Blue Horizon

Book Description

The New York Times bestselling author and one of the greatest adventure writers of our time returns with a pulse-pounding tale of danger, courage, and suspense.

Tom Courtney and his brother Dorian battled both vicious enemies and nature itself on the high seas, finally reaching the Cape of Good Hope to start life afresh. Now, half a generation later, they are successful and contented: merchants and family men, prospering on the very edge of an immense and beautiful continent, Africa. In the tradition of Wilbur Smith’s earlier bestseller, Monsoon, this spellbinding new novel introduces the next generation of Courtneys. They are out to stake their claim in Southern Africa, traveling along the infamous “Robbers’ Road.”

It is a journey both exciting and hazardous---one that takes them through the untouched wilderness of a beautiful land filled with warring tribes and wild animals. But the most dangerous predators of all are other Europeans, crazed by greed, jealousy, and lust, and determined to destroy utterly all members of the Courtney clan. This quest for vengeance results in a desperate chase---both on land and sea---that is one of the most extraordinary in modern literature.

Blue Horizon is a truly great adventure story, told by a master novelist at the height of his powers.

Customer Reviews:

The Return of Tom & Dorian Courtney.......2007-03-28

Twenty years have passed since Tom and Dorian Courtney escaped the clutches of their enemies and settled at the Cape of Good Hope. Each had married the woman he loved, who bore each of them a son. Tom and Sarah Courtney's son Jim is a brash young man who irrevocably alters their destinies when he falls in love with a lovely young woman on a prison ship moored in the harbor. His plans to help her escape become a little more public than he intended when he has to rescue her from a sinking ship and spirit her away into the wilderness. Jim and Louisa suddenly have a number of enemies when a Dutch colonel sends a party after them. They have lots of harrowing adventures with both wild animals and the natives as a small band of Dutchmen trails them across the veld. Meanwhile, back in Cape Town, Colonel Keyser's men have provided him with evidence implicating the entire Courtney clan in Louisa's escape, and the Courtneys must band together even tighter when they learn that some of Dorian's old enemies from his years in the Arab world are on his trail, as well. With old enemies popping out of the woodwork and new ones appearing over the horizon, it's nonstop action for the whole Courtney family, no matter where they go.

Compared to most books I've read, this one is nonstop action and excitement from start to finish. Held next to its predecessor, Monsoon, however, this book pales. It couldn't reach the heights of excitement or match the nail-biting intrigue found in the last Courtney adventure, and often the violence in this book seems superfluous to the story. Life has become more comfortable, and thus, less intense for the Courtney clan, but compared to anything else out there, this book delivers top-notch adventure. Though it doesn't quite measure up to the high level of quality I have come to expect from this author, it's still a very good swashbuckling adventure.

Blue Horizon Audio Tape.......2007-03-22

I love a good "book" while travelling alone in my car, thus I purchase the audio books on a regular basis. And one can never go wrong with Wilbur Smith. Blue Horizon was particularly good and held my interest for several days during my commute.

FUN!.......2006-11-11

Take a voyage: this book is full of action, adventure & exploration. Let yourself get wrapped up in the pages & you'll have a ball!

Fun 'n Fluff with a 'kick'.......2006-08-27

______________________________________________
Fluff or not? Mostly highly enjoyable fluff
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---- Comments ----
Much like Smith's more recently works this is non-stop action; the story is filled with gore, war, elephant hunts, love, treachery, evil twins, mercy, and family all set in the backdrop of Smith's fantastic Africa.

---- What I liked ----
Africa is a great backdrop, there were no dull sections, great descriptions, and just plain easy, fun reading. Every once in a while that's what I need.

---- What I didn't ----
It's fluff. If you're looking for an historical treatise on anything serious this is not for you. Also, not for children as there is lots of gore and more than a little sex.
______________________________________________

Wilbur Smith has "sold out" to the World & Lost my respect...........2006-01-23

I have read almost all of Wilbur Smith's Books, starting with "Gold Mine" , which led to the movie, "Gold", about the South African Gold mining industry. In Blue Horizon, and Monsoon, he seems to have become too pre-occupied with sex and torture, attempting to meet the cravings of lustful man at his lowest points, rather than artfully depicting events with great literary expertise that once caught my eye. Read the preface to "Gold Mine" , where he describes the volcanic beginnings of the African Continent in vivid detail. This was the Wilbur Smith's writings that I learned to love. His more recent works are filled with violence and sadism that I, for one, prefer to avoid. None of these recent books are worth reading, buying, nor recommending to young readers. Even if you are over age 13, I highly recommend that you avoid Wilbur Smith's recent writing!

Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness

Average customer rating:

Extremely Important Work,
Great Book On The Plight Of The Oceans surrounding North America!

Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness
David Helvarg
Manufacturer: Sierra Club Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1578051576

Book Description

In this compelling book, which Bill McKibben calls "the most comprehensive account available of the state of our nation's oceans, and the best reporting on how they got that way," veteran journalist David Helvarg fuses his passion for the sea and his reportorial savvy into a panoramic chronicle of America's maritime history and the challenges that our coastal and marine environments face today. He dives deep into the cultures of those who know the sea in myriad ways--fisherfolk, oil-rig roughnecks, hurricane forecasters, coastal developers, navy personnel, scientists, and surfers--and profiles the growing efforts by coastal citizens and local governments to restore and protect the health of our oceans in the face of wide-open development along our coasts and offshore. Demonstrating how national policymaking on the oceans is enmeshed in a welter of competing jurisdictions, he argues for strong omnibus legislation and the creation of truly protected marine wilderness reserves.
Superbly researched, urgently written, and thoroughly updated, Blue Frontier is engrossing and essential reading for anyone concerned about saving America's ocean wilderness.

Customer Reviews:

Extremely Important Work, .......2007-01-03

There is so much solid, worthwhile information in this book, including valuable insights in why Western political interests are undermining proper representation of our national oceans, coasts, and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in Congress, that I would urge those interested in the oceans (hugely more important to our future than the Amazon or globla forestry, just to make the point), to buy this book, suffer its limitations, and ultimately benefit from the wisdom and experience of the author, for whom my respect is unqualified and whole-hearted. In passing, it would probably be helpful if the first thing we all demanded was that EEZ stand for Exclusive Environmental Zone, rather than treating the oceans as a for-profit target area.

There is one other information-related observation I would make that emerged from reading this book: both the United Nations and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are clearly doing heroic and deeply important work vital to the future of the oceans--and they are doing a terrible job of communicating the basic information about the oceans and their work to the larger world of voters and concerned citizens. What really came home to me as I reflected on what to emphasize in this review is that there is a very wide, almost impenetratable, barrier between what the UN and NOAA know, and what is being communicated to the citizens who have the right to know (they paid for that information with their tax dollars) and the need to know and the desire to know. From this I would say that the next big step for those who would seek to save the oceans, is to demand that all UN and US Government information paid for by the taxpayer be put online henceforth, available at no further cost to the public. It is this information, the bullets and beans of the information war between corporate and citizen interests, that will decide the future of the oceans.

Great Book On The Plight Of The Oceans surrounding North America!.......2006-11-05

David Helvarg has done a great service for all who cherish the ocean, by showing the devastation mankind has done, is doing, and unfortunately will continue doing (in less the masses become educated on just what is happening) to all the life forms in this realm. It's not all "downer" reading, but also David gives us glimmers of "hope", and some practical solutions for positive change. This book couldn't have been revised at a better time, as of this week (!0/29 thru 11/4) a major study published in the November 3 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society, warns that the world's wild-caught seafood fisheries could collapse by 2048 if current commercial fishing patterns continue. This is no surprise to anyone who's read David's work. Thanks again David Helvarg for writing such an important book, and also for your tireless conservation mission for the world's oceans.

Sea-Steading: A Life of Hope and Freedom on the Last Viable Frontier

Average customer rating:

Brilliant
Way too preachy
Sail Without an Engine
Some good info, but...
No book has ever been more in need of an Editor

Sea-Steading: A Life of Hope and Freedom on the Last Viable Frontier
Jerome FitzGerald
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0595387586

Book Description

Sea-steading is a unique book. Perhaps more clearly than any other book ever published, Sea-steading goes directly to the core of why some people sail, and why some people would choose to make the sea their home. Filled with theoretical inquiry as well as practical tips, Sea-steading provides the reader with a wealth of information.

From sailing techniques, boat maintenance skills, financial savvy, and forage foods—even how to construct a green, self-sufficient ocean going home and see the world; it's all here!

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant.......2007-09-04

The author is exquisitely sane, and far from being rants or asides, the philosophical underpinnings are sound and very much in context. Even though my boat has a diesel auxiliary and lots of interconnected systems, this book has strengthened my resolve to save the iron genny for true emergencies and work to develop the skills of self reliance under sail.

