I have always enjoyed reading fiction. As a boy and teenager, I particularly relished adventure stories and consumed them voraciously. The tales I read crossed all genres—westerns, science fiction, historical novels, detective stories, war stories, whatever. Most of the adventures I read and enjoyed as a youth in no way could be considered great literature, although some in fact were.
Looking back, I now realize that the tales I enjoyed most spoke directly to my heart, mind and emotions, and, at the time, seemed to be strongly relevant to my life. That relevance I grasped, to some extent, even as a youngster. The plot that most attracted my attention at that time revolved around the “hero’s journey”. A journey that I myself was on. And, if you believe Campbell and Vogler, this theme results in a story structure with universal appeal and which has existed in human culture down through millennia.
When I began to write HMS Furious some twenty years ago I think I must have been feeling nostalgic for that rather simplistic, old-fashioned adventure story of my youth because that is what I have attempted to craft.
Technically, I think my story might be hard to define since it seems to be a mix of science, nautical, and military fiction. The characters are boldly drawn with not much subtly or nuance. The action is straight-forward. The ship-board culture though placed far in the future is more reminiscent of 18th century Europe particularly as it existed in the British Navy. The plot revolves around intertwined journeys being made by a number of select players or characters. Good is good, and bad is bad. There are some mysterious events but not all is revealed. Finally, the initial impetus for action is, in fact, based upon real events that happened in the South Atlantic about forty years ago. But those events are secondary to the heroes’ journeys which is at the heart of these stories.
In conclusion, this story and its sequels were written for the me that existed as a teenager and young adult many years ago but also for the me that exists now since that youthful me still exists within my mind. Thus, I suppose one could classify these novels as falling into the juvenile book genre but I hope that they may also be of interest to a wider range, younger and older, as well. You know, to tell you a secret, every once in a while I will pick up my copy of HMS Furious and read a few chapters just to remind myself of what I enjoyed so much as a young man…and in fact still do.