Dudley PopeRecensioni

there's a chronology of the previous year at sea, the list of ships at the great battle, and an in depth study of the motives and strategy of both sides. this book was often reprinted.

Ramage is appointed to the Dido, a 74 gun ship of the line and is sent to the West Indies to blockade the French island of Martinique, scene of earlier adventure with the Calypso. Several successful actions ensue and the book ends with suspense over what his next orders will be.

Ramage assigned to watch Cadiz for the French and Spanish fleets to emerge. When they do he is reminded that frigates such as the Calypso have no place in the line of battle but stay back to relay signals from one ship to another. But when Ramge spots the Hazrd, the twin to his French built Calypso, he cannot resist attempting her capture.

Sent to rescue English hostages held in Italy, Ramage unexpectedly discovers his missing wife in 2nd set of hostages

Ramage is assigned to lead a convoy of merchants from Barbados to England. He encounters a British ship which fires on the Calypso. The captain is obviously mad but none of the crew will admit that they fired. Once in England the mad captain accuses Ramage of illegally seizing control of his ship. The court martial is run by an old enemy and the case seems hopeless.

Ramage is sent to claim and survey a tiny island off S. American coast but discovers it is a nest of pirates with many hostages. He rescues hostages, captures remaining pirates and delivers them to British govt.

When Ramage reaches Dutch, now French controlled, island of Curacao it is plagued by French privateers and Dutch rebels pillaging in the name of the Revolution. The Governor surrenders the island to the British and Ramage destroys the rebels, only to have the Governor turn on him when a Dutch frigate arrives.

Assigned to determine why post office packets are being captured by privateers at an alarming rate Ramage discovers that the crews and commanders actually profit from capture and are therefore not fleeing effectively or fighting back.

Assignment to convoy duty is usually boring. However, one ship, the Topaz, is carrying extremely important passengers, including a beautiful young woman. After attack by privateers the convoy encounters a hurricane and is broken up. Are we surprised that the Triton and the Topaz wash ashore near the same small island? Plus a rumor of buried treasure and the continued vendetta of Rear-Admiral Goddard leading to yet another court=martial in Jamaica.

Ramage is sent to eliminate pirates preying on Caribbean trade. Governor and Admiral want him as a scapegoat

Ramage is dispatched with Marches di Volterra and her cousin to Gibraltar in a cutter. On the way he encounters a capsized Spanish frigate and decides to capture it and take it in tow. However he and his crew are captured, but an American sailor helps him pose an a pressed American. Paroled in Spanish town they are able to learn of Spanish plans, steal a boat and sail to Gibraltar. Sent with the fleet to intercept the Spanish, Ramage once again disobeys orders when he realizes that smoke is preventing the Commander from realizing the Spanish fleet may escape. He rams a Spanish 2 decker with his cutter and materially aids the victory after risking what seems to be certain death for himself and his crew. I begin to see a pattern here.

O destino faz com que o tenente Nicholas Ramage assuma o comando da fragata inglesa Sibella, em meio ao fogo cerrado dos inimigos franceses. O navio está prestes a ir a pique, mas a rendição não entra nos planos do oficial. Ramage faz uma manobra que permite salvar boa parte da tripulação da fragata e parte para nova missão: resgatar, em terra, um grupo de aristocratas franceses contrários á política de Napoleão. Algo inesperado acontece: a fuga pela praia, um dos aristocratas, o conde Pitti, é dado como morto e Rmage decide zarpar sem ele, levando apenas o conde Pisano e sua prima, a marquesa di Volterra. Tentando ocultar sua própria covardia, Pisano acusa Ramage de covardia e incompetência, por ter deixado, ainda com vida, o conde Pitti na praia. A acusação leva Ramage á Corte Marcial, mas o oficial ao qual ele es´ta subordinado, o almirante Nelson, continua confiando nele e resolve lhe dar nova chance. Ramage é enrão enviado para uma missão ainda mais perigosa e demonstra grande bravura.

Astonishingly detailed.

I am coming to the end of this series. Each book is as interesting as the last... yes there are references to previous books in this series but it is done in a way that is not offense to the reader.

Pope's uses these references to past books as a way to have minor characters in the story comment on their past adventures from their own point of view. These are not 3rd party observations...they are used to enhance the book as they give an insight into thoughts of minor characters in the book.½

Another satisfying Pope story...I will read this series to the end/

This was a good story. Still had some parts with excessive explanations but much better than the first few books. Not too much moaning and complaining about his girlfriend.

This is a naval story without cannon balls or battles. Although touted as naval, it is actually a spy novel but a bit boring. As usual, it has long drawn out descriptions and conversations. I noticed that the author installed in the character a dislike of the Catholic Church whether this is personal or a sign of that time we will never know.

The only thing that kept my interest in this book was the information on the Packet Boats. Although it is based on true events, we have to take it with a grain of salt. I skimmed through pages of descriptions and conversations, like the discourse with the agent in Lisbon. Just a jumble of words. If the next book doesn't improve, I'll have to ditch this series.