The long out-of-print "Sailing the Farm" is another good reference for aquatic self-sufficiency, but Sea-Steading is more focused on developing competent sailing skills. There is a wealth of good knowledge here, and the writing is full of gems (even though, as he readily admits, it could have used a bit of copy-editing). I've already quoted the author twice and referred back to a passage once, and it has only been two days since I spent a very satisfying Saturday immersed in the book.

I highly recommended this for those who understand its intent. Jerome truly knows his stuff, and makes a very good case for casting off from the consumer lifestyle... not just adding a yacht to one's stable of toys. And even if you don't care about the broader philosophical context, the knowledge herein might keep you off a lee shore some dark and stormy night.

This one's a keeper.

Way too preachy.......2007-08-03

If you like being preached at, this is the book for you. FitzGerald is an atheist and I'm not, but that's not the issue. The issue for me is that he presents the basic fundamentalist position: "If you don't agree with me you're an idiot." And presents it. And presents it again. And some more. OK, I got your point, move on. He can't. I don't like it from people I ostensibly agree with, and I don't like it from people I disagree with either.

Somewhere in here there is some information about sailing, but even that is continally interrupted by his self-titled "Diatribes," and is strongly based on the "My way or the highway" view of living.

He's as fundamentalist about his boats and his ways as he is about his fundamentalist non-religion.

If FitzGerald's chosen life is making him happy you can't tell it by reading his book. If you want to get anything out of the book you'll have to be willing to wade through a lot of opinionated wastepaper.

I had high hopes, and he could have fulfilled them. We agree about many things. I was severely disappointed.

Sail Without an Engine.......2007-04-04

While peppering the book with philosophical tidbits, the author imparts his immense knowledge about sailing. Every sailor should read this.

Some good info, but..........2007-03-22

This is the first book that I have read from this author. I enjoyed the book, but was left with the feeling that my time spent reading was for a relatively little gain. That is my reasoning for a score of three instead of four stars. The author is knowledgable and has the ability to share it, but I felt that he was just "dribbling" the good stuff out, while I dutifully followed. Your are forewarned by the author, and by me, that the reader will need to slog through his philosophical "rants". I didn't mind it to much, it was interesting, and thought provoking at times. I believe this author has much authentic knowledge to share on sailing, I will consider his other books.

No book has ever been more in need of an Editor.......2007-03-09

Jerome FitzGerald is knowledeable, even expert, at describing his practical methods of sailing without an engine. Any sailor will benefit from reading the book beginning at Chapter 7. This book should be required reading for everyone seeking a license to teach sailing or to run a marina. With the right Editor this book would appeal to a very large audience.
However, Jerome FitzGerald's book, like its author, has problems. Captain FitzGerald has lived the life, somewhat successfully, that more timid souls only imagine. He is free from the consumer society. As a rugged individualist, he will always do well in times of crisis. But, anyone who finds an alcohol making still aboard ship to be more important than a diesel auxiliary probably has a drinking problem. Indeed, the book is peppered with examples of conflicts with authorities and other sailors, similar to the life of the quarrelsome land based alcoholic. The author hasn't figured out that the Marina owners prefer the twice a year sailor who has to buy all new rigging for his boat for every outing, as long as his checks arrive in a timely manner. The operators of the ship's stores would all go broke if their customers were as resourceful as Mr. FitzGeral describes himself to be.
BUY THE BOOK. LEARN EVERYTHING HE HAS TO SAY ABOUT SAILING. IGNORE HIS ALCOHOLIC RANTS.

Exploring the Deep Frontier: The Adventure of Man in the Sea

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Exploring the Deep Frontier: The Adventure of Man in the Sea
Sylvia A. Earle , Al Giddings , and Al Giddings
Manufacturer: Natl Geographic Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Blue Frontier: Saving America's Living Seas

Average customer rating:

America's Great Ocean Adventure
Core Information is Brilliant, Presentation is Marginal
Waxing poetic on oil rigs
THIS BOOK IS GREAT!!!!

Blue Frontier: Saving America's Living Seas
David Helvarg
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Conservation | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Book Description

A fascinating account of Americas oceans and ocean politics, Blue Frontier explores the impact of history, commerce, and policy on marine lifeand by extension all life on earth. From the legacy of navy-funded research and development since World War II to the current newsworthy topics such as beach closures, collapsing fish stocks, killer algae, hurricanes, and oil spills, Blue Frontier takes readers on an adventure-filled tour of Americas last great wilderness range. Despite todays wide-open development along our coasts and in offshore waters, Blue Frontier argues that sensible policies can still halt the onslaught of industrial destruction. An impassioned call for a new approach to ocean stewardship, Blue Frontier is essential reading for anyone interested in saving our maritime culture and heritage.

