Holy water has nothing on this

[sovay]

Life is unfair when you find a shelf in a used book store containing six novels by Alistair MacLean and not one of them is The Guns of Navarone (1957).

(I got HMS Ulysses (1955). About seven years ago I was trying to write a story that included a fictitious WWII Arctic convoy, so if nothing else I can count it as someday research; also, it looked good. But still.)

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I think I rated HMS Ulysses quite highly, back when I was an Alistair MacLean fan. (It may have been his first book, and based on his own experiences? Something like that. But I have a fondness for naval stories anyway. Anything with a boat in it, basically.)

[sovay]

I think I rated HMS Ulysses quite highly, back when I was an Alistair MacLean fan.

Cool! Your recommendations generally agree with me, so that's good to know.

But I have a fondness for naval stories anyway. Anything with a boat in it, basically.

Yep. This would be the reason I bought Hammond Innes' The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956) unknown and unread from a library sale in July. (Worth it.) And why I have this icon, which is Denholm Elliott in the 1953 film of Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea (1951).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I read so much Hammond Innes as a teenager. And, um, possibly none since? That may just have been accessibility, because he used to be everywhere and then he died and then he kind of vanished.

[sovay]

That may just have been accessibility, because he used to be everywhere and then he died and then he kind of vanished.

I hadn't heard of him when I picked up the book, although I have since seen that he was pop-culturally popular enough to have several movie adaptations, including The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) with Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. I just knew it looked interesting and contained the sea.

[pameladean]

I read most of my Alastair MacLean to pieces in my teens and twenties. I recall HMS Ulysses as being different from the rest, but it was one of my favorites. I still retain a vast fondness for The Secret Ways -- something about the wintry setting without the stark terror of Ice Station Zebra, and some Hungarian characters who are probably all stereotypes, but I had never encountered them before.

I hope a copy of The Guns of Navarone will befall you soon.

P.

[sovay]

I hope a copy of The Guns of Navarone will befall you soon.

Thank you. I will look for The Secret Ways, too. In the meantime, I am enjoying HMS Ulysses.