Forgotten Books: THE KING'S COAT by Dewey Lambdin (1989)

You're probably somewhat acquainted with C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, who starred in 10+ novels, a few shorts, a movie and a TV mini-series. He's honest, brave, honorable and pure of heart. (If you don't know him, think Captain James T. Kirk, who was based on old Horny.) Other heroes, notably Alexander Kent's Richard Bolitho, Dudley Pope's Ramage, Richard Woodman's Nathaniel Drinkwater and Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey, have followed more or less in the same tradition.

Dewey Lambdin's Alan Lewrie, though, brings something different to the genre. He likes women (all he can get) and alchohol (of any sort), and is no more honest than he has to be. And he cares more for his own prospects than for the honor of the Navy. In short, he's almost a real person. 

In The King's Coat, first in the series of 26 books (so far), he's caught boffing his half-sister and forced to join the Navy to avoid the scandal. (But lest you think too poorly of him, know that the half-sister seduced him under orders from her father, to cheat him out of his inheritance from his mother.) 

Anyway, there he is, a Midshipman (the most junior of officers) in Her Majesty's Navy, circa 1780, and hating it. Over the course of the book, he makes friends, discovers a love of gunnery, and (to his own surprise) proves his bravery in battle. He decides the navy isn't so bad after all. But he remains a real guy, and at this point in his career an 18-year-old guy, with all the usual vices. 

Lewrie's interaction with his fellow midshipmen, his superiors and his subordinates is nicely handled, and the battle scenes are great. The only drawback is the naval jargon. Despite having read all the Hornblowers, all 30 Bolitho books, three Captain Bloods, half the Aubreys and assorted others, most of that stuff is still Greek to me. 

There are stays'ls and jibs, pawls and cro'jack yards, binnacles, braces and backstays, shrouds and spars and dozens of other dinguses the crew is always fiddling with. You could look all this stuff up, of course, and try to remember it (as I have, and failed), but I've found the best way to deal with it is to let it roll over you like poetry, knowing there will be human interaction - and battle - coming soon. 

I enjoyed this one so much, I plowed right into the second book (The French Admiral), something I dang near never do. 

Pulp Gallery: ARGOSY (Horatio Hornblower edition) (1938)

Forgotten Books: "The Road to the Rim" and "To Prime the Pump" by A. Bertram Chandler

George Kelley featured the first Baen omnibus of John Grimes adventures a few months back, and I was intrigued by the notion of Hornblower in space. But, as is the way of such things, I promptly forgot about until recently, when Providence dropped it into my lap.

(OK, it wasn’t exactly Providence, I guess, it was Richard Robinson. And actually he just sort of handed it to me, but the effect was the same.) (And while I’m digressing, I might as well go the whole hog: I was touring the Robinson library with esteemed mystery author Robert S. Napier and Portland rock icon Brian Trainer when Richard took me aside and explained he’d been unlucky enough to accidentally order a duplicate copy of the book. Well, naturally, the gracious thing to do was to take it off his hands . . . ) (Anyway, thanks much, Mr. R.)

To the Galactic Rim collects the first three John Grimes novels (chronologically, anyway) and a collection of short stories. I’ve now read the first two novels, The Road to the Rim (1967) and To Prime the Pump (1971) and I’m well and truly hooked. Chandler’s writing has a charm that keeps things moving right along.

So far, the Hornblower connection is not as pronounced as I expected. When Horatio Hornblower got into a fix (which he did on a regular basis), he relied on wits and courage to get himself out. John Grimes, at this early stage of his career, just sort of goes with the flow, relying on luck to pull his fat out of the fire. I’m expecting this to change as the series progresses and he takes command of his first ship.

The Road to the Rim presents Ensign Grimes’ first venture into deep space, where he discovers that life on the rim of the galaxy is not as black and white as it was portrayed back in the Federation academy. And To Prime the Pump throws Lt. Grimes into a decadent society where he finds himself in way over his head.

Interestingly, the most Hornbloweresque behavior I’ve seen so far was in a story not told, but merely alluded to. At the end of To Prime the Pump, we get a brief summary of three adventures Grimes had after the main story concluded.

Here, complete in one paragraph, is a story that deserved a novel of its own:
There was the insurrection on Merganta, a bloody affair, in the suppression of which Aries did all that was demanded of her, but no more. Many of her officers and most of her crew felt more than a little sympathy for the rebels. It was Grimes, in command of one of the cruiser’s armed pinnaces, who intervened to stop the mass executions of three hundred women, wives and leading insurgents, turning his weapons on the government machine gunners. For this he was reprimanded, officially, by Captain Daintree, who, later, in a stormy interview with the planetary president, used such phrases as “an overly zealous officer” and “mistaken identity,” adding coldly that Lieutenant Grimes naturally assumed that it was not the forces of law and order who were about to commit cold-blooded murder.

More Forgotten Books at pattinase!