Kydd (Thomas Kydd 1) [Kindle Edition]

I have just finished both Kydd and Artemis. I found out about the books from my son, who was going to buy me one of the later ones as he knows I love naval history fiction. I asked him to get me the first, though, so I could "start at the beginning".

Well, what a start - I have found both books entralling. Their technical detail is excellent along with very plausible story lines. As another reviewer alluded - the technical jargon can be quite daunting but then , how would it have been to a young pressed landman ..... ????? It helps to let the reader understand what Kydd must have felt like, and we can "learn" with him.

Artemis continues to build on a very strong start and develops more of the (expected future) relationship between Kydd and the enigmatic Renzi - a fascinating "coupling".

The next three books are now at home ready to be taken up. Having a break, though, with the other end of the naval spectrum, a techno-thriller by Patrick Robinson.

I look forward to returning to the 18th century thereafter.

Thanks Julian - stay bent to the task and keep 'em coming !!!

PS Thanks also to Con Campbell at julianstockwin.com who managed to get me a copy of Artemis for my holiday when I could not find one in the shops - great website as well.

Like a previous reviewer, I found this a hard book to get into at first. In fact, I pretty much gave up after the turgid anchor raising mentioned below. But having heard Julian talk about his book at the Historical Novel Society's conference in London I thought that he was a very engaging character and he deserved another attempt at his book.
It's a difficult book to review, simply because it is such a mixed bag of inspiring moments, wonderful scene setting and impressive dialogue, on the one hand, and underdeveloped characters, irrelevant episodes and recycled events from other books. For example, both Forester and Cornwell have used the small scale invasion of the French coast before. Why couldn't Stockwin have come up with something more original?
The main difficulty with the novel is its perspective. While I was greatly looking forward to a worm's eye view of Nelson's navy, it is a viewpoint that is fraught with problems for the author. Big things rarely happen to small people. What makes Sharpe and Hornblower work for their readers is the sense in which they are bound up with significant events and have sufficient rank to act with a degree of autonomy within the rigid confines of military structures. If our hero happens to be a squaddie, or equivalent, then he can only respond to most events. I had the same difficulty with a character joining the Roman legions, and had to get round it by offering a multiple perspective across the ranks, together with a sub-plot that gave the protagonist a measure of autonomy. While Kydd's experiences on the rigging of his ship of the line are engaging, the narrative, such as it is, just floats listlessly around. What on earth was the point of the sequence dealing with the insurance scandal ship? Other than filling up a few pages. It does not connect with anything that occurs before or after and is just a free-standing plot element. All of this smacks of a lack of strategic thought on the author's part, and it surprises me that the book wasn't more ruthlessly edited. It certainly needed to be since the pace stutters from scene to scene and left this reader thirsting for a strong plot to grab hold off and follow through the rest of the book...
The characters also needed more thinking through. By the end of the book I still had no sense of Kydd having a moral centre, a distinctly specific view of the world. As a result his mood swings towards the end seemed far too superficial and obvious. Other characters seemed to just fill in various functions required to move the story along, with no sense of their own motivations or complexity of character. Look at the way Bowyer is dispensed with once Stockwin wants to move Renzi centre-stage. It's hardly credible, even though we can accept that a sailor's life was clearly dangerous. Even Renzi, whose colourful past should make him interesting and enigmatic is laid bare in the shortest possible space of time and left as a lifeless little wimp hanging onto Kydd's pigtail. A great shame, since the character initially promised us so much more. None of the other characters impress either. Stallard, the commie, is only slightly more believable than Wolfy from 'Citizen Smith'.
All this is a great shame since, with more preparation, 'Kydd' could have been so much better. The dialogue is excellent, blending period features with an accessibly modern sensibility. The quasi-phonetic sentences jar only a little while giving life to his characters. And there are some great one liners, such as the aged ship only being kept together by the maggots, infesting its timbers, holding hands.
What Stockwin does well is to communicate his love of the sea. Its presence is always palpable to the reader's senses. If Stockwin can fix the problems outlined above his work will stand alongside Forester and O'Brian, but if it continues as its is it will only continue to disappoint and frustrate those who sense he can much much more with Kydd.

The first book in a long running series this title has many of the debut title issues, the characters need a bit more work, and there is innocence to the plot that seems to be scared to move away from the standard set by others who have already ridden these waves.

But when you take all that for what it is you can see beyond to the fantastic melodic dialog, and the characters that do start to grow on you and work their way into your affections.
There is still plenty of work to do from Kydd, but having read the rest of the series and read the rest of the reviews i can tell others that Julian did learn and progress the characters, he did move away from that innocent slightly scared plotline to create his own original work, and when that was coupled with his obvious passion for the sea and all things nautical, you end up with a series that does rank up there with Forrester and O'Brian, every year i look forward to my new instalment of Kydd...but to get there you have to start at the beginning.

Well recommended

(Parm)