Helpful Score: 5
I would have to say that "The War Chest" is about the worst example of a maritime adventure, set in the 18th Century, that I have ever had the misfortune to purchase. Forester and O'Brien are in no danger of being eclipsed by Porter Hill. By the time I reached page 73, (no mean feat,) I had determined the book to be unreadable.
On page 58, during a pitched sea battle, our hero, Captain Horne, pauses to wonder about what his next assignment is going to be.
On page 64, after achieving a victory over two enemy ships, our hero asks himself why one has surrendered and is being abandoned and the other is not fleeing - but the author apparently kept the answers to those questions to himself.
The last straw - this book is set in 1761, yet page 72-73 finds Babcock, the American character, reminiscing about how, if he had stayed in Ohio, he would probably have been gentry, in Ohio, in 1761. Mr. Porter, please, crack a history book now and then! A white settler in the Ohio territory in 1761 would be lucky to not be hair on a lodge pole, let alone gentry. It was at this point that I gave up trying to finish reading the book.
This book appears to have been inadequately researched, poorly conceived, badly contrived and written barely at a juvenile level.
On page 58, during a pitched sea battle, our hero, Captain Horne, pauses to wonder about what his next assignment is going to be.
On page 64, after achieving a victory over two enemy ships, our hero asks himself why one has surrendered and is being abandoned and the other is not fleeing - but the author apparently kept the answers to those questions to himself.
The last straw - this book is set in 1761, yet page 72-73 finds Babcock, the American character, reminiscing about how, if he had stayed in Ohio, he would probably have been gentry, in Ohio, in 1761. Mr. Porter, please, crack a history book now and then! A white settler in the Ohio territory in 1761 would be lucky to not be hair on a lodge pole, let alone gentry. It was at this point that I gave up trying to finish reading the book.
This book appears to have been inadequately researched, poorly conceived, badly contrived and written barely at a juvenile level.
