Alaric Bond’s wonderful new book, Cut and Run, the fourth in his Fighting Sail series, steps away from the Royal Navy and takes us onto the decks of a merchantman – a ship of the Honorable East India Company. The ships of … Continue reading
Category Archives: Seastories
A great line-up of Summer reading from Astrodene’s Nautical Log Book for July: Newly released novels include Steven E. Maffeo’s, The Perfect Wreck – Old Ironsides and HMS Java: A Story of 1812, and Tom Grundner’s latest novel in the Sir … Continue reading
Lord Macaulay wrote “There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seaman.” Twenty one year old Matthew Quinton, captain of the Happy Restoration, … Continue reading
Joe Follansbee has put together a really fun book trailer for his excellent guide book to historic ships, sites and museums. We reviewed the guide last March and liked it a lot. Read our review here. The Fyddeye Guide to America’s … Continue reading
Patrick McPherson is a 19 year surgeon’s mate in the Royal Navy. By all appearances, he is an upstanding young man with a promising future. The dark secret that the young mate carries is that he is indeed, a she. … Continue reading
Linda Collison’s new book Surgeon’s Mate, the second book in the her Patricia MacPherson nautical series, was recently been released. Astrodene’s Historic Naval Fiction interviewed Linda Collison about her new book, which we are reposting with permission. We reviewed Collison’s … Continue reading
Jim Luce recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet Found in Japan. The title makes it sound like a new discovery. Not so much. The site of the “lost fleet” was discovered … Continue reading
Astrodene’s Historic Naval Fiction Log Book, a monthly newsletter on naval and nautical fiction and non-fiction is out for April. Books due for release this month are the novels, The Mountain of Gold by J. D. Davies, and Honor Bound by Robert … Continue reading
None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, … Continue reading
The battle against piracy in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea may be changing. This week Japan announced that it would try four suspected pirates being held by the US Navy after they were captured attempting to hijack the Japanese owned tanker MV … Continue reading
I was recently sent The eNotated Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Enotation is electronic annotation, where instead of footnotes or endnotes, there are embedded links in the text of an e-book. A book like Slocum’s which contains … Continue reading
I recently purchased Joe Follansbee’s The Fyddeye Guide to America’s Maritime History – 2,000+ Tall Ships, Lighthouses, Historic Ships, Maritime Museums, and More. Rather than purchasing a dead-tree version, I bought the guide as an e-book for Kindle. This is, … Continue reading
The Maritime Quarterly, a new maritime journal, was launched on the first of this month. Looks very interesting. Extracts are available on its website. About the journal: The Marine Quarterly is a new kind of sea journal, reporting subjects of strong interest to everyone … Continue reading
When the Deepwater Horizon suffered a blowout, caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last April, it was only forty miles off the coast of Louisiana. Yet, in many respects, the world aboard the ill-fated rig was as … Continue reading
On this the 183th anniversary of the birth of Jules Verne, it seems worthwhile to look at the submarines named Nautilus. Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image. … Continue reading