Appearance
By the Mast Divided
a fine sea tale from the impressed seamans view with intrigue and gun smoke aplenty. Romance and death or fame and fortune with subplots aplenty. Loved the book.
By the Mast Divided
Too much explanation of historic sailing terms that takes away from story. Fair to good character development. The plots are not well connected at times.
By the Mast Divided
Witches and magic spells on a British war ship? No way. It was nonsense from the first encounter with the witch.
By the Mast Divided
I've now read all the O'brian books, the Hornblower series and the Charles Hayden sagas and more. I like this genre and would have thought there was no place left to go, but Donachie does "yeoman" service bringing this era to life. The book starts quite slow -- the book is half gone and they have yet to leave the harbor -- but the way he spins the yarn makes for interesting reading. Unlike other authors, he shows life before the mast and on the quarterdeck. His villain's motives are explained, and the villain, Ralph Barclay, is more of a complex man with weaknesses and pressures not appreciated by the crew, as opposed to a cruel man set out to be evil because that's the way he is. He isn't evil -- he's human, greedy, cunning, brave and foolhardy, just like anyone else. Life before the mast is more realistically depicted than in most author's books who tend to homogenize the lowly crew as a single entity. Donachie is able to show that it isn't -- there are cruel men, decent men, intelligent men, stupid men, dedicated men and more, all with their own intricacies and foibles and motivations, just like real people. Moreover, Donachie goes to great effort to describe the living standards of these men, the squalor of the ship and the day to day operation of a sailing vessel in a way O'brian never does. In O'brian's world, the crew are good or bad, happy or unhappy, work with a will or inept. He makes a few passing references to the stink below decks or to boys getting rogered over a gun, but Donachie brings these every-day things to life -- the stink below decks, the casual attitude towards sodomy of boys, the everyday meanness of back breaking work. He also goes to great pains to show the dawning awareness of who is truly cruel and who isn't, allowing the reader to discover that the world isn't as good or bad as one thing. It's refreshing to see this evolve. You can see the characters doing what they do because they are trying to impact their own futures within the confines of their nature, not as evil or good. The one drawback to me seems to be the fractured loyalties of the officers to the Captain. I believe if it were really as Donachie describes the English navy would have come apart and never been able to rule the seas. There is nothing in Donachie's depiction to pull the men together other than their brutish desire to fight. This seems unrealistic to me. There MUST have been friendship, cameraderie, patriotism, duty and so on among the officers as well as the crew, but in Donachie's world, the officers despise the Captain as well as each other. They constantly second guess the captain, something I believe would never happen in real life. Even amongst the competitive nature of their roles, there would have to be some friendships made, some reason for loyalty and some joy of their trade. The only ones who actually experience any joy at all are the protagonists. If the opposite were true for the rest, they would have killed themselves long ago because life aboard the frigate is just too depressing otherwise. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, especially the second half as the action picked up. I will continue to read the series and am grateful for another long stretch with characters worth learning about. It would be helpful if the main character, John Pearce, had a few character flaws along the way -- he's too uniformly smart, good looking, capable and lucky to be in his current predicament.
Digital Photography Bible (Desktop Edition)
This 476-page book is principally written for beginners and intermediate users of digital photography, though some tips in it by the book's well-experienced author will also help advanced users. As the title indicates, it is a "Bible" and is structured to cover a great variety of subjects, from deciding the type of camera to buy, to taking great photos, to processing those in your "digital darkroom" (I love that term), to managing your images afterwards both for presentations and storage. It also has many practical tips reflecting the wide-ranging experiences of the author, including setting up a mini-studio on the cheap.One of the nice surprises was how the book links to a companion website where all the black-and-white figures used as illustrations can be seen in color. (Though for people with dial-up modems, this feature may be a bit frustrating for the extra time needed to download individual images.) Further, the companion website provides other helpful resources, including photography checklists you can print and have handy wherever you go with your digital camera.The book is conveniently organized into 6 parts on the following major subjects: 1) Laying the Foundation: Basic Digital Photography; 2) Taking the Next Step: Photographs that Wow!; 3) Tackling Different Photographic Subjects; 4) Doing your Own Image Processing; 5) Photography for Professional in Other Fields; and 6) Putting Digital Photography to Work. Each is divided into subparts and various topics with lots of illustrations to further carry the message, including some printed in the book in color.As I went through the book, some topics reminded me of articles on similar subjects I've read in the past in photography magazines for film-using cameras. But this Bible, updates those subjects to the digital age, and provides readers with easy to read information on how to get the best digital images possible, with some techniques unique to digital photography.I also liked the extended "Tips" added here and there after subjects. For instance, after discussing how to photography scenes and animals in nature, the author gave good short pointers on being prepared for bad weather when shooting in the wild. (I suspect some were painfully learned in the "school of hard knocks" which the author is helping us avoid!)All and all, I found this book quite helpful and will be using it in the future whenever I have questions about how to achieve good (or I should say hopefully excellent) digital images.
Digital Photography Bible (Desktop Edition)
This book is absolutely packed with valuable information on photography, written by a working digital photographer, in a clear, concise style. You'll find lots of advice, tips, and tricks that will help beginners as well as experienced photographers.Frankly, it's about time that a guide like this should hit the shelves. Most of the "digital photography" books on the market deal more with image editing techniques than true photography. If you want to learn Photoshop, go buy a Photoshop book. If you want to learn how to use your digital camera to take great pictures, check out this book.The photos used as examples are good enough to make any digital photographer drool, yet anyone who reads this book carefully can probably go out and duplicate most of them. Simon sets the bar high, but at a level the reader can strive for.As with most books priced economically, this one relies on many black-and-white images, plus a color section where you can enjoy the full impact of the photos. However, unlike some other books I've seen, the reproduction of the monochrome images is clean and sparkling. You'll learn something from every illustration in this book.I particularly liked the special sections at the back of the book that discussed specific photographic genres, some of which (like real estate photography) haven't been addressed in this much detail in other books. I recommend this book highly.