This is the fourth in the Ramage series with a very boring start. The first chapter was a complete loss and the second was a synopsis of previous books. He seems to have vague memories of his loved one and in his heart he has a willingness to be unfaithful. Throughout the whole book the articles of war are continually repeated and a court martial is never far from his mind. And of course he loses another ship.
The book is lacking a story, going from one event to another, finally settling on a hunt for buried pirate treasure. The direction for finding the treasure is a bit far fetched. At the end, he finally has his long awaited court martial.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder but I am inclined to think that it makes the heart wander. This is the synopsis of the latest "Ramage" novel. Away from his love, he finds that the presence of beauty can overwhelm fading beauty. This book also contains a sprinkling of humor as well as the expected violence of naval warfare.

"Drumbeat" is the second book in the Ramage series. Another remake of the Napoleonic War with the usual point of view. Although a naval story, it starts of as a romance. Ramage has a lot of internal rants, his mind obsessed with love for a girl that he has met only six days prior. He seems prone to losing ships and although a Captain, he still wants to be one of the boys. He stumbles from one obstacle to another, gifted enough to keep both himself and his crew alive.

It was an entertaining read and there were moments when I found it hard to put down. At the end the story seemed to be cut short. Could have used another chapter and I assume that will be the first chapter of the next book.

"Ramage" is the first in a series of sea novels. The story opens up with a sea battle and our ship sinking. Our hero becomes the captain of a sinking ship and the start of his troubles. Ramage is likable, perhaps too much so with the crew. I found some parts boring, too much description about putting up sails. Another part that annoyed me was his reaction to the lady in the story. A bit overdone. He sounded like a wide eyed schoolboy. I'm hoping it doesn't take him too long to become a adult.

The Battle of the Barents Sea is the Kardashians of naval conflicts, mattering not because it was important but because certain people (in this case, Hitler) decided to treat it as if it were important.

At the end of 1942, a British naval convoy, JW 51B, was headed for Russia, with an escort of a handful of destroyers and some smaller ships. The Germans spotted the convoy and sent a much stronger force -- the "pocket battleship" Lützow, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, and six destroyers -- to eliminate the convoy. But the Germans, who had been ordered by Hitler not to take any real risks, were extraordinarily cautious. The British destroyers bluffed them away from the convoy (although one of the destroyers was sunk, another badly damaged, and still others damaged to lesser degrees). Then two British cruisers showed up and damaged the Hipper. The Germans retreated, the convoy survived -- and Hitler exploded, ordering the destruction of Germany's surface fleet. He was finally talked out of it, but among the other casualties was German naval boss Admiral Raeder, who resigned rather than face more of Hitler's abuse. All this even though the Germans inflicted more damage than they took, and the whole fiasco was ultimately Hitler's fault anyway.

This book, published a dozen years after the war ended, is without doubt the best-known account of the battle, and it is certainly very detailed. If anything, too detailed; it's easy to get lost in all the zigs and zags the convoy took to try to avoid detection. Another curious effect of the book's popularity is that it was published in multiple editions, and the paginations were different, and sometimes they weren't updated, so that my copy actually has references to pages that are wrong and, in at least one case, to photos that aren't there! (My copy, which as this trait, is the edition with ISBN 0870216600; I was able to verify the mis-pagination by comparing against ISBN 1590131029 -- which, however, was mis-bound, so be very careful to check whichever copy you get!)

The book is particularly strong for the period leading up to the sailing of the convoy; it is also very good on the Onslow's first attack on the Germans (that resulted in horrid damage to the Onslow and left the commander of the destroyer flotilla, Captain Sherbrooke, permanently disfigured and with damaged vision) and on the unsuccessful attempts to save the destroyer Achates. It's not nearly so good for what came after the battle -- e.g. what happened to Sherbrooke after the war? And what happened to Admiral Kummetz, the German commander who so signally failed to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity?

Indeed, there isn't much perspective at all from the German side. This is very much a book describing things from the British standpoint. That's not entirely bad -- do any of us really want insight into how the Nazis thought? -- but it makes it harder to understand what is going on. We know what and why the British did, but for the Germans, we generally only know what.

Also, there is some weakness in the descriptions of what happened on the British ships other than the Onslow. I became interested in this battle because of a song about it, "The Kola Run," written by a sailor on the Obdurate. He apparently wrote it in a fit of pique because younger sailors didn't know what it was like in the old days. But this book doesn't really help us know what it was like to serve on the Obdurate either, so it's no help in checking "The Kola Run."

At least the conclusion, about how the battle influenced Hitler's behavior, seems quite strong. The Battle of the Barents Sea should have been no big deal, but it changed the course of the war because of the strange way Hitler viewed it. You may not learn all you want to know about the battle from this book, but you will probably learn all you want to know, and more, about how psychologically disordered the Führer was.½

I read all of these excellent stories in their original books. Great choices for a collection.

Much of the Ramage series follows a formula. But it is a formula that works. There are flashbacks to previous books but they are done in a manner that is not annoying to this reader.

What I like the most is that the book while it focuses on Lord Ramage, it does not do so at the expense of the other characters of the books.

An enjoy able book and easy satisfying read.