This collection of 11 short stories set in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado is little known but well worth the readers time. There are no real heroes in the book, just a variety of men and women who are forced to deal with dilemmas we all face in our everyday life. The settings for the stories are in mountain mining towns such as Telluride, Ouray, Montrose, Gunnison, Cortez, Dolores and Norwood, Colorado. The stories are intense, frightening, honest and some come Oh so close to home. Let's look at one of them. In Toward the Sun, you have a woman dealing with the probability that the man she loves, and who loves her in his own way, is slipping away. The following description of his honesty is an example of the wonderful writing in the book. "But he cannot be dishonest. If there were a seed of dishonesty in him, he would, like an oyster, make a pearl of it. That kind of honesty is both hard to come by and hard to endure." The age old desire to change someone to fit your expectations and the possible results and cost of such change, are fit into a marvelous story which will leave you with a wider perspective of life and the choices we make. Is honesty really the best policy? Is happiness worth any cost? Nelson explores the age old dilemma of someone that has a job but no options or alternatives and tries to deal with desires and longings, as follows: "Maybe he liked the dog for his hunger: The dog had done something-he'd escaped, hidden, lived free. Marshall envied that. He had hunger too, but for what? He didn't know for what. Maybe he had hunger for hunger. He wanted to do something. Something: that didn't say much. Do what? Something besides work." This is the first book I have read by Nelson but it will not be the last. Fortunately, he has written three other novels, two collections of short stories and a host of short stories in literary magazines. He also has won a PEN fiction award and the Edward Abbey Prize for Ecofiction. This is an above average book by an above average author.

Ever humble in his sterling achievements, a popular hero cheered by his men, Richard Bolitho has been made rear-admiral. Bolitho has moved away from his more happy-go-lucky (but never sky-larking!) enthusiam of youth and turned towards introspection and the burdens of ever broader commands of, necessarily, ever more anonymous people (now grown to 3000). Kent seems increasingly interested in writing of the psychology and pressures of supreme command. We see the thinking of The Admiralty vying with the jealousies of admirals, or the uncertainties of information and of diplomatic choices. In the climactic battle for Copenhagen we see Bolitho make his first cold-blooded command decision to throw away a ship in favor of the survival of his fleet as a whole.

This is an often grim story that jumps between English ports and the entry to the Baltic Sea, plots and battles, health and death, and points of view. As with the novels of Hornblower and Drinkwater, Bolitho's Baltic mission is intimately tied to Tsar Paul's potential (mes-)alliance with Napoleon in 1801, and the British attempts to prevent it. Britain was fighting the greatest threat to its existence in 800 years, struggling to keep any allies at all on the continent to face the totalitarian French juggernaut (Hitler's model). The secondary story is about Adam Pascoe, Bolitho's orphaned nephew, and his growth as an officer in the squadron through trying personal relationships and, finally, knowledge of his birth. Extraordinary coincidences threaten to repeat some of the dark episodes of earlier stories: a wound that again drives Bolitho out of his mind, Pascoe's involvement in another duel like his traitorous father's, a carriage wreck like that which killed his beloved wife, and someone providentially like her....

As a writer Kent doesn't include informative period asides so much as go for the jugular of battle or command tensions. In idle moments Bolitho indulges in reminiscence of people from earlier stories, of most meaning if you've already read them. As always, pay really close atttention to any sailing instructions (e.g., difference between wind veering and backing) if you want to visualize what's going on; at one critical point I thought two squadrons were approaching battle bow-on, when they weren't! I really missed a map of the intricate waterways at the mouth of the Baltic.

In Number 13, Bolitho becomes a rear admiral; Herrick is his flag captain, Pascoe is on board. Bolitho was an average midshipman, a good lieutenant and and excellent captain, although most of his more daring feats were ashore. Kent can't let go of this, and Bolitho improbably hangs his flag on a small frigate, to get that frigate action that Aubrey could never let go of. The best thing about this book in the series is the almost soap-opera relationship with Allday, Pascoe and Herrick.
Bolitho finds a new woman, a carbon copy of Cheney, in a most unbelievable way. We still do not get enough of either the wardroom or the lower decks, except from Dick's ever more removed view. I do not like Admiral Bolitho much, not as much as I liked him before he became an admiral; but he is still more likable than the irascible Nathaniel Drinkwater (Woodman). We lack the incompetent, malevolent superior, as Bolitho becomes the superior. A good enough read, however, to lead me into #14.

