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Set the Seas on Fire
In 1808, while Europe burns and the Napoleonic Wars set the world aflame, the HMS Fortitude patrols the sea lanes of the South Pacific, harrying enemies of the British Crown. The Fortitude's captain sets his sights on a Spanish galleon weighted down with a fortune in gold and spices, but Lieutenant Hieronymus Bonaventure thinks the prize not worth the risk. The ship is smashed by storms and driven far into unknown seas, the galleon and her treasure lost in the tempest. Bonaventure and the rest of the Fortitude's crew find themselves aground on an island in uncharted waters. The island is a place of magic and mystery, promising the crew rest and contentment. But beneath the beauty lurks a darker an ancient evil buried at the living heart of a volcano.
416 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2001
2 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Chris Roberson
559 books265 followersChris Roberson is the co-creator with artist Michael Allred of iZombie, the basis of the hit CW television series, and the writer of several New York Times best-selling Cinderella miniseries set in the world of Bill Willingham’s Fables. He is also the co-creator of Edison Rex with artist Dennis Culver, and the co-writer of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D, Witchfinder, Rise of the Black Flame, and other titles set in the world of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. In addition to his numerous comics projects, Roberson has written more than a dozen novels and three dozen short stories. He lives with a teenager, two cats, and far too many books in Portland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 15 reviews
May 19, 2025
I probably should not look at other reviews while thinking about my review. But there was a reviewer who was spot on as far as I am concerned. He stated that the book did not live up to its blurb: "Hornblower meets Lovecraft." For myself, I love a good sea story, and, as such, this was fine, although it was nowhere as good as a Hornblower or Patrick O'Brian sea story ( and I should have read one of the Jack Aubrey books by O'Brian instead!). But, there was definitely too little Lovecraft--which was compressed into the ending (after the middle dragged quite a bit). Having said all this, I might read more Roberson. The book was really not bad and I'd like to give him another chance. In the meantime, don't believe every blurb you read!!
July 3, 2011
As other reviewers have noted, "Set the Seas on Fire" had a fundamentally unbalanced plot. I found the back-story (the sword-fighting lessons between a poor boy and a fencing master) to be engaging and well-written. The story's protagonist, Lieutenant Hieronymus Bonaventure, was also fairly well developed. However, the actual plot felt quite uneven. The beginning was pretty good, but the middle was way, way, way too long. Pretty much the whole plot was taken up by the middle (during which I kept waiting, in vain, for something important to happen) and the conclusion was way to rushed. The end result was that even thought the author's original premise, I felt a bit cheated by all the important stuff being compressed into the ending.
July 11, 2013
This book was easy to read, especially with the glossary at the back to fill in any gaps of period terminology that a reader may have.
I found the mix of "growing up" life lessons that were interspersed with the main story line a joy because it have me a glimpse of what the main character was taught by his fencing instructor and how such lessons are applicable to the real world.
Recommended for anyone that has even a passing interest in the sailing days and enjoys religious variations from around the world.
I found the mix of "growing up" life lessons that were interspersed with the main story line a joy because it have me a glimpse of what the main character was taught by his fencing instructor and how such lessons are applicable to the real world.
Recommended for anyone that has even a passing interest in the sailing days and enjoys religious variations from around the world.
October 30, 2007
I read the self-published version of Set the Seas on Fire years ago and loved it. I was heavily into Patrick O’Brian’s books at the time, and the thought of combining seafaring adventure with unexplainable horror really floated my boat.
Um. . .so to speak.
Sorry.
Anyway, I remembered the book fondly, so when I found out that Chris was re-working and expanding the book, I was all a-twitter. When I finally got my hands on a copy, I jumped right in, hoping that I wouldn’t spoil a good memory. Boy, did I get lucky.
Set the Seas on Fire works on many levels. First, there’s the seafaring adventure novel. Any fan of this type of book will enjoy Roberson’s attention to detail (no words used are inauthentic to the era). Folks who don’t normally read these books will be able to follow what’s going on without getting bogged down in the difference between a mainsail and a topgallant or what the heck a foc’sle is.
Then, there’s the island life adventure novel (which is kind of a subsidiary of the seafaring adventure novel, until the man-sized bat things show up). We get a further development of the characters we’ve already met, but we also meet the people of the island and begin to know them. Roberson plundered many different cultures to create his natives, and they really ring true.
