The fourth book in the Nathaniel Drinkwater seriesIn The Bomb Vessel, a young Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater is given command of the old VIRAGO, to be sent to the Baltic as a cargo ship. Drinkwater's ambition is to turn VIRAGO back into a fighting ship, but he is thwarted by Lord Nelson. At the same time, Drinkwater's brother appeals for help in his desperate attempt to escape the gallows. As Sir Hyde Parker's fleet approaches the Danish coast, the VIRAGO is nearly caught in their destructive path. Amid gales and ice, Drinkwater strives to save his ship and his brother. In the spring of 1801, Napoleon had reached supreme power in France and allied himself with Tsar Paul of Russia. Against this hazardous backdrop of the Baltic expedition, Drinkwater's actions in the complex and bloody battle of Copenhagen are crucial.

In the Book and Sword, Louis Cha revives the legend about the great eighteenth-century Manchu Emperor Qianlong which claims that he was in fact not a Manchu but a Han Chinese as a result of a "baby swap." The novel is panoramic in scope and includes the fantastical elements for which Cha is well-known: secret societies, kungfu masters, a lost desert city guarded by wolf packs, and the mysterious Fragrant Princess.***Like the martial art heroes that he writes about, Louis Cha is a legend in his own time. Better known to his Chinese fans by his pen name of Jin Yong, Cha is the unrivaled giant of the modern martial arts (wuxia) genre. His novels were initially written for serialization in his own Ming Pao newspaper, which was published in Hong Kong. However, they became so popular that they were reprinted in Chinese newspapers around the world. His novels, which total fourteen, were subsequently published in book form. His accomplishment was magnified by the fact that during this time Mainland China was a literary desert because Communist rigidity only allowed publication of titles that conformed to socialist realism, i.e, it had to help build socialist ideals. Definitely, no room for escapist kung fu adventures there.Alas, in spite of his stature, his works were only accessible to Chinese readers. Although the novels were initially written between 1955 and 1972, it was not until 1997 that the English translation of "The Deer and the Cauldron" was published by Oxford University Press (and that was only the first volume of three!). Although that translation of Cha's last and, many argue, his best novel was excellent, it still left something to be desired because "The Deer and the Cauldron" was not representative of the genre. Therefore, it is with great excitement that we awaited the publication of the "The Book and the Sword", Cha's first novel earlier this year. The novel was initially translated and published on the web by Graham Earnshaw in 2001 but it was picked up by Oxford University Press in 2003 and edited by Rachel May and John Minford. Mindford was the translator for "The Deer and the Cauldron". The book finally became available earlier this year."The Book and the Sword" takes place during the reign of Emperor Qian Long (1735-1795) of the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty had been founded by the Manchus almost 100 years earlier. By this time the Manchu rulers, whose homeland was in the north east of present day China, had been thoroughly sinicised. Qian Long himself was a great patron and practitioner of Chinese culture. Nevertheless, there were still resistance groups formed by the Han majority. The story follows one of these secret societies, the Red Flower Society, whose members are determined to overthrow the Qing. The members of the society are a colorful bunch of characters, most of whom are men but they also include several women in their ranks (the woman are all beautiful and deadly, of course). The members come from a cross section of the society but have been brought together by their wilingness to risk life and limb to protect the weak and fight for justice. The newly elected leader of the society, Helmsman Chen, is an unlikely hero whose manners and knowledge reveal a priviledged upbringing as the son of a former prime minister. We join the group as they repeatedly fail to free one of their own, Rolling Thunder Wen, who is being escorted to the capital under heavy guard. Rolling Thunder, you see, happens to know about a deadly secret: that the emperor was actually born to a Han family but swapped with a Manchu baby girl. Helmsman Chen discovers this secret himself soon enough and hopes to convince the emperor himself to evict the Manchus. What Chen doesn't know, however, is that the origin of the emperor is related to his own selection as the leader of the Red Flower Society. Much of the action actually takes place in the western border of China in present day Xinjiang, home of the Uighurs, whom Helmsman Chen befriends and helps on various occasions. Since Qian Long was in the process of bringing the Uighur land under his empire, the Uighurs and Chen had a common enemy in the emperor. It is through these relationships with the Uighurs that Chen encounters the book and sword of the title. Although these two items are not directly related to his quest for the Manchu overthrow, they do lead him to two beautiful Uighur sisters and later painful choices between love for a woman and love for country.Those who have never read a wuxia novel are in for a surprise. Although frequent fight scenes featuring incredible acrobatics, swordmanship, and good old kung fu skills are present as expected, they are really not the most important part of the story. In fact, the book is very much like a typical Hong Kong movie where the movie director has never bothered to decide whether the movie is a comedy or drama, a kung fu spectacular or a tender love story, an uplifting message-filled narrative or horror movie. It is simply all of that and it switches between them at great speed. In this case, "The Book and the Sword" features several romantic pairings between leading characters. A theme central to all wuxia novels, that of loyalty, is tightly woven into the novel. Not just loyalty to the cause but also to the group and to one's kung fu master. The plot moves a mile a minute across various locales throughout China and spends quite a bit of time in the desert of Xinjiang, a area featured quite prominently in the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero" movies. Louis Cha clearly is a student of Chinese history and has interwoven several real life personalities of the time, including the legendary Fragrant Princess, an Uighur girl so enchantingly beautiful that she naturally smelled like flowers. The core of plot itself, that Qian Long was a Han Chinese, is a well-known but unsubstantiated rumor. I only wish that Cha had spent more time describing Qian Long's own struggle with his new found identity. At it is, he seems to be too eager to sweep it under the rug, which seems incongruous with the historical fact that he became a great emperor admired by all Chinese. In contrast, Cha presents Emperor Kang Xi (Qian Long's grandfather) in a more positive light in "The Deer and the Cauldron".In summary, we strongly recommend "The Book and the Sword" to all readers. The book is about 500 pages long which is much more accessible than the three-volume "The Deer and the Cauldron". The long wait has not been in vain. Now if they would just hurry up and finish translating the other twelve novels. In my lifetime.

