Dewey Lambdin's Alan Lewrie Series

I have not read this series. The publicity and review text for these novels seems to give nearly equal prominenece to the fact he is a rake so I wonder how many chapters are devoted to that subject as opposed to HNF. I assume they are a popular read as there are 14 books out in the series with another, working title the Baltic Gambit, due out in February next year.

I've read them all (just finished Troubled Waters).
The early ones dwelled on his rakish aspects much more than the later ones (no sex at all in Troubled Waters - frankly I did not miss it), but there was definitely enough nautical activity to hold my interest, as Lewrie makes the climb from unwilling middie to post captain despite his character flaws.

At the beginning I was worried that he would be a completely anoral character like Flashman, but fortunately this turned out not to be the case so i stuck with the series.

I, too, have read the entire series and give it an unreserved thumbs up. I was really OK with the early rakehell persona ("Ramcat Lewrie," indeed). It was a refreshing change from the usual earnest and serious trajectory from midshipman (or pressed sailor in the case of Julian Stockwin) to admiral.

In any case, with command comes responsibility and Lewrie grows convincingly into maturity. In the later books rutting gives way to grand passions (after all, Nelson is his hero) much to the fury of his unforgiving wife. But this "shore business" doesn't take much away from cracking HNF, certainly no more than with, say, Hornblower or Aubry.

BTW, there is a new volume, The Baltic Gambit, due to be released next month (February 17, 2009).

Paul

Looking forward to HMS Cockerell being re-published. Hopefully before I go away on my summer holidays. I havent read the latest one but apart from that it is the only one I have yet to read. I 've really enjoyed them up to now but I think that missing out on HMS Cockerell means that some of the later stories are not holding together so well.

The Baltic Gambit is now available for advanced order at Amazon UK and [url=a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312348061?ie=UTF8&tag=astrodene-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0312348061]Amazon US[/url]

I have just finished reading the entire series and thought it throughly entertaining. Lambdin has a fine sense of humor and his characters, at least to me, seem more like real human beings in contrast with the crew of some other writers.

Great series, although a little overdone on poonts, quim, chids and lanthorns. Looking forward to King, Ship and Sword in 2010

King, Ship and Sword expected in February 2010, from what I understand.

I had the opportunity to exchange letters with Mr. Lambdin this past spring. He doesn't do emails or digital things, but I noticed in an interview appearing in a past issue of the Quarterdeck newsletter (McBooks Press), he said he enjoyed hearing from fans. The article listed his home address in Nashville.

So I wrote a "keep up the good work" letter. A week after mailing it, he wrote back. He's hard at work finishing up another Capt. Lewrie adventure, pounding it out on an old IBM selectric.

For those of us who may have dreamed about being an irascible rogue in a previous life, the overdone re the above may, in fact, be part of the attraction of Mr. Lambdin's entertainments.

Cheers.

Just as an aside, I used to dream about owning an IBM selectric...

Ah, yes. In college I had a Corona portable typewriter. When I graduated and entered the workforce, an IBM selectric was cutting-edge technology!

I've just finished listening to the first book in the series "The King's Coat" which was read by John Lee. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be working my way through the series as and when I can source them from the library. I quite liked the reluctant hero type approach and appreciated the action both at sea and on land (not always in bed). I think the pace of the story and character development worked well. Alan Lewrie is still a midshipman at the end of the book and, I understand at the beginning of the next. So, hopefully he won't rise to Post too soon.