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Books Related to HMS Expedient Peter Smalley - ISBN: 0099474174
Ah! - Rated
Those were the days when the time spent to go from one place to another place was measured in months rather than hours. Therefore our Author had to search for the smallest of incidents, always making new and unexpected things happen when you turn the pages - and he certainly has succeeded.
Minutiae and observations are aplenty, every opportunity used to present "wit or sparkling conversation, elegance of phrase". Along the way a piece of the prittiest poetry I have seen for some while. Not a lot of action and gunsmoke, but I don't care at all.
Maybe even 5 stars , wasn't it for Patrick O'Brian.
Fondly I remember them
Magical afternoons
Drinking tinto with companions
The trees whispering
The last of summer
Round the garden table
The talk all slight and easy
Never recondite
And the slow sun brushed
Across our faces, thus
Bright with easy dreams.
A fountain over there in shade
Sipping at the edges of our glade
Cools all the world
And we would nothing ask but this
Who sit and tell ourselves
Our telling fictions
In the settling air.
A disappointment - Rated
It is a pity that Mr Smalley spoiled a reasonable story with so much violence and bad language. It would have made a good series but I am sorry to say that it is not for me. He is probably accurate in the way he depicts the Navy of the time but he would have been advised to follow the O'Brian and Stockwin method of dealing with the problem.
Shows promise - must do better... - Rated
Firmly in the tradition of o'brien and forester - but a bit lightweight by comparison with either. The characters are rather one-dimensional sterotypes - oddball but brilliant captain, dashing and empathetic lieutenant, adventures that mix implausible coincidence with rather contrived intrigue. The first few chapters are positively Mills & Boon in their scene setting with sentimental placeholder relationship thrown in, presumably for the endless series of forthcoming sequels. However,you could make the similar criticism of the opening of the O'brien sequence which with its faux-Austen on-shore activities never really got going until they were far from home. Smalley has a good narrative voice, albeit one that never generates the same feeling of effortless authenticity one gets with Obrien - the action is perhaps too breathless and lacks the sense of pending terror and personal revelation that colours the day-to-day tedium of a long voyage with Aubrey and Maturin. But it's all good fun and worth perservering with to see how things develop
A promising start - Rated
Let me begin by informing you that I am a great fan of Alexander Kent, Patrick O'Brien, C.S Forrester and Richard Woodman's Nelson's Navy Novels and I believe that Peter Smalley could grace their company if he can develop the characters of Rennie and Hayter throughout the typical trials of the wars with France etc. A plot summary seems difficult without giving away some of the twists and turns but generally, story is about the resurrection of the career of two men stuck on the beach at the end of the American War. It begins with the refitting of a ship in Deptford yard, a trying and corrupt process in order to make a scientific journey to the South Pacific. When on route, the ship is shadowed by a mysterious Frigate showing no colours and the intrigue begins. For any fan of the genre looking for a new source to supplement their collections I recommend giving this novel a chance.
