Invasion: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures) ebook

It's early in 1805 and Commander Thomas Kydd, now a seasoned commanding officer under fire, has regained his job and his ship in this tenth installment in the series (roughly the halfway point, from what the author says), and is sent to join Admiral Keith's squadron in the Downs off the southeast corner of Britain. Napoleon is busily preparing his invasion forces and the Downs Squadron -- whose ships are mostly too old or too small -- is doing its best to disrupt French activities. The set-piece engagement in the first part of the book is a very nicely done large-canvas portrait of the Royal Navy coming down on an enormous fleet of invasion barges filled with troops and their guardian warships as they move down the coast to a rendezvous at Boulogne. Kydd takes his sloop into the thick of things and comes out bruised and bloody but still game. While his ship is being hastily repaired, however, he's seconded (much to his displeasure) to nursemaid an American inventor who has been slipped out of France -- Robert Fulton, later of steamboat fame, but here the inventor of WMDs. Fulton has devised, built, and successfully tested an undersea boat (the first Nautilus) for the French, the implications of which are staggering for the Royal Navy. Nicholas Renzi, ex-nobleman, struggling scholar, and Kydd's particular friend since their days before the mast, got a taste of spycraft in the previous volume of the series and didn't like it a bit. But now he has been inveigled into sneaking into Paris and persuading Fulton to leave, which he manages to do. Kydd acts as facilitator to the inventor, who convinces the Admiralty to underwrite the construction of a series of torpedoes -- though they balk at a submarine -- to be delivered by more conventional means against the French invasion fleet holed up in Boulogne. Evidently, all this actually happened, more or less as Stockwin describes it; definitely a "little-known chapter," as they say. But the author gives no indication of whether the climactic attack itself actually occurred. I'll have to do some research to satisfy my curiosity, I guess. As it happens, Stockwin does a much better job when he sticks to naval matters. The earlier part of the book, when Kydd must hazard his little brig-sloop as part of the attempt to prevent Napoleon's invasion fleet from completing its preparations, is much more convincing and satisfying than when Renzi is wandering around Paris trying to talk Fulton into leaving France. Bonaparte's secret police were notably efficient and I frankly find it hard to believe Renzi wouldn't have ended up in a deep cell somewhere. In short, this is one of the less well done efforts in the series. Well, Trafalgar will be coming up very quickly. Will Kydd and his loyal crew have a part in that? He has the medals for Camperdown and the Nile; will he acquire a third one? And perhaps the author won't have a reason to allow his hero to stray ashore or be diverted next time.

Thomas Kydd is a commander in the Royal Navy, facing Napoleon's fleet across the English Channel. Invasion is imminent, and Kydd has been placed at the front of the action. Then, he's pulled off the front lines and asked to be the government liaison with an American inventor, one Mr. Robert Fulton. It's not steamboats that His Majesty's Navy is interested in, though -- it's Fulton's submersibles and his torpedoes - and how much he's told the French about them. Because the Royal Navy is outmatched, and Fulton's high-tech firepower may be what tips the scale back in their favor.

Invasion is the 10th book in Stockwin's Kydd Sea Adventures series. Right there you know there's plenty of backstory that you don't get in this book. Add to that the fact that the reader is dropped right into the middle of the action in chapter 1, as Kydd is demanding a hearing from his commanding admiral, Sir James Saumarez, to clear his name of charges leveled in previous books. I spent most of the first couple of chapters totally confused, which is part of the reason it's taken me so long to finish this book (I got it back in September!). Add to that the thick dialect that much of the dialog is written in, and this one almost got put into the DNF pile.

But that would have been a shame, because the book is actually quite good. In a series as long-running as this one, you're not going to see much characterization in individual books, but you will see a fast-moving plot with a lot of action. If you love the age of wooden ships and iron men, you will enjoy this book -- and this series, for that matter. Stockwin, a former Naval officer himself, knows his stuff; if you don't know a lot about the age of sail, you'll learn from this series.

One of the abiding themes in this particular book seems to be the changing state of warfare at the time. We see some of this in the American Revolution, with the British constantly calling the American militia's guerrilla tactics "ungentlemanly" and "against the rules of warfare." In Invasion, we see this even more, as the Royal Navy debates the idea of using weapons that will essentially make warfare less personal, and probably less glamorous as well. The idea of using stealth to surprise an enemy was frowned upon back then; today, it is practically a requirement for any battle plan.

I am embarrassed to admit that I was ignorant of Fulton's role in developing submarines back in the 1800s; in fact, when I first requested a copy of this book, I though that it was an alternate history because of that. So I learned something in reading the book, which is always a good thing, as I've mentioned before.