====================================== S T O P - P R E S S See REPORTS for a special advance Shipmate Review of ARTEMIS ====================================== "THE BOSUN'S CHRONICLE" --- emailed to Shipmates around the world the first week of each month --- VOL.2, ISSUE 1, JANUARY 2002 Avast there - and welcome aboard from the bosun of the Thomas Kydd Shipmates' Network! ++ KYDD enters "The Bookseller" TOP 15 HARDBACK DEBUT FICTION TITLES CHART ++ ("The Bookseller", published in the UK, is a world-ranking trade journal of the book trade) 1) DECKLOG 2) HANDS TO MUSTER 3) NAUTICAL WEBSITE OF THE MONTH 4) **NEW** ANATOMY OF A MAN-O'-WAR 5) ON THE STOCKS 6) SIGNALS FROM FOREIGN PARTS 7) DAYS OUT 8) REPORTS ==================== 1) DECKLOG --- events and activities --- This month Julian is travelling with Kathy to the Mediterranean on location research for future books in the Thomas Kydd series. However, he will be monitoring emails regularly, so feel free to drop him a line on . ===================== 2) HANDS TO MUSTER --- Behind KYDD is a great team; each month "The Bosun's Chronicle" goes behind the scenes to talk to one of the Shipmates who have been involved in some aspect of the book --- This month we feature David Brimble, Production Manager at Hodder & Stoughton, Julian's British publishers. David, who graduated from London University with a History Masters Degree, is originally from South Wales; he's been with Hodder since September 1999. +Bosun. Can you tell us about Hodder's book production operation? +David. There are six of us, based in the company's head office in London. Our manufacturing is split between two printers in the UK. Both editions of KYDD were printed in Suffolk, at Clays Ltd. ARTEMIS will follow suit. +Bosun. At what stage of the design process do you become involved? +David. The Art Department looks after the designs of our jackets, in the case of the Thomas Kydd series commissioning original artwork from Geoff Hunt. Production is sometimes consulted at this stage. When the design is complete Production does a "proof" to make sure everyone is happy with the colour and the quality of the result. Production commissions the design for the interior of the book. For a series like Julian's, the same page layout will be used for all the titles. +Bosun. How were the striking gold embossed letters on the cover of KYDD produced? +David. The gold is a foil which comes in rolls and resembles kitchen foil. A metal block is made of the lettering and a heat process stamps the foil onto the cover; the process is known as "foil blocking". Embossing the type is done by a similar stamping process to raise the type from the surface of the paper. The process creates more planes on the paper surface enabling the foil to reflect the light and make an eye catching visual display in the book shop. +Bosun. What are the differences from a production standpoint between the hardback and the paperback versions of KYDD? +David. As the price of paperbacks is much lower, we have to produce the copies more cheaply. Lighter and less expensive materials are used. The printing and binding process is very similar but paperback manufacture is much faster as fewer components are used. The hardback case is made of greyboard covered by a coloured paper binding cloth. The endpapers then literally glue the text pages into the case, round which the jacket is wrapped. A paperback is only made up of the text and a cover. +Bosun. How long does it take to produce a book? +David. A book can usually be produced, from manuscript to bound book, in 5 or 6 months. We need the text to be complete well in advance of the time when we actually manufacture in order to produce bound proofs for the Sales, Marketing and Publicity teams. As orders come in, we can reprint books in less than a week. NEXT MONTH: Geoff Annis spent a week in December recording the unabridged version of KYDD for UK's Magna Sound. The Bosun chats with him about his experiences of making the audiobook, which will be available in July 2002. ==================== 3) NAUTICAL WEBSITE OF THE MONTH --- Every month Julian talks about a website with sea links --- SHIPS OF THE OLD NAVY. This site is an alphabetical, anecdotal history of the sailing warships of the Royal Navy from approximately the 1780s to the 1840s. The information is derived from contemporary sources and is presented using the political, moral and social conventions of the time. A short history of the first half of