No one but a madman would put to sea in such conditions. A blizzard cut visibility to yards. Long Island Sound was galloping whitecaps. But in this second year of the war of 1812, conditions like these spelled opportunity to Captain Josiah Peabody.His mission: break the British Blockade. The only thing in his favor was surprise. Who would expect a Yankee frigate in Long Island Sound at night?

In this ninth installment in the Hornblower series, the incomparable Horatio Hornblower, recently knighted and settled in as squire of the village of Smallbridge, has been designated commodore of his own squadron of ships, led by the two-decker Nonsuch and bound for the Baltic. It is 1812, and Hornblower has been ordered to do anything and everything possible, diplomatically and militarily, to protect the Baltic trade and to stop the spread of Napoleon's empire into Sweden and Russia. Though he has set sail a hero, one misstep may ruin his chances of ever becoming an admiral. Hostile armies, seductive Russian royalty, nautical perils such as ice-bound bays, assassins in the imperial palace—Hornblower must conquer all before he can return home to his beloved new wife and son, as his instructions are to sacrifice every man and ship under his command rather than surrender ground to Napoleon.

Alexandre Dumas weaves the compelling story of Siamese twins who are separated physically but never in spirit. They’re raised by two different families, but are still able to ‘feel’ the emotions of the other, even at a distance. On the island of Corsica they become entwined in the long-running feud between the Orlandi and the Colonnas–a dispute that had its beginnings in a dispute over the ownership of a chicken! Most of the two families have now been eliminated through the ongoing blood-feud, but the twins, unbeknownst to each other, are being manipulated to settle the fate of the two clans once and for all. The result is a stunning climax of swordplay and violence!

The fifth book in the Nathaniel Drinkwater seriesCommander Drinkwater's experience of battle was what mattered when Earl St Vincent entrusted Drinkwater with his new command — as escort to the Arctic whaling fleet on its annual expedition to the Greenland seas. With the French established as masters of the war upon trade, violent action ensued.

Edmond Dantes, a nineteen-year-old sailor from Marseilles, is soon to be captain of his own ship and to marry his beloved, the beautiful Mercedes. But spiteful enemies provoke his arrest on his wedding day, and he is condemned to life in prison. His sole companion is the ‘crazy’ priest Faria, who shares with Edmond a secret escape plan, and a map to hidden riches on the island of Monte Cristo. When Faria dies, Edmond attempts the incredible escape alone. finally he is free and rich beyond imagination after 14 years in prison. Keeping his true identity a secret, he enters society as Count of Monte Cristo, a polite, refined nobleman determined to reclaim his lost love, and to avenge his accusers. This is a story of suspense, intrigue, love and the triumph of good over evil.

The Deer and the Cauldron, also known as The Duke of Mount Deer, is a novel by Jin Yong (Louis Cha) and the last and longest of his novels. The novel was initially published in Hong Kong as a serial, and ran from 24 October 1969 to 23 September 1972 in the newspaper Ming Pao. Although the book is often referred to as a wuxia novel, it is not quite typical of the genre: the protagonist, Wei Xiaobao, is not an adept martial artist, but rather an antihero who relies on wit and cunning to get out of trouble.A complete set of Cha’s novels runs to thirty-six volumes, and in their original language they have sold hundreds of millions of copies throughout the Chinese-speaking world and have been adapted into countless movies, cartoons, operas, TV-series and video games. For a long time banned as decadent and frivolous in Mainland China, for the past 30 years or so they have become enormously popular with Mainland readers too, and were among the favourite reading matter of statesmen such as paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平, 1904-1997) and Jiang Zemin (江澤民 born 1926, President of China 1993-2003, a personal friend of Cha’s). His addictive story-telling style, combining fluent traditional Chinese prose narrative with a vividly modern cinematic touch, his fertile imagination and magical ability to transform Chinese history and culture into swash-buckling romance, together with his prodigious output over the years, have often caused him to be compared to the great Alexandre Dumas père, prolific author of The Three Musketeers and many other historical romances. Cha’s own Western name, Louis, was inspired by his admiration for that other great story-teller Robert Louis Stevenson.

Set in 1740 during the French and Indian Wars, The Deerslayer testifies to the murderous humanity and natural beauty on which the history of America was written. In the climactic novel of the Leather-stocking Tales, Hawkeye, the noble white youth, learns to sacrifice self-interest for the common good and discovers his identity in bloody struggles among the powerful Iroquois confederacy.