Sten Nadolny's 1983 novel The Discovery of Slowness contains allusions to the Hornblower cycle. For instance, the Lydia is written among other vessels in a sailor's bar in Plymouth. Lieutenant Gerard who appears in The Happy Return and A Ship of the Line is mentioned several times. As the ancient seas weave an endless pattern of waves some days calm, others not so much the vessels on their surface also continually try to eliminate perceived rivals , such is the world.The very young but talented Mr. Horatio Hornblower at 17 in 1793 ( born July 4 1776 which amuses some) that midshipman, barely an officer on the Indefatigable , ( a real distinguished vessel from two centuries past) technology advances nevertheless and better systems to eliminate your troublesome enemies moves forward... that is the problem-

His final achievement occurs at his home, when he assists a seemingly mad man claiming to be Napoleon to travel to France. That person turns out to be Napoleon III, the nephew of Hornblower's great nemesis and the future president and later emperor of France. For his assistance, Lord Hornblower is created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. At the end of his long and heroic career, he is wealthy, famous, and contented, a beloved, indulgent husband and father, and finally free of the insecurities and self-loathing that had driven him throughout his life. Here is part of Gene Roddenberry's description of his hero from the original Star Trek pitch to the networks. "Space-age Captain Horatio Hornblower, lean and capable both mentally and physically. Forester, C.S, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Michael Joseph, London (1st ed. 1 June 1950) ISBN 0-316-28909-4I very much enjoy maritime fiction, when done well. This book was somehow not what I was expecting and I find it difficult to define, but I very much enjoyed it.

The Wikipedia entry for the series has a lot of good information, but careful of spoilers. There is a table listing all the books & stories with both the UK/USA published names & dates, plus the chronological dates, movies & other stuff. He wrote several volumes of short stories set during the Second World War. Those in The Nightmare (1954) were based on events in Nazi Germany, ending at the Nuremberg Trials. Stories in The Man in the Yellow Raft (1969) followed the career of the destroyer USS Boon, while many of those in Gold from Crete (1971) followed the destroyer HMS Apache. The last of the stories in Gold from Crete was "If Hitler had invaded England", which offers an imagined sequence of events starting with Hitler's attempt to implement Operation Sea Lion, and culminating in the early military defeat of Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941. His non-fiction seafaring works include The Age of Fighting Sail (1956), an account of the sea battles between Great Britain and the United States in the War of 1812.

In the final instalment of the Horatio Hornblower series we visit some lesser known adventures across our hero's long career, including Napoleon's plans to invade England . . . Forester wrote many novels. He is best known for the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic wars. He began the series with Hornblower fairly high in rank in the first novel, published in 1937. The last completed novel was published in 1962. With demand for more stories, Forester filled in Hornblower's life story, in effect. Hornblower's fictional feats were based on real events, but Forester wrote the body of the works carefully to avoid entanglements with real world history, so that Hornblower is always off on another mission when a great naval victory occurs during the Napoleonic Wars. I’ve seen too many intellectual flyweights and moral midgets assume the reins of command in my long career, and through their draconian attitudes, fake the whole thing passably enough. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (originally published in 1950) is a novel written by C. S. Forester featuring Horatio Hornblower. Although it may be considered as the first episode in the Hornblower saga, it was written as a prequel, the first Hornblower novel, The Happy Return, being published in 1937. Unlike all other Hornblower books, this novel is episodic, with named chapters that often focus on a self contained incident. This volume covers our hero's start as a junior officer in the British navy, early 1794 age 17 to, apparently, early 1800 age 23. Wikipedia's fictional biography: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horat...

Hornblower possesses a highly developed sense of duty, though on occasion, he is able to set it aside. For example, in Hornblower and the Hotspur, he contrives an escape for his personal steward who would otherwise have been hanged for striking a superior officer. Hornblower is philosophically opposed to flogging and capital punishment, and is pained when circumstances or the Articles of War force him to impose such sentences. Sternlicht, Sanford V. (1 October 1999). C.S. Forester and the Hornblower Saga. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-0621-5 . Retrieved 28 November 2012. This biography has confused some readers, who have taken it as a factual work. [3] Parkinson includes in Horatio's family tree a number of real-life Hornblowers. They include: Hornblower and the Crisis aka Hornblower During the Crisis Aug 1805–Dec 1805 (partial, unfinished novel)

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The TV movies improve the stories, adding drama, excitement, and romance. Excellent pacing, beautiful replicas of naval sailing ships, great acting, fine music, good costumes. Movies 5-8 are The Even Chance (aka, The Duel) (also includes material from "The Cargo of Rice", "The Man Who Felt Queer" and "The Man Who Saw God") You see, I’ve always believed in a still slightly autistic adulthood that virtue, and not swagger and a strutting attitude, yields the best rewards. Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying, "I recommend Forester to everyone literate I know," [24] and Winston Churchill stated, "I find Hornblower admirable." [25] Life in the Navy, though it seemed to move from one crisis to another, was really one continuous crisis; even while dealing with one emergency it was necessary to be making plans to deal with the next. p. 59.

Horatio Hornblower commences his career in the Royal Navy as an inexperienced midshipman in January 1794. Through a series of challenges and adventures both in and out of combat, Hornblower discovers he is actually talented in both seamanship and leadership. - Wikipedia Acting-Lieutenant Hornblower accompanies the diplomat Mr. Tapling to buy cattle and grain from the Bey of Oran to resupply the fleet. However, an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the city forces Hornblower, Tapling and his boat-crew to take refuge aboard the transport ship Caroline and remain in quarantine for three weeks until they are clear of infection. Hornblower struggles with a tiny crew aboard a worn-out ship, but still manages to take a prize in the shape of an unsuspecting privateer lugger, and deliver the supply ship to the fleet's base at Gibraltar. There he is reprimanded by the Victualling Officer for having allowed his crew to feast on fresh beef over the last three weeks.Both my oldest daughter and her husband are fans of the Hornblower series, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the A & E movie productions that I've seen of the Hornblower corpus; so I was motivated to read the books, and decided to begin at the beginning of Hornblower's career, with this novel. (My only previous acquaintance with Forester was from reading one of his short stories.) I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint! This novel is episodic, with named chapters (US editions begin each chapter title with "Hornblower") that often focus on a self-contained incident. A "biography", called The life and times of Horatio Hornblower, was published in 1970 by C. Northcote Parkinson which gives various scholarly "corrections" to the stories told by Hornblower's creator. [12] The popular Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell were inspired by the Hornblower series; Cornwell avidly read the series as a child, and was disappointed to learn that there was no similar series chronicling the Napoleonic Wars on land, so he set out to rectify this. [26]