WesWorld

Any recommendations?

I just nabbed a pair of books by Alan Evans for a buck at a used book sale in the office lobby...suggesting there's another ship enthusiast around here somewhere.

Anyway - there's at least five books in his series about one David Smith, an RN officer in WW1. He gets stuck with odd jobs - commanding an AC, a monitor, a Q-ship, and if I see this correctly, now MAS boats - in the course of various books, because nobody in the Admiralty likes him.

"Dauntless" and "Ship of Force" I have, somewhere, now I have "Audacity" and "Seek Out and Destroy". Just need to find "The Thunder at Dawn" somewhere, which might not be easy, as the books were written in the early eighties.

Still, if you see them, they're decent reads, and set in a timeframe most naval fiction books aren't.

Any recommendations out there? Or, for that matter, "un-recommendations" too?

Douglas Reeman's books are usually a good read, even if the plot in them doesn't waiver.

The Hornblower series are great, but from 1800 period.

Just finished reading the one book I mentioned above, "Seek Out and Destroy". T'was alright.

Essentially, the hero, Smith, gets transferred to Italy, where he takes command of a small group of Italian MAS guys as well as an engineer working on related special projects. They're supposed to use these implements to track down and sink a brand new Austrian battlecruiser, commanded by wily German captain, before it and the rest of the Austrian fleet go rampaging around the Adriatic. And no, it's not really clear why either the Italians or Austrians require foreign officers to be commanding their units.

Anyway, Smith also manages to get involved a bit in the land war, and - shockingly - lands himself a love interest. The conclusion involves a good deal of destruction, though no "whangs" per se. Like I said, not bad, and certainly worth the fifty cents I paid for it.

On the un-recommended side - I seem to recall having a real dislike for a recent book with an exported Russian sub going off and nuking an American carrier group before getting into other wacky hijinks. I think it was just called, "Kilo". Not the most exciting title if you don't know what a Kilo is, I imagine...

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On the un-recommended side - I seem to recall having a real dislike for a recent book with an exported Russian sub going off and nuking an American carrier group before getting into other wacky hijinks. I think it was just called, "Kilo". Not the most exciting title if you don't know what a Kilo is, I imagine...

I recently read it. It really was awful. I have read another book by the same author. Essentially the plot was the same, but with a different submarine.

"Kilo Class" by Patrick Robertson. Most (or all) of his other books have the same title format "____ Class"

Probably as derided as those books, but a series I enjoyed when I was younger was by Bart Davis; Full Fathom Five, Raise the Red Dawn, Destroy the Kentucky, Atlantic Run, and possibly some later ones.

Rocky,

I'll recommend "The Cruiser" by Warren Tute. I finally found a hard back copy (from Canada, of course) and replaced my paperback. Unfortunately, I've already disposed of the paperback by sending it to a friend...

I have a lot of Reeman's stuff. I find I don't really care for the bulk of it. "The Pride and the Anguish" I is alright as a light-forces novel. "Surface with Daring" is probably my favorite of his. There was one called "The Ship" IIRC, that I've never read. "Battlecruiser" was a huge disappointment.

In the WWI period, I have "Buller's Dreadnought" by Richard Hough, but I've never gotten around to reading it.

I'd recommend "Cruise of the Raider Wolf" and "The Emden-Ayesha Adventure" from the same period. They're not novels, they just read like them...

I have a lot of stuff from Alexander Kent (aka Douglas Reeman) at home but can´t tell exactly which one - as I only know their german titles. ;o)

His WW1/WW2 stories are quite similar regarding their plot but at least offer some interesting fights and "insight" into the lifes of the sailors onboard their warships.

The Bolitho-series is also quite good even thought that guy sometimes has just a little bit too much luck - or too man helpful friends around when he needs them.

What I really recommend is reading the novel on which the movie "Das Boot" is based on. That one´s a really good read.

Other good books which are easy to read are the reports from various AMC like the German THOR for example. They should be available in english and gives you a very good idea of the life onboard (including funny anecdotes) those ships and the problems their crews had to face.

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What I really recommend is reading the novel on which the movie "Das Boot" is based on. That one´s a really good read.

Its great. Some others I've thought of are; HMS Ulysses by Alastair Maclean and The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monserrat. They are both excellent books and quite involving.