Alexander Kent has chosen an interesting theme for the Inshore Squadron, the British expedition against Denmark. It is a fine choice of topics and allows for a great deal of character developement.

Richard Bolitho, now a flag officer himself, is thrust into the frontlines of nautical diplomacy. He is discovering that it takes more skill running the gauntlet of politics than it ever took in a broadside to broadside action. Now he is given the overall mission and learns that if he succeeds, no one will know and if he fails, he will be relieved of duty without a moments hesitation by the Admiralty.

In the midst of this hazardous assignment, he meets a woman that he is drawn to. Belinda is the cousin of one of Bolitho's former officers, who was also his brother-in-law and whos sister, Bolitho married only to loose her later in a coach accident. They meet coincidently when her coach is in an accident and Bolitho's coach is first on the scene. Deja vu?

The relationship builds but not smoothly. Belinda knows of Bolitho's first wife in fact vaguely resembles her. She knows this and doesn't want to be seen as a replacement for his first wife. It is this undercurrent that follows their relationship and you wonder, if in fact, she is right.

Adam Bolitho is now a lieutenant and we start to see that he is more his father's son then his uncle's nephew. Dueling rears it's ugly head again for Bolitho. His brother fled to America after killing an officer in a duel and it seems like Adam is riding down the same road.

Thomas Herrick is back again as flag captain. He has matured as a captain and also has a grounding influence on Bolitho. He grows in his role of falg captain and is no longer looking over his shoulder for Bolitho's approval or sanction.

All these charecters are thrust into the campaign to neutralize Denmark and the threat it would be to communications between the UK and Russia. The combat between the Royal Navy and Royal Danish Navy is brutal and no-holds barred. One would think it would be no contest but the Danes don't fold after a token resistance, they are in the fight to the bitter end. The Danish Navy is shattered but it is not without cost to the Royal Navy. Thanks to Bolitho the operation is a success, but if he had failed, it might have gone the other way, with incaluable damage to Britain's ability to combat Napoleon.

All together, this is a well written book with interesting and absorbing plot twists and charecter developement. One of the scenes that stays with me now, is Bolitho riding through Copenhagen, during his diplomatic mission, and wondering what it would be like to explore this very interesting city in peacetime. Maybe Bolitho is getting tired of the non-stop sea war has faced since he was a teenager, 30 years before. Hmm.

I highly recommend this book as a valued addition to any Kent library and it is a fine reference to details of the little known and regarded 1st Battle of Copenhagen.

Good stuff. The writing is lean and sharp, with nary a word wasted. Guy gets out of the joint and gets involved with some rough dope-smuggling types. Authentic tale and a way of telling it. I wonder who Kent Nelson is and if he has written anything else? I like the voice.

I found the first publication by Black Lizard Publishing extremely interesting with some characters reminiscent of people I had known during this period of my life. I will not bore you with the hooks that attracted me to this story, but suffice it to say it deserves a read. Would love to read more from this author.

This book simply does not deliver any content. It is a well-written, attractively formatted, 199 page advertisement for a commercial product. I was extremely disappointed. It is the only book I have ever bought (and I've bought thousands) that I sent back. You will not learn anything from reading this book as most of it is spent describing a demo of the commercial product.

As Mr. Downey writes, this book is horrible. There are about 2 sentences of valuable information in the whole thing. Half to book is dedicating to instruction for the included software, which crashes my PC. Obviously this book was written to try and sell software, not as the technical resource it claims to be.

Whatever you do, do not buy this book, unless you want to waste some money.

I bought this book expecting at least a little information on what the book promised to tell about: Robot Sensors. What I received was completely vague theory of what a robot could have to do theoretical things. This is a fictitious book that most anyone could write without any prior knowlege on the subject. It astounds me that any respectable company would publish a book like this. I hope that in the futre, the author of this book will actually tell readers what the book is about and not try to swindle them.

A sample sentance of this book might say something like: "If we had a robot that had to navigate through a room, what would he need? Sensors! These would alow it to navigate through the room."

This is about the depth of the book. To make it worse, I was expecting a sizable book. Instead, the book is very small and filled with giant diagrams which contain absolutely NO information.

Why should you listen to me? I am a microcontroller programmer and I actually do many of the things this author dreams of in his book.

Bottom line, this book is the worst book I have ever seen on any subject. Do not buy it. I was forced to return mine and luckilly get a refund.