Waves of History

The crowded nature of Napoleonic-Wars era naval fiction leaves other eras as relatively open fields for authors to work in. Some choose to stick to the tales of wooden walls by predating the late 18th and early 19th century era most commonly featured. Other choose to explore the transition from sail to steam as technological advances created deadlier weapons and deadlier ships. The men who crew them, though, are as human as ever and the conflicts still hinge on them and the courage they display, as well as the costs they are (or are not) willing to bear.

Antoine Vanner takes a look at Her Majesty's Navy in the early 1880s through the lens of the young officer Nicholas Dawlish. Although Dawlish himself knows no Navy other than steam-powered, he's serving under officers who started their careers as boys aboard the ships of sail. The future of the navy will be in the hands of the younger men who can seize on the new technology and think in its world instead of trying to adapt themselves to it with one foot in each. Dawlish is ambitious for advancement, and the Royal Navy has not yet completely shed its devotion to advancement by influence rather than solely on merit.

In Britannia's Spartan, his bravery and the influence of a powerful admiral have landed him command of one of the RN's newest; the steel-hulled cruiser HMS Leonidas. As a part of that cruise, Leonidas will help with a diplomatic mission in the Far East, trying to secure allies among the Chinese and Korean people in the face of the modernizing and expansion-minded Empire of Japan. Though it should be a simple mission of ferrying diplomatic correspondence and the like, the underlying conflicts among the different factions will boil over and put Dawlish in the midst of the fight, in an area that still holds some frightful memories of his first bloody battles. Only the most precise handling will allow him to survive the diplomatic crisis at hand, and only bloody courage can get him through the enemies he faces on land and sea. Like the Spartan general for whom his ship is named, Dawlish knows that if he comes back with anything less than success, there's not much reason to come back at all.

Spartan is the fourth of the "Dawlish Chronicles" and the best to that point in the series. The initial volume was a grand adventure and had the advantage of fresh characters but the drawn-out chases, retreats and last stands grew a little repetitious. Spartan has the advantage of an actual sea battle, something the real-world history of the period furnishes few opportunities to record. Napoleonic-era writers can always tuck a frigate skirmish in here and there because of the worldwide nature of that conflict, but the British Empire was not in open conflict with many powers during the 1880s, at least not on the open sea. Vanner takes advantage of the near-complete unfamiliarity Dawlish and other officers have with the Korean and Japanese people they meet and their culture. He does well turning the narrative on some features of the widening division between expansionist and moderate groups in the Japanese military.

Through its first eight books the Dawlish Chronicles have been uneven, but Britannia's Spartan's tighter narrative focus, twisty diplomatic turns and more cohesive structure make it one of the series that shouldn't be overlooked.