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The Mammoth Book of Men O' War: Great Stories of Fighting Ships
Gathering new and rare stories from Patrick O'Brian, C. S. Forester, Kenneth Bulmer, Richard Butler, and many others, veteran anthologist Mike Ashley has gathered together many of the best-loved writers of seafaring stories. Their tales collected here of storms and shipwrecks, the great sea battles of the Napoleonic era, and the sheer, dangerous excitement of manning the mast, bring to life the call of the sea in all its varieties. Among the favorite heroes in this Mammoth anthology are Captain Jack Aubrey, Adam Hardy, Horatio Hornblower, and Nathaniel Drinkwater in new adventures written especially for this volume, rare gems, and old favorites. There are also classic stories from such original masters as Herman Melville, Cutcliffe Hyne, Frederick Marryat, Showell Styles, and Harriet Hudson. With a special introduction by Alexander Kent, The Mammoth Book of Men O' War shows the sailors' life aboard the great ships that sailed for trade, discovery or warfare.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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110 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Kent
229 books199 followersA pseudonym used by Douglas Reeman.
Series:
* Richard Bolitho
* Adam Bolitho
Series:
* Richard Bolitho
* Adam Bolitho
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 29, 2023
When I read short story collections intermittently over a long period of time, my reactions are similarly written piecemeal, while they're fresh in my mind. That gives the reviews a choppy, and often repetitive, quality. I'm now trying to go back and edit some of those done in the past, to condense and rearrange them into unified wholes. Accordingly, I've now edited this one.
Mike Ashley continues his tradition of quality fiction anthologies with this collection of maritime adventures from the age of sail. (He's also the editor of The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction.) The contents include eight stories written for this book, and a dozen older selections, making 20 in all by 18 authors (the three by C. J. Cutliffe Hyne, all taken from his 1911 collection The Escape Agents, are treated as one in the Table of Contents here, since they're all part of the same story cycle). Of the older works, Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd (first published in 1924, but written much earlier), is the only one I'd read before; I've reviewed it separately. Two out of these 12 are actually non-fiction memoirs, and five are novel excerpts, which in keeping with my usual practice I skipped. Arrangement of the material is chronological by setting; most of the selections are set during the Napoleonic Wars and the majority of the authors are probably British, but there are several exceptions to both of these generalizations.
As usual, I read the selections out of order, choosing to take the older ones first. C. S. Forester is represented by "Hornblower's Charitable Offering" (1941), set during the Peninsular War, in which we find Horatio now a captain. This one is set against the real-life background of the Spanish prison island of Cabrera in the Mediterranean, where the Spaniards dumped some 20,000 French prisoners and held them under conditions that make the later Civil War prison camp at Andersonville look like a five-star luxury hotel. That's also the main setting/background situation in Hyne's three stories from the Escape Agents cycle; our title characters there are a Yankee adventurer partnered with a French actress turned spy, who've been commissioned by Napoleon to rescue as many Cabrera prisoners as they can. (One might expect that number to be zero --but don't underestimate their ingenuity!) These are some of my favorite stories in the book; despite my anti-Napoleon attitude, the plight of the French prisoners excites sympathy, and our underdog hero and heroine are likable and easy to root for. ("The Pirate" is the best, and most thought-provoking, of the three.) "Dawn's Early Light" (1939), by Kenneth B. Atkinson, is set during the War of 1812 and has an American protagonist and perspective.
The other fictional stories are all original to the book. Jane Jackson is one of two female writers represented here; her "The Enemy Within" is my top favorite story in the collection. "The Commander's Wife" is the contribution of the other distaff author, Harriet Hudson; it's an emotionally powerful tale, but difficult to discuss without spoilers. My own connection with Australia (where British-born author Richard Butler has long been resident) adds to the appeal of "The Battle of Elephant Bay," set on and off the coasts of New South Wales and Tasmania; but it's an excellent story in its own right. Interestingly, despite the fact that the navies of this era were all-male preserves, all three of these newer stories (along with the Hyne selections) incorporate major female characters, who play significant roles and exercise real agency in their choices. That's a welcome touch!
A "steeple rock" (as I learned here) is a submerged sharp spear of rock rising from the sea floor near shore, where it's shallow, and capable of puncturing the underwater hull of a wooden ship and sinking it. Though he has Navy experience, Richard Woodman's series character Nathaniel Drinkwater in "The Steeple Rock" now works for the government service, based in London's Trinity House, that oversees the system of lighthouses, buoys, navigational markers, etc. that assist ships in approaching England's often rocky coasts safely. (Before reading the story, I'd never heard of this service!) At the beginning, Woodman's writing is slow-moving, and heavy with nautical jargon even for this sub-genre (in many sentences, I didn't have much clue what was being referred to from the contexts, either). But the story became absorbing when he began his investigation of a shipwreck on the Cornish coast --an investigation that will involve not only nature, but the human element of a hostile and secretive fishing village. Drinkwater proved to be a genuinely likable character.