Customer Reviews:

America's Great Ocean Adventure.......2001-12-14

David Helvarg takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of America's last great frontier - Our ocean wilderness. In lively, informative and often amusing writing he introduces us to the people and the critters who populate wet America, our 200 mile wide Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which,he also points out, is larger than the continental United States and far more challenging than the Wild West ever was.
From aircraft carriers, to underwater science labs, offshore oil rigs to Antarctic waters, he shows us both the tremendous environmental dangers facing our living seas as well as the watermen and women who are working to right things. If you're going to read one book about the seas, or encourage students and young people to learn more about our maritime heritage and future, this is the book to pick up and pass along.

Core Information is Brilliant, Presentation is Marginal.......2001-06-02

This is the worst of several environmental books I have reviewed, largely because its style is too chatty, the type and presentation formats chosen by the editor are terrible and make it difficult to read and enjoy, and there is isn't a single map or chart or table or figure in the entire book. Bearing in mind that this book made the cut from hundreds that I could have bought and read, and it made the second more rigorous cut to be reviewed, these comments should be taken as they are intended: this is a super book that got screwed up by the publisher and a lack of decent editorial guidance. It should be fixed in the second edition, and I hope it gets to a second edition. Given the author's clearly superior access to and understanding of the individual personalities and organizational players across America, I am really stunned and disappointed that there is not an appendix to the book listing all of these, with contact information and URLs.

There is one other information-related observation I would make that emerged from reading this book: both the United Nations and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are clearly doing heroic and deeply important work vital to the future of the oceans--and they are doing a terrible job of communicating the basic information about the oceans and their work to the larger world of voters and concerned citizens. What really came home to me as I reflected on what to emphasize in this review is that there is a very wide, almost impenetratable, barrier between what the UN and NOAA know, and what is being communicated to the citizens who have the right to know (they paid for that information with their tax dollars) and the need to know and the desire to know. From this I would say that the next big step for those who would seek to save the oceans, is to demand that all UN and US Government information paid for by the taxpayer be put online henceforth, available at no further cost to the public. It is this information, the bullets and beans of the information war between corporate and citizen interests, that will decide the future of the oceans.

Waxing poetic on oil rigs.......2001-05-30

Helvarg offers front-line account of fight to save the Blue Frontier

By David Liscio

If it's possible to wax poetically about the way offshore oil rigs attract fish, while still remaining a staunch environmentalist, then author David Helvarg has succeeded.

Aboard a helicopter, he writes, "We circle around the flat-topped platform called Pompano. Owned by BP-Amoco, it is the second tallest bottom-fixed structure in the world, drilling into the ocean floor 1,310 feet below the surface. About 700 feet wide at its base, it is taller than the Empire State Building."

Another platform, Amberjack, is described as "the ultimate Tinkertoy. An active drilling rig, it towers 272 feet from the waterline to the top of its bottle-shaped derrick. Its density of utilized space is a structural salute to human ingenuity."

Author of "The War Against the Greens," Helvarg's latest book, "Blue Frontier: Saving America's Living Seas," (New York: W.H. Freeman & Co., 2001), delivers in-depth reporting on subjects such as ocean mining, reef management, oil exploration, over-fishing, and government ineptitude when it comes to formulating sound environmental policy. The author clearly has divided his time between research libraries and the field. He has visited the underwater living quarters of scientists off the coast of Key West, climbed the towering oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and gone diving off Monterey where Californians keep sharp lookout for white sharks, all with the intention to see up-close what's going on.

At the start of the chapter on offshore petroleum drilling, Helvarg quotes an oil company spokesman recalling the Huntington Beach oil spill of 1990. The spokesman says, "Then this Hollywood star pulls up in his limo, must have been half a block long, wanting to know what we've done to his beach. And I'm thinking, hey that limo of yours doesn't run on sunbeams you know."

Helvarg has been beneath the surface of the sea to examine precisely the rampant devastation of fragile ecosystems, the destruction of coral reefs by disease, human waste, phosphate blanketing, and sheer overuse, particularly dive boats that anchor rather than use fixed moorings.

