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Any naval books out there similar to the Hornblower Series..

Posted on 10/17/23 at 11:06 am
Posted by Loup
Ferriday
Member since Apr 2019
11218 posts
Posted on 10/17/23 at 11:06 am
by C.S. Forester? I read them multiple times in high school and recently reread the series. One of my all time favorites. Are there any historical fiction series that are similar? Maybe something that really gets into the dirty details of life at sea?
This post was edited on 10/17/23 at 3:52 pm
Posted by GentlemanTiger
Shreveport
Member since Oct 2019
96 posts
Posted on 10/17/23 at 12:20 pm to
Your answer is the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. These are very much about the details of life at sea.
Posted by Loup
Ferriday
Member since Apr 2019
11218 posts
Posted on 10/17/23 at 12:47 pm to
quote:

Your answer is the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. These are very much about the details of life at sea.



Thanks! Just checked and my local library has a lot of the audiobooks on the cloud.
Posted by GOP_Tiger
Baton Rouge
Member since Jan 2005
17801 posts
Posted on 10/19/23 at 8:46 pm to
quote:

Your answer is the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. These are very much about the details of life at sea.



The first one just absolutely blew my mind. It's incredible how much you feel that you are at sea in 1800 with them. I read the first five books in the series very quickly, before my schedule changed and I lost a lot of reading time.
Posted by Edwardo
Member since Apr 2017
77 posts
Posted on 10/19/23 at 10:24 pm to
The O’Brien books are my favorite, but also check out Dewey Lambdin, Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope, Julien Stockwin. All are good.
Posted by Kcprogguitar
Kansas City
Member since Oct 2014
888 posts
Posted on 10/22/23 at 4:46 pm to
Alexander Kent’s Bolitho series is exceptional, as is Obriens
Posted by Loup
Ferriday
Member since Apr 2019
11218 posts
Posted on 10/23/23 at 10:04 am to
quote:

The first one just absolutely blew my mind. It's incredible how much you feel that you are at sea in 1800 with them. I read the first five books in the series very quickly, before my schedule changed and I lost a lot of reading time.



I started the audiobook last week. It was kind of dull starting off but I got to the first naval battle this morning and was hooked. I'm enjoying the hell out of it.
Posted by shspanthers
Nashville, TN
Member since Sep 2007
766 posts
Posted on 11/2/23 at 11:10 am to
Not set at sea, but the Honor Harrington series is a recreation of the Hornblower style but in space. Manticore, the planet of the main character, is basically just Victorian England in space.
Posted by Kafka
I am the moral conscience of TD
Member since Jul 2007
141715 posts
Posted on 11/2/23 at 8:30 pm to
quote:

Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser, but based on the character "Flashman" in Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), a semi-autobiographical work by Thomas Hughes.

In Hughes' book, Flashman is the notorious bully of Rugby School who persecutes Tom Brown, and who is finally expelled for drunkenness. Twentieth century author George MacDonald Fraser had the idea of writing Flashman's memoirs, in which the school bully would be identified with an "illustrious Victorian soldier": experiencing many 19th century wars and adventures and rising to high rank in British army, acclaimed as a great soldier, while remaining by his unapologetic self-description "a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and oh yes, a toady." Fraser's Flashman is an antihero who runs from danger or hides cowering in fear, betrays or abandons acquaintances at at the slightest incentive, bullies and beats servants with gusto, beds every available woman, carries off any loot he can grab, gambles and boozes enthusiastically, and yet, through a combination of luck and cunning, ends each volume acclaimed as a hero.
The books are like James Bond set in the 19th century -- and hilarious to boot. Flashman experiences (always against his will) The Charge Of The Light Brigade (which he somehow ends up leading!), The Sepoy Mutiny, the Taiping Rebellion, Little Big Horn and other great moments of history, all the while getting mixed up with Queen Victoria, Bismarck, Wild Bill Hickok, Lola Montez, Lincoln, The Empress of China, Oscar Wilde, John Brown the abolitionist and other such immortal personages.

My favorite book in the series is the third, Flash For Freedom (which takes place in pre-Civil War NO and Mississippi), but I'd start out with the first, Flashman. After that you can really read them in any order. There are 12 books in the series; I reread them every 4 or 5 years.

No, they are not specifically naval but ol' Flashy does end up at sea in several books
Posted by Corinthians420
Iowa
Member since Jun 2022
6450 posts
Posted on 11/7/23 at 4:55 pm to
Thoroughly enjoyed Mutiny on the Bounty (Peter Fitzsimons) recently

LINK
But it is based on a true story so doesn't fit recommendation exactly, although it definitely gets into the dirty details of life at sea.
This post was edited on 11/7/23 at 4:57 pm
Posted by MasonTiger
Mason, Ohio
Member since Jan 2005
16243 posts
Posted on 11/7/23 at 10:43 pm to
quote:

Maybe something that really gets into the dirty details of life at sea?

For a non-fiction dealing with this topic check out “The Wager” by David Grann.
Posted by Loup
Ferriday
Member since Apr 2019
11218 posts
Posted on 11/10/23 at 9:30 am to
Thanks for the recs. I needed a break from fantasty after spending a few months on the storm light archives.
Posted by bluestem75
Dallas, TX
Member since Oct 2007
3226 posts
Posted on 11/10/23 at 12:26 pm to
If you’d like a nonfiction book about that the guy who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon has new book out called The Wager.

It’s about a mutiny.
Posted by Ridgewalker
Member since Aug 2012
3556 posts
Posted on 11/27/23 at 7:40 pm to
If you want a true life adventure read "Two years before the mast" by Richard Henry Dana.

Dana Point CA is named after him.
Posted by POTUS2024
Member since Nov 2022
10944 posts
Posted on 12/10/23 at 8:53 am to
I don't know the Hornblower series, but David Poyer is an author I read a long time ago. IIRC he's a former Navy officer and writes fiction but it's realistic. The books I read were good.
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