C. S. Forester

April 1803. The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower-who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy-commands the three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnaissance mission that evolves, as war breaks out, into a series of spectacular confrontations. All the while, the introspective...

As commander-in-chief of His Majesty's ships and vessels in the West Indies, Admiral Hornblower faces pirates, revolutionaries, and a blistering hurricane in the chaotic aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.

After Herbert Curzon fumbles a fortuitous early step on the path to glory in the Boer War, 1914 finds him an honorable, decent, brave and wholly unimaginative colonel. Survival through the early slaughters in which so many fellow-officers perish brings him rapid promotion, and by 1916 he commands 100,000 British soldiers. Unyeilding and diligent, he leads them through the horrors of the Somme and Passchendaele. -- from back cover

Erik Toresen, a simple Norwegian fisherman, finds his quiet coastal village shattered by the Nazi invasion. Untrained in the ways of war, the villagers use only their cold, sullen hatred as defense until Erik mobilizes the villagers and trains them to fight.