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Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Difference between revisions

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* The ''[[Sharpe]]'' series by Bernard Cornwell features this whenever Sharpe has to get somewhere by sea, as in ''Sharpe's Trafalgar'' and ''Sharpe's Devil''.
* ''[[Robinson Crusoe]]''
* The Alexander Kent ''[[Richard Bolitho]]'' series by Alexander Kent.
* Not a fighting ship, but still pretty much the same presentation of the sailors: Rudyard Kipling's ''[[Captains Courageous]]''
* Both played straight and somewhat subverted in ''[[The Gentlemen Bastards]]'' book ''Red Seas under Red Skies''.
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** There are plenty of the standard type as well. They frequently [[Interservice Rivalry|do not get along well]] with the airborne versions, and one of the leads is a navy man adjusting to dragonback service.
* While David Eddings' ''[[Belgariad]]'' depicts life at sea rather romantically, its sequel, ''The Malloreon'', paints a considerably more grim picture of the conditions driving a sailor to desert his captain. It still involves a lot of "[[Talk Like a Pirate|mateys]]", though.
* The ''Lord Ramage'' novels of Dudley Pope. They're set in the [[Horatio Hornblower]] 'verse; Ramage and Hornblower were lieutenants on the same ship for a time (Pope was a friend of Hornblower's author C.S. Forester).
* The ''[[Lord Ramage]]'' novels of Dudley Pope.
* Much of [[Neal Stephenson]]'s ''[[The Baroque Cycle|Baroque Cycle]]'' takes place on ships in, well, the Baroque, both European and Middle Eastern. He doesn't gloss over the conditions.
* James Clavell's ''[[Shogun]]'' opens up in this setting but ''good.''
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* Admiral David Farragut in the [[American Civil War]]. "Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead."
* [[Eyepatch of Power|Horatio]] [[Four-Star Badass|Nelson's]] [[Badass Army|Navy.]] Obviously.
** This cannot be overexaggeratedoverstated. Fair portions of the Napoleonic Royal Navy were renowned for being dangerously brave and immensely tough, with figures such as Howe, Collingwood and Cochrane often taking on far superior odds and winning because they flat out refused to be afraid. Nelson was, of course, the King of this trope, as he supposedly had a death wish, exposing himself to deadly fire at every occasion, until he died at Trafalgar. Considering the wax-wane nature of his popularity, this might've be his [[Thanatos Gambit|plan all along.]]
** One of the reasons the Royal Navy became so feared is because it [[Took a Level In Badass]] (although it was pretty hard already) after King George II pulled a [[You Have Failed Me]] on Admiral John Byng ''[[Candide|pour encourager les autres]].''
* John Paul Jones, one of the first heroes of the US Navy. When taunted by a British officer during a battle, he famously replied "I have not yet begun to fight!" Later in the same engagement, with his ship sinking, he was asked by the British if he had struck his colors (surrendered). He replied "I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike." His ship did sink, but not until he had captured the British ship and transferred his crew over. Upon learning that the British captain had been knighted due to his actions in the battle, he said "Should I have the good fortune to fall in with him again, I'll make a lord of him."
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