Go East, Young Man!

One of the problems that faces the writer of Napoleonic nautical fiction is that there are a number of times when the scene, so to speak, switches to land. The great Nelsonic battles destroyed the power of the French fleets at sea, and then the constricting blockades prevented their repeat. This was certainly well and good for the nations needing to keep the Corsican tyrant bottled up on the continent, but the author who wants to put his or her hero forth in the proper atmosphere of derring-do is left with refitting a few single-ship actions to be conducted by the novel's characters instead of their actual historical participants.

Author Julian Stockwin, whose stated goal of his Kydd series is to get his hero from pressed man to admiral, finds himself even more constrained as many of those single-ship actions are not the kind that helps a rising and ambitious post-captain keep the notice of those over him who could guide his career towards the hoisting of his own flag. So in several of his more recent Kydd novels we've found our hero spending quite a chunk of narrative without a hint of powder-smoke to be found. The series' 2019 entry, To the Eastern Seas, remedies that a little by making Sir Thomas Kydd the prime mover of the British takeover of the Dutch East Indies, giving him a role in transforming England's commercial empire into the political one that would dominate most of the 19th century.

After a brief reunion with his wife Persephone, Kydd is ordered to India as a means of reinforcing the crown's protection of its East India Company ships. Pirate activity is biting the bottom line and a speedy, deadly frigate with a bold and innovative captain is needed to deter their depredations. But once on station in India, Kydd finds that there are political intrigues aplenty -- between royal officials and Company leaders and even between colonial officers themselves as they try to avoid the kind of overreach that would win them no new ground as well as leave current possessions open to French or Dutch attack. Although Kydd was in these waters before as a common seaman, the additional expectations of a captain in polite society present him with unfamiliar waters that may bring him even more hazard than the enemy.

On the one hand, Eastern Seas doesn't spin its wheels -- Stockwin puts Kydd on the scene of several events connected to England's interests that happened in that place and time where his courage and cleverness help save the day. On the other hand, Kydd seems out of character in more than a couple of places. In one, he takes steps that he should see clearly would be threatening to his own commanders and look like attempts to undermine their authority. In another, his worries about the absence of letters from Persephone and the kind of thoughts it provokes him to seem like a very artificial problem, wrapped up neatly in an almost dismissive paragraph.

Stockwin's writing is as strong as ever. His opening description of the return of Admiral Collingwood's fleet superbly paints both visuals and their emotional impact. The secondary narrative of the Tyger's new first lieutenant and his growth arc as a character is as well-done as anything in the series. But Eastern Seas lacks any real sense of weight as a sequence of events in Kydd's life and career. And it presents a main character curiously unaware of things he's already demonstrated at this point to be able to perceive quite clearly, for what appears to be no reason other than, "Well, otherwise there's nothing going on." It certainly improves on some of the more lackluster recent series entries, but it's still a little too easy to say, "But to what end?"