Now we come to the character study. We see Hieronymous from childhood to adulthood (although not in a linear fashion). We get to see the forces that shaped him and made him the man he grew up to be, which has resonance both in this novel and in Paragaea, where Hero also appears. But we also get to see how he changes when faced with a challenge he hasn’t prepared for—love.
The realistic detail in setting and character makes it all the easier to suspend disbelief once the supernatural elements start showing up; you really care what happens to these people, which is quite a feat. So if you like fast-paced adventure stories that don’t sacrifice characters on the altar of plot, then you really should be reading Chris Roberson.
Um. . .so to speak.
Sorry.
Anyway, I remembered the book fondly, so when I found out that Chris was re-working and expanding the book, I was all a-twitter. When I finally got my hands on a copy, I jumped right in, hoping that I wouldn’t spoil a good memory. Boy, did I get lucky.
Set the Seas on Fire works on many levels. First, there’s the seafaring adventure novel. Any fan of this type of book will enjoy Roberson’s attention to detail (no words used are inauthentic to the era). Folks who don’t normally read these books will be able to follow what’s going on without getting bogged down in the difference between a mainsail and a topgallant or what the heck a foc’sle is.
Then, there’s the island life adventure novel (which is kind of a subsidiary of the seafaring adventure novel, until the man-sized bat things show up). We get a further development of the characters we’ve already met, but we also meet the people of the island and begin to know them. Roberson plundered many different cultures to create his natives, and they really ring true.
Now we come to the character study. We see Hieronymous from childhood to adulthood (although not in a linear fashion). We get to see the forces that shaped him and made him the man he grew up to be, which has resonance both in this novel and in Paragaea, where Hero also appears. But we also get to see how he changes when faced with a challenge he hasn’t prepared for—love.
The realistic detail in setting and character makes it all the easier to suspend disbelief once the supernatural elements start showing up; you really care what happens to these people, which is quite a feat. So if you like fast-paced adventure stories that don’t sacrifice characters on the altar of plot, then you really should be reading Chris Roberson.
April 6, 2012
Just before the turn of the 19th century, Hieronymous Bonadventure, a young boy of common ancestry, rejects his father's desires that his son follow in his footsteps and become an Oxford scholar. Instead he finds a retired mercenary to teach him, and he spends a decade learning swordplay. Then, burning for grand adventure, he leaves home as soon as he is legally an adult (at 21) and joins His Majesty's navy. Years pass, and most of the book is told after the fall of Bonaparte, when Hieronymous is First Lieutenant on HMS Fortitude. We follow his interactions with the crew under him and the captain over him, and watch as they combat a Spanish galleon the captain believes is loaded with booty. Before the battle is brought to its conclusion, both ships are tossed by a furious hurricane. The Fortitude barely survives the storm, and finds itself in need of repairs, lost in uncharted waters...
I enjoyed this book (thus the "I liked it" rating), though at the end I felt that the author was intentionally playing with my expectations. The story of his learning from swordmaster Giles Dulac as a youth is used as a framing device throughout the book, and I let myself anticipate that, at some point, Hieronymous was going to have to use his formidable sword prowess in some sort of epic battle. But that never materializes in the book. Oh, Hieronymous does use his sword, but he never enjoys any particular advantage or has anything to show for training for ten years. This is, I think, intentional, rather than an oversight. Clearly Roberson is adept at managing expectations; he masterfully builds an anxious sense of dread throughout the book, which lends everything that happens to Hieronymous and the crew of the Fortitude a definitely sinister air...long before anything overtly horrible appears. It's almost as if the author included those passages expressly to demonstrate that there are some things in life for which there can be no adequate preparation.
The book takes a fair amount from classic naval literature, as well as from authors contemporary to the time period (particularly Jane Austen). The imitation is not quite perfect, however: the book reads as if someone was trying to mimic Austen's prose style, but the characters themselves read as far too modern. Hieronymous is an agnostic who thinks that all oceans are really the same body of water, and various characters on the Fortitude are licentious in a way that reeks of the present. So while the word choice is spot-on, what the characters do and what subjects they discuss are very modern by comparison. I'm happy that the author declined the opportunity to barrage his readers with sailing and other nautical vocabulary, which is really a breath of fresh air for authors writing stories set on ships. So, it was an enjoyable adventure yarn, and were it the first in a series, I would read subsequent volumes in the same setting.