the nineteenth century, as it affected the navy, provides a very useful framework for understanding the various actions. ==================== 4) ANATOMY OF A MAN-O'-WAR --- The sailing ships of Kydd's day were arguably the most complex machines on the planet at that time --- RIGGING. Rigging is the operating machinery of the Sailing Ship. All the ropes used to control the sails are known as "running rigging" as opposed to "standing rigging", which support the masts. Standing rigging is always black in colour - from the Stockholm tar that is used to protect it from the elements; running rigging is never tarred as it has to be hauled. There are many types of rigging; among the major ones are "shrouds", the standing rigging that goes from the masts to the sides of the ship and "stays", the standing rigging that runs fore and aft. A ship, such as the line-of-battle ship "Duke William", Kydd's first ship, probably carried 26 miles of rigging, operated through over 700 blocks (some of which were so big that they needed four men to lift one). The size of rigging is always measured using the circumference, not the diameter of the rope, and ranged from less than one inch to up to 19 inches. Rope was mainly manufactured from hemp but there was also coir (coconut fibre) rope which has the property of floating in water. Rope was made in huge Rope Walks in the major ports. A fully working Rope Walk exists to this day in Chatham Dockyard. Rigging was inspected at sea on a daily basis, and in Kydd's time there were various methods used to prolong its life. Sometimes the rope was "re-reeved", turned end for end. In extreme circumstances it was "twice laid" - the rope was unstranded and laid up in the opposite direction. The term came to mean something of inferior quality - a mess cook's reheated leftovers, for example, were called "twice laid victuals". ==================== 5) ON THE STOCKS --- News of upcoming books, foreign translations, audio versions, other products --- KYDD is now available as an ebook! Downloadable in either Microsoft Reader or Adobe format from ISBN 0 743 21667 9 ==================== 6) SIGNALS FROM FOREIGN PARTS --- We welcome news and views from Shipmates around the world --- Shipmates come from all countries, all walks of life. This month's Shipmates are Anthony Beresford, Steve Karsh and Steve Gibbons. Anthony Beresford lives in Queensland, Australia. He has sailed in dinghies since the age of nine, graduating to crewing on keelers in his mid-teens. While on a working holiday in Europe, Anthony crewed on a 140 ft Perrini Navi ketch, where he met his future wife. These days Anthony is also active in Queensland military history and enjoys his role as gunner in a 6 pounder Field Battery dating from the 1850's. He writes he is (im)patiently waiting for the release of ARTEMIS! Thirty-seven year old Steve Karsh, of Erie, Pennsylvania is presently a stay-at-home father. He was a bookseller for a number of years and has a strong passion for nautical fiction, which he has enjoyed for over 10 years. He particularly liked the feel of authenticity of KYDD. Steve Gibbons, like Julian, is ex-Indefatigable ('69) and served eight years in the Royal Navy. Two decades and two children later, Steve says he escapes from the stresses of modern life into sea stories, particularly those of the Napoleonic era. Currently an Operations Manager, Steve is looking forward to settling on the English coast and expanding the second hand book business he runs with his partner Barbara. (Although the Old School has now closed the T.S. Indefatigable Old Boys Network remains active and would be very interested to hear from ex-boys! Membership Secretary is Steve Humphries. ) ==================== 7) DAYS OUT --- Each month we visit somewhere around the world of special nautical interest --- PRIDDY'S HARD. The early years of the eighteenth century saw England at war with France on land and at sea; invasion was a constant threat and a programme was undertaken to strengthen defences at the principal naval ports. At Portsmouth, the Gosport Lines, a system of fortifications around the town, were extended. As part of this, in 1758 land was purchased at Priddy's Hard, a flat isolated shore, directly opposite the Naval Dockyard. The owners of this barren peninsula were Thomas Missing, vicar of Fareham and Jane Priddy. Concern was mounting over the safety of Portsmouth's gunpowder magazine, in the heart of the old town. Priddy's Hard was selected