It was getting hard to recognise myself. There was Kasim, too, the sudden impulse to seize his legs and throw him over the pulpit into the sea. And I was just a very ordinary young man, a mineralogist with a degree in economics…It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. For God’s sake, I wasn’t a […]
All posts found when searching for hammond innes
Delta Connection by Hammond Innes (1996)
Posted by Simon on January 20, 2016
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/delta-connection-hammond-innes/
Isvik by Hammond Innes (1991)
It was a strange wild world, the long ribbon of water stretching out ahead, leaden under the lowering overcast. The great mass of the Darwin Cordillera was behind us now and though heavy banks of cloud obscured the towering peak of Sarmiento I could feel the menace of it in the sudden wind shifts, the […]
Posted by Simon on January 8, 2016
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/isvik-hammond-innes/
Medusa by Hammond Innes (1988)
Mike Steele, the first person narrator of this adventure yarn, is a man with a past, a past which is only slowly revealed in this 350-page novel, Innes’ longest work. Minorca The novel opens with Mike going about his business on the island of Menorca in the western Mediterranean, where he runs a boat chandlery […]
Posted by Simon on November 14, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/medusa-hammond-innes/
High Stand by Hammond Innes (1985)
This is the fourth Innes novel I’ve read in a row and I think it’s fair to say that, although the locations are always original and refreshing, the background and subject matter are thoroughly researched, his evocations of place, and especially seascapes, are always enjoyable – nonetheless, his plots are often strangely and frustratingly static, […]
Posted by Simon on November 10, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/high-stand-hammond-innes/
The Black Tide by Hammond Innes (1982)
I was alone now, intensely, intolerably alone, with only anger and hatred for company. (p.76) This novel opens with an interesting ‘prelude’ which describes a vast modern oil tanker (a VLCC – very large crude carrier) the Petros Jupiter, losing power in its engines and drifting onto the rocks near Land’s End. What’s interesting is it […]
Posted by Simon on November 3, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/the-black-tide-hammond-innes/
The Big Footprints by Hammond Innes (1977)
‘Just look at these pictures. That’s what happens when there are no game laws and men are allowed to let their lust for killing run away with them. Extermination,’ he thundered. (p.75) Innes’ novels have half a dozen regular characteristics. 1. Exotic location Here, it’s Kenya, exhausted and dilapidated at the end of a (fictional) […]
Posted by Simon on October 30, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/the-big-footprints-hammond-innes/
Solomon’s Seal by Hammond Innes (1980)
He turned then, facing me reluctantly, his features crumpled by the intensity of the emotions that gripped him. He mumbled something, gripping hold of my arm, but the sound of his voice was lost in the crash of a wave. (p.140) Roy Slingsby is a typical Innes protagonist, a decent, averagely honest man plunged into […]
Posted by Simon on October 26, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/solomons-seal-hammond-innes/
North Star by Hammond Innes (1974)
I went slowly out on deck, pausing a moment to see his heavy figure climbing the long iron stairway at the base of the derrick that led from pipe deck to derrick floor, climbing with a sort of punchy swagger. He flung open the corrugated iron door and stood there for a moment surveying the […]
Posted by Simon on April 29, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/north-star-hammond-innes/
Golden Soak by Hammond Innes (1973)
Old mines, like old houses, have their own atmosphere – a feel, an aura compounded of many things , but chiefly of the way men have handled the problems of working underground. It’s there in the construction of the galleries, the cross-cuts, drifts and winzes, the way they have stoped and handled the ore. But […]
Posted by Simon on April 21, 2015
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/golden-soak-hammond-innes/
