The Lonely Sea: Collected Short Stories

By Alistair MacLean

Book Overview

Us

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385235968
• ISBN13: 9780385235969
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Short Stories from a Master Storyteller...

Alistair Maclean published 28 adventure novels in his working lifetime, many of them bestsellers. The most enduring of his titles may be "The Guns of Navarone" and "Where Eagles Dare", thanks in part to successful movie adaptations. Readers may therefore be surprised to know that MacLean actually cut his teeth as an author on short stories. The first item in 1985's "The Lonely Sea" is a short story that won a newpaper competition in 1954 and launched the former Royal Navy sailor and school teacher on a professional writing career. The stories in "The Lonely Sea" cover a wide gamut of plots whose connecting thread is an association with the sea. "The Dileas" is the heartbreaking story of an aging West Highland fisherman who puts to sea in a terrible storm to rescue his two sons. The dialogue is authentic to the Highlands, and a plot twist at the end is typically MacLean. Several of the stories are thinly fictionalized accounts of wartime battles or disasters, such as "The Sinking of the Bismarck" and "The Lancastria." A few, such as "MacHinery and the Cauliflowers" are off-beat sea-going crime stories. "St George and the Dragon" is actually a rather whimsical love story. The book includes a newspaper article in which MacLean offers his rather blunt opinions on the rewards and responsibilities of a successful writer. The article reflects MacLean's view of himself as a teller of stories for the entertainment of his readers rather than a novelist offering compelling truths to critics. The collection in "The Lonely Sea" displays MacLean's undoubted gifts in a short story format that may not be familar to many of his longtime fans. "The Lonely Sea" is highly recommended to fans of Alistair MacLean.

Accounts of actual disasters at sea

While the author is more known for his fiction, this is a collection of short accounts of actual events at sea, with what seems to be a small amount of fiction added in. The Sinking of the Bismark has been covered in longer accounts (and also a motion picture) so the account here could be considered an abridged version of the action. He also includes accounts of other ships which are fairly well known, e.g., the Lancastria and the Jervis Bay, and many not as well known. It is of some interest to people studying the history of such events (it provides a quick reference with an overview of the action), as well as interesting to the general reader. It is an easy to read collection that can be read in segments (ideal for commuter trains, etc.).