Although the Alaskan coast dominates the news in 2001 whenever discussion turns to offshore drilling, Helvarg noted, "There are some 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico today. Offshore drilling accounts for 20 percent of U.S. oil production and 27 percent of its natural gas. Despite heated debate over drilling off California, Florida, Alaska, and North Carolina, 93 percent of all present offshore production takes place in the gulf." He found that many of those expensive rigs are run by disciplined crews who produce lucrative returns for investors.

Helvarg has meticulously and colorfully described how the oil industry was created in North America, and included a brief review of the movie industry and the media impact it produced. For example, he cited the 1953 film "Thunder Bay" starring Jimmy Stewart as an oil geologist confronting suspicious shrimp fishermen in Louisiana's bayou. As Helvarg put it, the film reflects the dominant view of the time when progress and industry were thought to be synonymous, while today, an oil gusher would be viewed as an ecological disaster.

Key Largo, off Southern Florida, epitomizes another dilemma. In Helvarg's words, "Branching corals that once grew here remain only as skeletal sticks in bleached rubble fields. Many of the abundant rock corals are being eaten away by diseases that have spread in an epidemic wave throughout the Florida Keys. The names of the diseases tell the story: black band, white band, white plague, and aspergillus, a fungus normally found in terrestrial soil that can shred fan corals like moths shred Irish lace."

Through interviews and an exhaustive search for truth, Helvarg has broken new ground. He has managed to explain in a clear and straightforward writing style such issues as beach closings, oil spills, collapsing fish stocks, killer algae, pollution, reckless development, and the failure of the U.S. government to protect what may be its final frontier - the Blue Frontier.

Most importantly, he has found reason to remain optimistic. Consider his closing remarks: "Our oceans remain full of strange wonders and grand experiences that will thrill generations yet unborn. Despite all the problems and challenges we face fighting for America's living seas, that is still enough to give one hope. After all, it is not every great nation, forged by its earliest frontier experiences, that gets a second chance."

(David Liscio is the environmental reporter for The Daily Item newspaper in Lynn, MA, an ecology professor at Endicott College in Beverly, MA, and the Massachusetts correspondent to the Society of Environmental Journalists.

THIS BOOK IS GREAT!!!!.......2001-05-09

It's not just a book -- it's an adventure!

Book Description

Have humans been sharing the planet with other intelligent life for millions of years without realizing it? This timely and important book considers the answers and implications, and encourages humans to reconsider our treatment of the species with which we share the earth.In this thought-provoking account, White relies on his more than fifteen year journey to understand the nature of dolphins, an odyssey that took him from the classroom to the center of the ocean. With a growing body of research supporting the sophisticated cognitive and emotional capacities of dolphins, important questions concerning their ethical treatment have arisen. Rich with engaging first-hand accounts, In Defense of Dolphins combines accessible science and philosophy, surveying the latest research on dolphin intelligence and social behavior, making a strong case for improving the moral status of dolphins, and advocating an end to their inhumane treatment.

The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior

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The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior
Eric D. Olmanson
Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 082141707X

Book Description

Throughout the nineteenth century, the southern shores of Lake Superior held great promise for developers imagining the next great metropolis. These new territories were seen as expanses to be filled, first with romantic visions, then with scientific images, and later with vistas designed to entice settlement and economic development. The Future City on the Inland Sea describes the attempts of explorers under government, commercial, or scientific sponsorship to project their imaginative visions on a region where the future did not happen as planned. Author Eric D. Olmanson takes a fresh look at the settlements in the vicinity of Chequamegon Bay and the Apostle Islands by analyzing the texts and images left by the missionaries, geologists, ordinance surveyors, newspaper editors, and boosters. The Future City on the Inland Sea shows how new visions of the place absorbed and replaced the old ones, eventually producing what might be called for the first time “a region.” More than a regional geography, The Future City on the Inland Sea is an appraisal of these early efforts to meld geographies of physical nature with those of human ideals, a demonstration of how thoroughly and paradoxically those two realms are entangled.

As the sailor loves the sea: By Ballard Hadman ; ill. by the author

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As the sailor loves the sea: By Ballard Hadman ; ill. by the author
Ballard Hadman
Manufacturer: Harper & Brothers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

California's sea frontier (A Cal-text book)

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California's sea frontier (A Cal-text book)
Mabel M Rockwell
Manufacturer: McNally and Loftin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

North America | Travel | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: B0007F39AQ

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Life at the Sea's Frontier's
Richard Perry
Manufacturer: Taplinger
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PUHMUQ

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