Author: Chris Roberson
Publisher: Solaris
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: 2007
The HMS Fortitude is thrown off course into the uncharted South Pacific by a storm. Its First Lieutenant Hieronymus Bonaventure yearns for adventure. But repairing their damaged vessel, making first contact with the natives of an uncharted island, and discovering and surviving the horrors of an island called First Volcano by the natives might be more adventure than Bonaventure bargained for.
“Set the Seas on Fire” by Chris Roberson is a naval adventure set aboard the HMS Fortitude in 1808, with The Napoleanic Wars as a backdrop. Right on the front cover though, almost as if to assure that this is not another “Master & Commander”, Revolution SF states “Horatio Hornblower meets H.P. Lovecraft”.
That statement kind of threw down the gauntlet for me. It said, “No matter what you read along the way, how the story progresses, or how you think you’re going to categorize the story along the way, just wait.”
So I read. And waited. The story followed through the trials and tribulations of the HMS Fortitude in a vivid, well-written way. I felt like I was immersed in the history of that era. It didn’t feel like the story was just trying to be historical in a way to serve as a flimsy backdrop to “get to the real point of the story”. Roberson seems to have done his research and could bring that era to life. But still there was that statement. “Horatio Hornblower meets H.P. Lovecraft”. Somewhere in there, there would be a twist. The reader was warned, so don’t think you’re reading a sailing adventure and then say “What the hell?” when…whatever…happens. It may not make sense, it may shake things up, but it’s coming, be warned, because the disclaimer is right there.
Hieronymus Bonaventure, the first lieutenant and first officer, is the main character of the story. We learn more about him from chapters from his childhood where he learns swordfighting from his mysterious mentor, Giles Dulac. The book starts in flashback, as Bonaventure seems to be destined for greatness. Now as an adult as the first officer of a British Navel vessel he seems to have not underachieved to date. We learn that not only does he have an adventurer’s heart but he also seems to have gained wisdom along the way, so he doesn’t plow ahead with reckless abandon.
I really thought Bonaventure was depicted well. I enjoyed the character very much and I thought that character information was doled out in just the right fashion.
In the midst of a navel engagement that is possibly ill advised, the Fortitude is pushed by a strong storm out into the unexplored South Pacific. It becomes apparent that the captain of the vessel allows personal glory or perhaps greed to color his decision making in ways that are not in the best interests of his ship. The captain has the final decision making power but it is Lieutenant Bonaventure who has the respect and personal admiration of the crew. I was expecting mutiny, and Bonaventure to single handedly save the ship in a larger than life fashion befitting the greatness that the character seems to be destined for.
I was very pleased to see this not happen. Bonaventure had his adventure, but he nobly stuck to his duty as a British Officer, followed his orders, and supported his captain, presumably until such a time when the best interests of the ship and crew no longer warrant such support. There was no rush in the story to turn Hieronymus into a super-character all in one book. Thus Roberson takes a likeable and interesting character and leaves him plenty of room to grow, presumably in more books. In my opinion, the fast way to make an interesting character uninteresting is to make him too interesting. Having a lifetime’s worth of epic adventure within one book, as if the main character is an adventure magnet, and everybody else is just there to watch it happen, becomes over the top. For me to really enjoy a book I have to be able to suspend my disbelief to an extent.
The beauty here is that while Hieronymus is obviously the central character, he’s also a member of a ship’s crew. He fits into that crew and is not bigger than that role. He will become bigger it seems, but that comes through promotion within the ranks, additional ocean adventures, and additional travels. Just like in real life, all that happens in time.
Within the historical elements of the story this one had all the elements of a seaborne adventure. All of these elements seem to flow naturally though. Ocean sailing was dangerous in this era, and the events that befell The Fortitude were certainly not outside the realm of actual historical occurrences – being lost in unexplored sea, the discovery of a ship’s crew that had come upon mysterious misfortune enough to set the nerves of a typical superstitious seaman of the era on edge, the discovery of an uncharted island, first contact with its locals, and the work to repair their damaged vessel so that they may be able to return home.
Along the way, Hieronymus observes a ceremony of a local shaman, which seems to defy the laws of the orderly scientific universe that he holds to. He falls in love and becomes torn between his heart and his duty but we learn that Hieronymus’s future has already been seen. He will travel on to the mysterious nearby island where a Spanish vessel met misfortune, which in the native’s lore is home to their demon figures. Only heroes travel there, and our first officer is one such here. Hieronymus will not die either there or on this island. He will die many years and miles from here and not on the sea. So now Lieutenant Bonaventure, who shares his family name with many great adventurers, now seems to be prophesied to have many more of his own. No dull life of a British Navel vessel’s first officer. I for one like the teasing and I hope not.
The tone of the book throughout would make one think that once The Fortitude makes landfall on this mysterious island, home to the demons of the native’s mythology that what they will find is nothing but superstition. But remember that proclamation from the front cover. They find something that they never could have imagined. The crew doesn’t get anything in the way of explanation, nor do we. But for those who were there to bear witness, including Hieronymus Bonaventure, nothing will ever been the same again. One final very nice touch was that the crew did not include the true events that they witnessed within their logs. They saw it, they believed it happened, but it was just too unbelievable to put in any sort of public record to be subjected to scrutiny.
But while they may not discuss it with others they know that they experienced something that does not fit into the natural world. It feels like a doorway was opened here, which cannot be closed again. As the Chinese say “May you be cursed to live in interesting times.” That seems to be the case for Bonaventure and maybe the rest of the crew of The Fortitude.
I like the character of Hieronymus Bonaventure very much. I like the feeling of “This is only the beginning”. He seems to be at the beginning of a heroic journey. The Author’s Notes at the end, which Roberson included because he likes to provide just a little more, bear that out. He writes a lot of alternate history fiction at this point. The basic underlying history and flavor in the story seemed very real to me. I enjoyed that very much, as I waited to see exactly where that history and ordered universe was going to take a very sharp turn. Roberson definitely seems to not be so obsessed with writing a story of a ship’s crew encountering unimaginable horror that he glosses over the historical flavor part of it to get there.
That brought a lot of tension and intrigue to the story for me since, if there were horrors awaiting The Fortitude, they would appear all the more horrible in contrast to the very real world that had already been fleshed out.
Set the Seas on Fire also seemed to flow very well. It did not bog down in long chapters that ran off into tangents. It moved along in very short and focused chapters that made for a pleasant read that did not bog down at any point.
The after notes indicate that Set the Seas on Fire is a prequel to Paragaea: A Planetary Romance. I can only presume that the adventures become more exotic and, pardon the pun, “out of this world”. While Set the Seas on Fire saves the exotic of Lovecraftian elements for the end of the book, it was a very solid prequel and I personally am very interested to read both the book that this is a prequel to as well as any other direct sequels that it is (hopefully) spawning. There are enough loose ends remaining from this book that it apparent that the adventure is not intended to be confined within this 372 pages.
I give Set the Seas on Fire a 7.5. I think it sets up for some very interesting follow-up material, which should stretch my imagination further. Roberson handles his characters very gracefully and I look forward to reading additional offerings.
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