Reeman's naval books is that he sets them on a wide variety of ships: battlecruisers, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes, minesweepers and so forth. All the ones I have read have had an officer as main protagonist, so I don't know if he has ever written anything where a rating or NCO is the hero.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 30, 2017 12:44:43 GMT
Here are a few scans:
The Greatest Enemy
Send a Gunboat
The used the name Kent as it was established after the Bolitho series.
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Post by ripper on Nov 30, 2017 19:54:24 GMT
Here are a few scans:
The Greatest Enemy
Send a Gunboat
The used the name Kent as it was established after the Bolitho series.
No, not read those, Andy. 'The Greatest Enemy' is unusual for Reeman as it is set post WW2 according to Amazon.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 30, 2017 20:32:13 GMT
Send a Gunboat is also post WW2.
Will repair the broken link tomorrow.
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