So this week I’ve been reading The Complete Midshipman Bolitho, by Alexander Kent, which is an omnibus of three short novels about Richard Bolitho and his adventures in the Royal Navy.
I keep wanting to call him Midshipman Bolingo, but that is something completely different.
Anyway, I seem to have picked up several historical military novels off Bookbub and/or the Goodreads discount ebook list. As it happens, my parents were in town for Thanksgiving last week and we visited the USS Iowa.
Then that evening we caught a program on PBS about the Oklahoma and another one about the Arizona. And then I showed them a clip from the film “Battleship” (which I and, much more surprisingly, my wife thought was much better than the reviews indicated) involving the Missouri, which looked just like the Iowa. Except for, you know, the sailing around and fighting aliens part. Oh, and the Missouri‘s lack of a bathtub.
So it seems to be Fleet Week around here, doesn’t it? A good week to read about life aboard a sailing ship in the 18th century.
AFTER A LIVELY CROSSING to the anchored cutter Bolitho found the Avenger surprisingly steady for her size. Holding his hat clapped to his head in the icy wind, he paused by the small companion-way while he studied the vessel’s solitary mast and the broad deck which shone in the grey light like metal. The bulwarks were pierced on either beam to take ten six-pounders, while both forward and right aft by the taffrail he noticed additional mountings for swivel guns. Small she might be, but no slouch in a fight, he decided.
Hmm, a small Avenger who’s no slouch in a fight? Hmm …
I was going to put Hit-Girl in here, but she, of course, is not an Avenger.
You know who else is no slouch in a fight? Vampires. From my upcoming novel Television Man:
“How, um, how did you get up here?”
“I found a shortcut up the mountain,” she said.
“Oh.” Then: “How did I get up here?”
“You fell. I caught you.”
Silence.
“You … How, um, how did you …”
He trailed off as she looked at him over her shoulder. Her crimson lips were slightly open; he could see too-white, too-sharp teeth between them. “Best if we don’t get into that just yet, maybe,” she said.
Viscosity 