to be the new magazine, and for more than 100 years, Priddy's Hard supplied gunpowder to the wooden sailing ships of the Royal Navy. The Powder Magazine at Priddy's Hard had 8-foot thick walls. At all costs gunpowder must not get damp and the completed building had to dry out for three years before any powder could be stored there. In May 1777 William Bache became the first Storekeeper of Priddy's Hard Magazine Depot. By 1800 Portsmouth's ships had nearly 5000 guns between them, all needing gunpowder, not just for cannon but small arms as well. Powder barrels from Priddy's Hard magazine were loaded into powder hoys, which plied back and forth to ships anchored at Spithead, to the Royal Powder Works at Horsey Island or to powder hulks moored in the harbour. Priddy's Hard is now home to the Naval Firepower Museum. =================== 8) REPORTS This month we are delighted to run a review of ARTEMIS, written by American shipmate David Roth. David won an advance proof copy of ARTEMIS in our September competition, and very kindly agreed to share his thoughts about the book with Shipmates. ++ For those who were concerned about whether ARTEMIS would live up to the promise of KYDD, let me put those worries to rest: ARTEMIS is a strong second volume in what promises to be an enthralling series. At the outset, I must confess that, despite my best efforts, I finished ARTEMIS in gulps rather than sips. Trying to write an original series about the age of fighting sail is no mean feat- the genre is already crowded with names such as O'Brian, Kent, Forrester, Pope, Marryat and others. And yet Julian Stockwin is succeeding in carving out his own unique place among those authors by focusing on the most common of sailors. There was something wonderfully democratic about Nelson's navy - where the simplest landsman could, with courage and luck, rise to the rank of admiral - and Stockwin harnesses that democracy to his narrative. Without revealing too much of the plot of ARTEMIS, I will say that it takes the reader on some unexpected twists and turns - with complications and challenges (some martial, some domestic) arising as far away as the Orient and as close to home as Guildford. There's also more time spent filling in Kydd's background and, perhaps, setting the stage for developments in future books. Often, an effective device in fiction is an underlying and dynamic friendship between two characters. The interaction between two fully-realized, yet fundamentally different characters (such as Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin) provides a method of exploring both character's personalities, as well as for framing a dialogue on issues of the day. With ARTEMIS, the relationship of Renzi and Kydd continues to solidify and deepen, and looks to be a solid foundation for many books to come. It will be interesting to watch their friendship as the series progresses. Above all, ARTEMIS is infused with Stockwin's love for the age of sail and of the sea. There's something deeply honest about both KYDD and ARTEMIS - and it shows. One of the great paradoxes of naval fiction (and of sailors) is that it is founded on a profound, almost ineffable, love for something that can be lethal at any moment. This tension between beauty and danger creates a dynamic that keeps the pages turning. Stockwin's personal understanding of this dynamic, as well as his affection for his characters, is, I think, what ultimately makes KYDD and ARTEMIS work so well. So mark your calendars for April 2002 - I think you will find it worth the wait ++ ================== LAST MONTH'S COMPETITION WINNER. Roger Marsh, of Hampshire in the UK, wins the prize for last month's competition - "What was used at sea before gunflints?" The correct answer is a linstock or portfire, a glowing length of slow match applied to the touchhole. An actual gunflint from Thomas Kydd's time is on its way to Roger. ++NEXT MONTH WE ANNOUNCE A SPECIAL COMPETITION TO RUN OVER FOUR MONTHS. THE PRIZE WILL BE A COMPLETE SIGNED SET OF ALL THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITIONS OF KYDD - THE HARDBACK BRITISH EDITION, THE PAPERBACK BRITISH EDITION, THE HARDBACK AMERICAN EDITION AND THE PAPERBACK AMERICAN EDITION. EACH BOOK WILL BE PERSONALLY SIGNED BY JULIAN, WITH THE OPTION OF A SPECIAL DEDICATION.++ A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! Yours aye, THE BOSUN ++ Back issues of the newsletter by request ++ (To unsubscribe this newsletter email )