I enjoyed this book (thus the "I liked it" rating), though at the end I felt that the author was intentionally playing with my expectations. The story of his learning from swordmaster Giles Dulac as a youth is used as a framing device throughout the book, and I let myself anticipate that, at some point, Hieronymous was going to have to use his formidable sword prowess in some sort of epic battle. But that never materializes in the book. Oh, Hieronymous does use his sword, but he never enjoys any particular advantage or has anything to show for training for ten years. This is, I think, intentional, rather than an oversight. Clearly Roberson is adept at managing expectations; he masterfully builds an anxious sense of dread throughout the book, which lends everything that happens to Hieronymous and the crew of the Fortitude a definitely sinister air...long before anything overtly horrible appears. It's almost as if the author included those passages expressly to demonstrate that there are some things in life for which there can be no adequate preparation.
The book takes a fair amount from classic naval literature, as well as from authors contemporary to the time period (particularly Jane Austen). The imitation is not quite perfect, however: the book reads as if someone was trying to mimic Austen's prose style, but the characters themselves read as far too modern. Hieronymous is an agnostic who thinks that all oceans are really the same body of water, and various characters on the Fortitude are licentious in a way that reeks of the present. So while the word choice is spot-on, what the characters do and what subjects they discuss are very modern by comparison. I'm happy that the author declined the opportunity to barrage his readers with sailing and other nautical vocabulary, which is really a breath of fresh air for authors writing stories set on ships. So, it was an enjoyable adventure yarn, and were it the first in a series, I would read subsequent volumes in the same setting.
June 2, 2012
After seeing a few reviews of this volume, I picked it up and had high hopes for it. Sad to say it didn't live up to its hype.
The plot is a meandering mess if nothing else. Lieutenant Hieronymus Bonaventure and the crew of the HMS Fortitude find themselves adrift in the uncharted waters of the South Seas. The bulk of the novel progresses as a historical fiction novel set in the southern Pacific and is a pastiche to the early navigators accounts of their experiences in the South Seas. If the novel would've stayed with that tack, I could've easily given it three stars given Roberson's skill as a writer.
Unfortunately, there are feeble attempts to make the novel a fantasy novel. A chapter in the middle where Bonaventure and his island lover meet some very strange, giant bat-like creatures, and then the final 1/8th of the novel is a pastiche of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. To further muddle the reader, the entire novel has flashback sequences on Bonaventure's teen years as he rebels at becoming a scholar and trains as a swordsman.
The plot is a meandering mess if nothing else. Lieutenant Hieronymus Bonaventure and the crew of the HMS Fortitude find themselves adrift in the uncharted waters of the South Seas. The bulk of the novel progresses as a historical fiction novel set in the southern Pacific and is a pastiche to the early navigators accounts of their experiences in the South Seas. If the novel would've stayed with that tack, I could've easily given it three stars given Roberson's skill as a writer.
Unfortunately, there are feeble attempts to make the novel a fantasy novel. A chapter in the middle where Bonaventure and his island lover meet some very strange, giant bat-like creatures, and then the final 1/8th of the novel is a pastiche of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. To further muddle the reader, the entire novel has flashback sequences on Bonaventure's teen years as he rebels at becoming a scholar and trains as a swordsman.
March 26, 2017
Easy to read, pleasant enough. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't all that good, either...I know what the author was going for but I don't think it quite reached the ideal. There were quite a few things that I thought should have been re-written to make it more exciting and more gripping, but the biggest flaw is probably the characters. I didn't find Hieronymus to be particularly interesting or relatable, but he was a pleasant enough hero - the supporting cast were all too cheated of development to be memorable, with the possible exception of some of the islanders.
Overall, definitely not a bad experience, but maybe also not worth the time.
Overall, definitely not a bad experience, but maybe also not worth the time.
April 28, 2011
Entertaining pulp adventure.
Not sure if it lives up to the blurb of "Hornblower meets Lovecraft".
The horror elements are almost an afterthought, certainly no build up of dread that Lovecraft is associated with, they are thrown in the same way as the description of island meals...odd.
The flashbacks have a Sabatini quality to them which I thought was at odds with the rest too.
