HNF Related Books

Lieutenant Oliver Anson, a distant relative of the illustrious circumnavigator George Anson and the younger son of a Kent clergyman, led the raid bidding to capture the gun brig Égalité hiding in a small Normandy harbour. But when it all goes wrong, Anson is felled by a musket ball in the head and is among the dead and wounded left ashore after his shipmates seek the refuge of their ship HMS Phryne.

Only – and despite official newspaper reports to the contrary – the less-than-god-fearing Anson turns out not to be dead at all but very much alive, and stuns even fellow seamen with his miraculous resurrection. It is, however, far from plain sailing for the prisoners to escape from behind enemy lines and get back across the Channel.

And the resourceful and ambitious Anson is then dealt a hammer blow by the admiralty when he is later denied a new sea-going appointment. Instead his future is to be an unattractive-looking, land-based role with the Sea Fencibles – tasked with foiling any potential French invasion attempt along the Kent coastline.

Perhaps worse, sea rover Anson finds himself falling into the clutches of a local bigwig’s voluptuous and determined daughter who is desperate to find a husband...

The Normandy Privateer charts the ups and downs of Lieutenant Anson and shines a poignant light on the loneliness and responsibilities of command.

Book 9: Safehold series (Includes sailing navies and their battles but based on another planet in the future so a strong sci-fi element)

The Church of God Awaiting's triumph over Charis was inevitable. Despite its prosperity, the Charis was a single, small island realm. lt boasted less than two percent of the total population of Safehold. How could it possibly resist total destruction? The Church had every reason to be confident of a swift, crushing victory, an object lesson to other rebels. But Charis had something far more powerful than simple numbers. It had a king, a crown prince, and a navy prepared to die where they stood in its defence. It had the Brethren of Saint Zherneau, who knew the truth about Safehold's founding. Who knew that the Church of God Awaiting was a monstrous lie. And it had Merlin Athrawes, last survivor of long-vanished Earth. Merlin, the cybernetic avatar of a woman dead over a thousand years, who was determined to break the Church's grip upon the human mind and soul. So after eight years of war, it is not Charis but the Church that stands upon the brink of defeat. But the Church still commands immense resources, and faced with the unthinkable - it's decided that it, too, must embrace the forbidden technology which has carried Charis so far. In the end, it is simple, for only one can survive. The lines are drawn, the navies and armies have been raised, and all of Safehold is poised for the final battle between those who believe in freedom and those who would crush it forever.

1670

Part of the non-nautical 'The Courtney Novels'

East African Coast, 1670.

In a time of brave and brutal adventure, one man will journey across land and sea to pursue his greatest enemy ...

The Golden Bough, captained by Henry ‘Hal’ Courtney, is running south from Ethiopia to Zanzibar. Below deck, both his crew and his lover, the fearless warrior Judith Nazet, sleep. As the moon glints through clouds, Hal sights a ship passing close by. Although there is an uneasy truce between the warring English and Dutch, Hal scents danger. When the Bough is boarded, the crew must go hand to hand to defend their ship and their lives.

But soon Hal will face even graver danger, as he discovers his mortal enemy still lives and is hell-bent on revenge. he must pursue his nemesis across desert savannah, through the seedy underbelly of Zanzibar’s slave markets and shark-infested waters, imperilling his own life at every turn. But it will take more than a slave’s shackles to hold Hal Courtney...

A thrilling blend of extraordinary drama and epic storytelling, Golden Lion sees Wilbur Smith return in triumphant form to the adventures of his beloved and bestselling Courtney family.

The book you now hold in your hands is part of a series of stories set in the uneasy peace before a period of almost sustained conflict that reigned across Europe between 1792 and 1815. It was a time that would see men made into legends and countries tear themselves apart.

Into this maelstrom of conflict I wrote a short story, The Diabolical Plan, which was published in an anthology a few years ago. The story received a lot of praise though and I kept thinking that it would be a shame to let the characters simply fade into obscurity. The years before the war and the early conflicts of that time, lent themselves perfectly to a crew of maverick heroes that faced more unusual enemies than recorded history has documented

This was a time of superstition. A time when the world was still being discovered and new islands and fantastic creatures were being unearthed. If you read history you will notice many references throughout the ages of seemingly impossible feats of achievement, as if something otherworldly may have happened but had never been accurately recorded for obvious reasons. This is the fringe in which the crew of the HMS Swift find themselves time and again as they fight to save their world. They encounter many strange and terrifying creatures and phenomena and their tales of heroism and sacrifice will continue, whether they are published or not.

For the history buffs among you I have tried hard to keep the stories within the actual historical timeline so the dates and many of the events are real, I leave it to you to spot the ones that are not. I do reserve the right to take a certain license and embellish some of these to better suit the story. This is fiction after all.

The HMS Swift is a Class 5 Frigate in the service of His Majesty. She runs one hundred and thirty seven feet along the lower deck and one hundred and thirteen feet at the keel, although the exact measurement included a few more inches if one was to be entirely accurate and Mister Moon, the Master, was always convinced that these extra few inches were critical to the ship’s performance.

