Books of Interest?

                      THE SEAFORT SAGA
                             by
                       DAVID FEINTUCH

                       Science Fiction

                  Reviewed by David Froude

I found four books of The Seafort Saga while I was browsing in a
local charity shop.  I initially passed them by but on re-reading
the back covers, I bought them.  They lay unread for a few months
but once I started reading the first of the series it was a
difficult book to put down and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I am now
reading the fourth in the series.

Although set in the future, the characters are reminiscent of
C.S.  Forester's "Hornblower" and Alexander Kent's "Bolitho".  The
space navy is run on similar lines to the British Navy but with
stricter discipline similar to the navy in the 18th and 19th
centuries.

The Saga commences with "MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE" in 2194.  The
principal character, Nicholas Seafort, is a Midshipman on a Navy
spaceship that is carrying colonists and supplies to Hope Nation,
a colony planet.

Space travel is by "jumps" and between one of the sequence of
jumps there is a terrible accident that kills the senior officers
leaving Midshipman Seafort in command.  He is left to continue the
journey in a damaged vessel and must overcome malfunctions,
despair, exhaustion, mutiny and alien horror.

It is good reading and I would recommend the tale for anyone who
enjoys science fiction and military action.

The saga continues in "CHALLENGER'S HOPE", where Nicholas Seafort
is left stranded aboard a doomed ship.  In "PRISONER'S HOPE", he
is left on a colony planet when the Naval Fleet has to return to
Earth and he has to deal with rebellion and rally the colony
against alien invaders.  In the fourth volume, "FISHERMAN'S HOPE",
he has returned to Earth and becomes the Naval Academy Commandant
where he is pulled into a maelstrom of crisis, corruption and the
danger of annihilation of Earth by alien attackers.

It's been some time since a new author has held my interest so
intensely.  These are great stories.

DWF 22/01/2001









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