Having said that, I did enjoy it...just not sure if it was fish or foul (sic - in an eldritch way).
Not sure if it lives up to the blurb of "Hornblower meets Lovecraft".
The horror elements are almost an afterthought, certainly no build up of dread that Lovecraft is associated with, they are thrown in the same way as the description of island meals...odd.
The flashbacks have a Sabatini quality to them which I thought was at odds with the rest too.
Having said that, I did enjoy it...just not sure if it was fish or foul (sic - in an eldritch way).
May 6, 2009
The supernatural in this story doesn't appear until the last thirty pages or so and if you are looking for horror elements in your seafaring stories then look somewhere else but if you want a well written adventure story this is a fun read.
September 4, 2022
Characters: 7, I didn't care for Bonaventure at first (Jeffries is much more my style), but after about a third of the way through, I realized I actually really liked him. Not all of the secondary characters felt distinguishable or developed, but enough did to serve the plot.
Atmosphere: 8, both the monotony at sea and the lush paradise of the island felt very real. The use of language, really, is what cemented place and time for me in reading this.
Writing: 8, in the vein of Master and Commander or His Majesty's Dragon, the narration from the perspective of an officer in the British Navy was so effortlessly historic that I heard it in my head as if I were listening to an audiobook. I would definitely read more of this author's work, as his care with language and pacing to aid in worldbuilding was delightful.
Plot: 7, the pacing was good with the exception of, for me, the climax going by in a blink. I wanted to feel more of the horror- not just the uncanny visual the MC experiences, but that gnawing psychological terror that's earlier hinted at.
Intrigue: 8, with short chapters and a good balance of action, character building, romance, self-awareness, and horror, this was definitely a page turner.
Logic: 8, I think the characters acted in accordance with their own motives, for good or ill. Nothing broke the plot logic for me, though I did expect the tension between the sailors and the natives to go sour, or the Captain to truly lose his marbles in his fixation on the Spanish gold and apparent lack of leadership skill.
Enjoyment: 8, I did enjoy this read, finishing it in three days. Which is hilarious, because the author gifted it to me (signed and everything) at San Diego Comic Con in 2006, I think.
*Read for the Pirateathon.
Atmosphere: 8, both the monotony at sea and the lush paradise of the island felt very real. The use of language, really, is what cemented place and time for me in reading this.
Writing: 8, in the vein of Master and Commander or His Majesty's Dragon, the narration from the perspective of an officer in the British Navy was so effortlessly historic that I heard it in my head as if I were listening to an audiobook. I would definitely read more of this author's work, as his care with language and pacing to aid in worldbuilding was delightful.
Plot: 7, the pacing was good with the exception of, for me, the climax going by in a blink. I wanted to feel more of the horror- not just the uncanny visual the MC experiences, but that gnawing psychological terror that's earlier hinted at.
Intrigue: 8, with short chapters and a good balance of action, character building, romance, self-awareness, and horror, this was definitely a page turner.
Logic: 8, I think the characters acted in accordance with their own motives, for good or ill. Nothing broke the plot logic for me, though I did expect the tension between the sailors and the natives to go sour, or the Captain to truly lose his marbles in his fixation on the Spanish gold and apparent lack of leadership skill.
Enjoyment: 8, I did enjoy this read, finishing it in three days. Which is hilarious, because the author gifted it to me (signed and everything) at San Diego Comic Con in 2006, I think.
*Read for the Pirateathon.
September 26, 2023
Enjoyable but a bit of a letdown after Paragaea, which I absolutely loved. The action doesn't really kick into high gear until very near the end. High marks for Roberson's writing style and great characters.
January 10, 2008
This book was listed as a fantasy at my local library; however, after finishing reading it only the last 20 pages or so were fantasy-like and, even then, not what I was expecting.
However, I did enjoy this book - it sure makes me want to read other books set on the high seas. The ending was quite short in comparison with the descriptive beginning and middle, which was kind of a disappointment.
However, I did enjoy this book - it sure makes me want to read other books set on the high seas. The ending was quite short in comparison with the descriptive beginning and middle, which was kind of a disappointment.
September 19, 2007
Well written but it doesn't really go anywhere fast. The fantastic elements end up being rather mild. I do like the wold newton thing going on with this and Paragea and other Roberson books.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 15 reviews