John Frizell's "The Victory" pits British sailors and marines against a French privateer, run into a deep bay on the Spanish coast where it's protected by a shore battery on the mouth. H.M.S. Angelica can't sail in after it; but can it be sunk another way? This is a well-done tale of Napoleonic-era warfare, enriched by a human element. (The title might suggest a spoiler --but then, it doesn't say who's victory it's talking about.... :-)
Set mostly during the War of 1812, "The Nantucket Sleigh-Ride" by Peter T. Garratt takes its title from 19th-century whalers' slang for a vessel being dragged helplessly behind a speeding whale, harpooned but still enormously strong and fast. This one is actually a prequel to Melville's Moby Dick, and would be especially meaningful to those familiar with that work, as we get a look at a much-younger "Mr. Ahab" and the beginnings of his dark obsession.
With its setting on the Mississippi River in 1862, during the Civil War riverine naval battles centering around Vicksburg, "The Stolen Command" technically doesn't fit the collection's theme, dealing as it does with combat between engine-driven ironclads. But the adventure and action elements are thoroughly comparable to those of the other stories, and would be enjoyed as much by most fans, IMO. This one is told from the Confederate side; its downsides are the off-putting racism of the whites which the author doesn't share, but reflects (and which would actually have been as much in evidence in the northern military, though modern revisionist and hagiographic writers gloss that over), and the fact that Jase Miller isn't a very likable protagonist --though he's more so than his ostensible ally and rival. But the tale succeeds despite its flaws. It's apparently purely the work of Walter Jon Williams' imagination --but it's so plausible and realistically told, and fits the context of the situation at the time so well, that I actually looked for a real historical background in a couple of books that would have covered it. (Didn't find one, though!)
While they can be a little dry in places, and suffer from the fact that they describe their important events from the limited perspective of an observer who was simply a bit player at the time (and include no historical context), both of the memoirs are interesting overall, and sometimes fascinating in their details. In "The Last Battle" (1905) the titular battle is the last one between wooden sailing ships, the 1827 Battle of Navarino during the Greek War of Independence, in which a combined British, French and Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman Empire's Mediterranean fleet (which greatly outnumbered them) at anchor. Walter Wood is the author, but he reproduces the oral history told to him by Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney (d. 1904), who was present at the battle as a 13-year-old midshipman. "A Midshipman at Copenhagen" is part of the otherwise unpublished memoirs of one John Finlayson (1786-1845), and actually covers much of his early navy career (he enlisted in 1798 at the age of 11), not just the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen.
Mike Ashley continues his tradition of quality fiction anthologies with this collection of maritime adventures from the age of sail. (He's also the editor of The Mammoth Book of Science Fiction.) The contents include eight stories written for this book, and a dozen older selections, making 20 in all by 18 authors (the three by C. J. Cutliffe Hyne, all taken from his 1911 collection The Escape Agents, are treated as one in the Table of Contents here, since they're all part of the same story cycle). Of the older works, Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd (first published in 1924, but written much earlier), is the only one I'd read before; I've reviewed it separately. Two out of these 12 are actually non-fiction memoirs, and five are novel excerpts, which in keeping with my usual practice I skipped. Arrangement of the material is chronological by setting; most of the selections are set during the Napoleonic Wars and the majority of the authors are probably British, but there are several exceptions to both of these generalizations.
As usual, I read the selections out of order, choosing to take the older ones first. C. S. Forester is represented by "Hornblower's Charitable Offering" (1941), set during the Peninsular War, in which we find Horatio now a captain. This one is set against the real-life background of the Spanish prison island of Cabrera in the Mediterranean, where the Spaniards dumped some 20,000 French prisoners and held them under conditions that make the later Civil War prison camp at Andersonville look like a five-star luxury hotel. That's also the main setting/background situation in Hyne's three stories from the Escape Agents cycle; our title characters there are a Yankee adventurer partnered with a French actress turned spy, who've been commissioned by Napoleon to rescue as many Cabrera prisoners as they can. (One might expect that number to be zero --but don't underestimate their ingenuity!) These are some of my favorite stories in the book; despite my anti-Napoleon attitude, the plight of the French prisoners excites sympathy, and our underdog hero and heroine are likable and easy to root for. ("The Pirate" is the best, and most thought-provoking, of the three.) "Dawn's Early Light" (1939), by Kenneth B. Atkinson, is set during the War of 1812 and has an American protagonist and perspective.
The other fictional stories are all original to the book. Jane Jackson is one of two female writers represented here; her "The Enemy Within" is my top favorite story in the collection. "The Commander's Wife" is the contribution of the other distaff author, Harriet Hudson; it's an emotionally powerful tale, but difficult to discuss without spoilers. My own connection with Australia (where British-born author Richard Butler has long been resident) adds to the appeal of "The Battle of Elephant Bay," set on and off the coasts of New South Wales and Tasmania; but it's an excellent story in its own right. Interestingly, despite the fact that the navies of this era were all-male preserves, all three of these newer stories (along with the Hyne selections) incorporate major female characters, who play significant roles and exercise real agency in their choices. That's a welcome touch!