The deck stretches to thirty eight feet in width and she was ported for twenty six cannon on the main deck, though, with the extra armament on the forecastle and quarterdeck, her full compliment was closer to forty.

This book is a compendium of a book and two short storys

• The Diabolical Plan (Short Story)
• The Island (Short Story)
• Crimson Seas

Author: Derek Gunn

Title: The HMS Swift Adventures

Series: The HMS Swift Adventures

First Published by: Permuted Press

Place:

Format: Kindle

Date: 2 July 2014

ISBN-10:

ISBN-13:

Napoleon's invasion of Russia has been roundly thwarted. But even as Capt. William Laurence and the dragon Temeraire pursue the retreating enemy through an unforgiving winter, Napoleon is raising a new force, and he'll soon have enough men and dragons to resume the offensive. While the emperor regroups, the allies have an opportunity to strike first and defeat him once and for all if internal struggles and petty squabbles don t tear them apart.

Aware of his weakened position, Napoleon has promised the dragons of every country and the ferals, loyal only to themselves vast new rights and powers if they fight under his banner. It is an offer eagerly embraced from Asia to Africa and even by England, whose dragons have long rankled at their disrespectful treatment.

But Laurence and his faithful dragon soon discover that the wily Napoleon has one more gambit at the ready one that that may win him the war, and the world.

Book 8: Safehold series (Includes sailing navies and their battles but based on another planet in the future so a strong sci-fi element)

Centuries ago, the human race fought its first great war against an alien race and lost. A tiny population of human beings fled to distant Safehold. Centuries later, their descendants have forgotten their history. For them, life has been an eternal Middle Ages, ruled by the Church of God Awaiting, whose secret purpose is to prevent the re-emergence of industrial civilization. But not all of Safehold's founders were on board with this plan. Those dissidents left behind their own secret legacies. One of those is Merlyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of one of Earth's long dead defenders, now reawakened after a thousand years to restart human progress and reclaim our place in the universe. Merlyn has intervened in the small Safeholdian realm of Charis, seeding it with ideas and innovations and helping it to rise to challenge the hegemony of the Church. It's been a long and bloody fight, but aided by a stream of inventions, breech-loading rifles, signal rockets, Claymore mines, new approaches to manufacturing and supply, Charis and its few allies seem to have finally gained the upper hand. Now major realms have begun to consider switching sides. To all these ends, Merlyn Athrawes has been everywhere, under multiple disguises and wielding hidden powers. The secret of who and what he is has been closely held. But a new player has arrived, one who knows many secrets including Merlyn's own.

In the vein of Horatio Hornblower, Patrick Cox weaves an exciting, authentic tale of Henry (Harry) Nelson-Heron, a young midshipman in the British Navy in the early 1800s.

Born in 1789 during the Irish Rebellion, Harry must overcome the prejudice against the Irish, the ancient enmity between his family and another, and the usual hazards of an active and inquisitive youth in order to realise his dream of becoming an officer in Britain's Royal Navy. When he and his faithful friend and companion Ferghal make the treacherous journey to London to find a ship, fate smiles on them. Harry is appointed a midshipman, and Ferghal joins him on the HMS Bellerophon as a seaman. Corsairs, diplomacy, and exploration challenge their skills as the seafaring life takes Harry and Ferghal across the seas and beyond.

(This book was originally published as 'Their Lordships Request' however it has been substantially re-written and the original title was withdrawn. You are therefore recommended to purchase this new version)

In 1795 a convict ship leaves England for New South Wales in Australia. Nearing its destination, it encounters a savage storm but, miraculously, their battered ship stays afloat and limps into Sydney Harbour. Here, the convicts rebel, overpower the crew and make their escape, destroying the ship in the process. Fleeing the sinking vessel with only the clothes on their backs, the survivors struggle ashore. Among the escaped convicts, seething resentments fuel an appetite for brutal revenge against their former captors while, for their part, the crew attempts to track down and kill or recapture the escapees. However, it soon becomes apparent that both convicts and crew have more to concern them than shipwreck and a ruthless fight for survival; they have arrived in Sydney in 2017.

TimeStorm is a thrilling epic adventure story of revenge, survival and honour set in a strange new world of unfamiliar technology and equally unfathomable social norms. In the literary footsteps of Hornblower, comes Lieutenant Christopher 'Kit' Blaney, an old-fashioned hero, a man of honour, duty and principle, dragged into the 21st century - literally. A great fan of the grand seafaring adventure fiction of CS Forester, Patrick O'Brien and Alexander Kent, and modern action thriller writers such as Lee Child, Steve Harrison combines several genres in his debut novel. The book was inspired by a replica 18th century sailing ship on Sydney Harbour and a question from Steve's brother, Tony: "What if that was a real convict ship?" TimeStorm explores that question in a fast-paced story as a group of desperate men from the 1700s clash in 21st century Sydney.