Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel Of The Napoleonic Wars (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
A disappointment. Instead of improving Worrall seemed to spend a lot of time working backstory. This book makes me miss and appreciate Patrick OBrian all the more. Worrall handles all the technicalities of a British man of war sailing ship from the eighteen hundreds. He is on top of the cultural details from the period, but falls short in that his story is pretty much limited to one central plot strand. Two if you count his personal life. There is no Manturin to make his hero and his story a multi faceted gem. There is no music, no botany, no zoological novelties. No exploration. This is an OK book, but the standard is so high in this genre all post OBrian writers appear to be midgets.
I thought that this book was a great sequel to Jay Worrall’s “Sails on the Horizon”. Edgemont is on the move again; sailing his frigate in search of Lord Nelson’s fleet. Along the way he finds his enemy; the French fleet at Alexandria. Eventually, he locates Nelson’s fleet and joins in the action to do battle with the French in one of the most famous sea battles: The Battle of the Nile. The author kept my interest with his writing of this historical period and he did it in such a way that I could understand just about everything he wrote.If you have read the Hornblower series, I would think that you would enjoy “Approaching Enemy..”. Highly recommend.
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