A "steeple rock" (as I learned here) is a submerged sharp spear of rock rising from the sea floor near shore, where it's shallow, and capable of puncturing the underwater hull of a wooden ship and sinking it. Though he has Navy experience, Richard Woodman's series character Nathaniel Drinkwater in "The Steeple Rock" now works for the government service, based in London's Trinity House, that oversees the system of lighthouses, buoys, navigational markers, etc. that assist ships in approaching England's often rocky coasts safely. (Before reading the story, I'd never heard of this service!) At the beginning, Woodman's writing is slow-moving, and heavy with nautical jargon even for this sub-genre (in many sentences, I didn't have much clue what was being referred to from the contexts, either). But the story became absorbing when he began his investigation of a shipwreck on the Cornish coast --an investigation that will involve not only nature, but the human element of a hostile and secretive fishing village. Drinkwater proved to be a genuinely likable character.
John Frizell's "The Victory" pits British sailors and marines against a French privateer, run into a deep bay on the Spanish coast where it's protected by a shore battery on the mouth. H.M.S. Angelica can't sail in after it; but can it be sunk another way? This is a well-done tale of Napoleonic-era warfare, enriched by a human element. (The title might suggest a spoiler --but then, it doesn't say who's victory it's talking about.... :-)
Set mostly during the War of 1812, "The Nantucket Sleigh-Ride" by Peter T. Garratt takes its title from 19th-century whalers' slang for a vessel being dragged helplessly behind a speeding whale, harpooned but still enormously strong and fast. This one is actually a prequel to Melville's Moby Dick, and would be especially meaningful to those familiar with that work, as we get a look at a much-younger "Mr. Ahab" and the beginnings of his dark obsession.
With its setting on the Mississippi River in 1862, during the Civil War riverine naval battles centering around Vicksburg, "The Stolen Command" technically doesn't fit the collection's theme, dealing as it does with combat between engine-driven ironclads. But the adventure and action elements are thoroughly comparable to those of the other stories, and would be enjoyed as much by most fans, IMO. This one is told from the Confederate side; its downsides are the off-putting racism of the whites which the author doesn't share, but reflects (and which would actually have been as much in evidence in the northern military, though modern revisionist and hagiographic writers gloss that over), and the fact that Jase Miller isn't a very likable protagonist --though he's more so than his ostensible ally and rival. But the tale succeeds despite its flaws. It's apparently purely the work of Walter Jon Williams' imagination --but it's so plausible and realistically told, and fits the context of the situation at the time so well, that I actually looked for a real historical background in a couple of books that would have covered it. (Didn't find one, though!)
While they can be a little dry in places, and suffer from the fact that they describe their important events from the limited perspective of an observer who was simply a bit player at the time (and include no historical context), both of the memoirs are interesting overall, and sometimes fascinating in their details. In "The Last Battle" (1905) the titular battle is the last one between wooden sailing ships, the 1827 Battle of Navarino during the Greek War of Independence, in which a combined British, French and Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman Empire's Mediterranean fleet (which greatly outnumbered them) at anchor. Walter Wood is the author, but he reproduces the oral history told to him by Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney (d. 1904), who was present at the battle as a 13-year-old midshipman. "A Midshipman at Copenhagen" is part of the otherwise unpublished memoirs of one John Finlayson (1786-1845), and actually covers much of his early navy career (he enlisted in 1798 at the age of 11), not just the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen.
September 25, 2008
I haven't read all the stories in here, because some of them are actually quite boring and/or are taken from the middle of a full-length novel and I find it weird to read those when I haven't read the book they're taken from. So basically I've read a few. Hornblower's Charitable Offering is a nice inclusion, as it's a rare short story by C.S. Forester and even in the small amount of pages, Hornblower's character really shows through strongly.
February 16, 2021
Decent anthology collection of short stories from the Age of Sail, stretching from French Revolution to the American Civil War.
September 18, 2015
One of the various genres I enjoy is historic-fiction in general and well-written naval in particular. I found this compilation of short stories as satisfying palette-cleanser. In other words between every novel I would read one of these shorts -- kind of like the pickled ginger between sushi morsels.
Anyway, I digress. If you don't like the genre you won't like this book. If, however, you are new and curious to the genre this compilation is a fine introduction to the various styles of the major authors.
Anyway, I digress. If you don't like the genre you won't like this book. If, however, you are new and curious to the genre this compilation is a fine introduction to the various styles of the major authors.
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June 26, 2010The Mammoth Book of Men O' War (Mammoth Book of) (1999)
July 25, 2011
I love this genre! Made me want to read the Patrick O'Brien series again. Considering it's a pulp short stories compilation, this was pretty well put together, and the quality of writing was high.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews