Old Ships

Bengtsson's hero, Red Orm-canny - courageous and above all lucky - is only a boy when he is abducted from his Danish home by the Vikings and made to take his place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies.

When a mysterious alien probe materializes from Jump Space and remotely reprograms The Bay's star drive, Sam and his crew begin an involuntary voyage that takes them three thousand light years out of known space, across the galactic rift to the Sagittarius Spiral Arm, and into the heart of an ancient, previously unknown civilization - the first encountered by Humans and the other five races of the Cottohazz-Stellar Commonwealth - in over a century. The genetically altered immortals known as the Guardians soon turn murderously violent.

With the continuing failure of the Oversoul, the artificially intelligent guardian computer of the planet Harmony, the human colonists have begun to repeat the devastations of war and conquest wrought on Earth. To repair itself and avert disaster, the Oversoul has called a group of 16 refugees from the fallen city of Basilica to a hidden, abandoned spaceport where the ancient starships lie.

As Bingtown slides toward disaster, clan matriarch Ronica Vestrit, branded a traitor, searches for a way to bring the city's inhabitants together against the Chalcedean threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track down and recover her liveship Vivacia from the ruthless pirate Kennit.

It's sink or swim for Jack and Annie when Magic Tree House whisks them off to the middle of the ocean. And that's just the beginning....

In 2108, Colony Ship Voyager departed Earth for the planet of Promissa with 18,000 of the world’s best and brightest on board. 250 years and 27 light years later, an arrival is imminent. But all is not well. The probes that they’ve sent ahead to gather the data needed to establish any kind of settlement aren’t responding, and the information they have received has presented more questions than answers. It’s a time when the entire crew should be coming together to solve the problem, but science officer Sheila Jackson can’t get people to listen.

All aboard for a quiet cruise among the Greek Islands! But when Philip's pet monkey breaks a birthday present, Philip, Dinah, Lucy-Ann and Jack are plunged into an exciting quest to find the lost treasure of the Andra - with some ruthless villains hot on their trail.

The story of Captain Abrashoff and his command of USS Benfold has become legendary inside and outside the Navy. By governing his ship through his unique management techniques, Abrashoff turned the Benfold into a model of naval efficiency, with amazing cost savings, the highest gunnery score in the Pacific Fleet, and a highly motivated and top performing crew. Here, Abrashoff focuses on leadership, motivational, and management insights.

In 1948, an alien starship crash-landed in the New Mexico desert and brought with it the key to mankind’s future. Code-named the Rho Project, the landing was shrouded in secrecy, and only the highest-ranking US government and military personnel knew it existed. Until now....

The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship. For months it has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved by corsairs, manned by a courageous crew of mariners from Italy and France, Holland and the Canary Islands. But the bravest among them are not who they seem. The stakes could not be higher. If arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?

During the day, he’s a South Chicago high school janitor, slopping a mop around from nine o’clock to three o’clock, five days a week. At night, hiding out in a boarded-up factory, he attends to his damaged interstellar spacecraft, making repairs and counting the days until he can return to his homeworld of Calunoth. All he needs to do is mind his own business and avoid any messy human dramas for just a few more weeks. But it is on one of those quiet nights when he hears them outside: the MP140s. Named for a police radio code for murder, they're among the most ruthless killers.

Captain Guyan March had spent his entire professional career aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises’ fleet of extravagant tall ships that carry passengers on weeklong fantasy cruises spiced with rum and sun. When he agreed to command the Fantome, Windjammer’s marquee ship, a beautiful 282-foot schooner that “sailed like a pig” in the Gulf of Honduras, he knew that a storm would leave him little space to run. In the southern reaches of the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Mitch whirled to life like a nebula and became Captain March’s worst nightmare.

The Ghost Ship floats silently on the water, all guns silenced, all voices quiet. In the hold, the bodies of men who are dead or dying, those who hid. The waters off the Barbary Coast are home to more privateers than any other, and now, this ship’s hull is splintered, the sails tattered and, burnt, its gold coins and bullion seized as the spoils of war. On board is the Huguenot leader of the Siege of St Rochelle, forced to flee the city in 1628, and the legendary and feared commander of the ship, kidnapped as a child from the island of Tenerife.

New novel in the Liaden Universe series. Over a quarter million copies sold in this series to-date! Space ships, action, adventure – all tied together with a strong dollop of romance and family saga – make this a compelling series for a wide range of readers, from romance to military SF lovers alike.

Captain John Whidden was an American merchant sailor who sailed all over the world. He wrote this work in 1908, partly as a memoir, but also to offer a snippet of the “old sailing ship days” before major changes occurred. It is a story of a boy from New England and his various roles on ships from the age of 12 to 37. He documents the changes in the shipping industry over the 19th and into the 20th century.

Orphaned at five, nothing held Whidden back from embarking on sea life seven years later. Serving as an apprentice, he quickly proved his worth and earned himself a mate's position by his early 20s. Graduating to third, second, and first office, he ended his career in command of, and having part-ownership of, his own vessel. Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days records a series of real events from his childhood impressions of rough and ready seamen to his thrilling and brutal experiences of war.

Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.

Before he was anointed to carry on the legacy of Robert Ludlum's Janson Command series, and before he collaborated with Clive Cussler on the fan favorite Isaac Bell series, Justin Scott created this suspenseful adventure tale, a novel of love and revenge set on the high seas. Written in 1978, this is considered by many to be one of the best maritime thrillers of all time. As an expert in the world of ships and sailing, Justin Scott creates an authentic maritime world, making The Shipkiller all the more thrilling because it could be a true story.

Who were the Ship It Holla Ballas? Arguably the most successful poker crew of all time, they took advantage of the online poker boom to win tens of millions of dollars before most of them were old enough to set foot inside a casino. Then they did what any red-blooded teenagers with mountains of cash and no responsibilities would do: They partied like rock stars, transforming themselves from Internet nerds with zero life skills into legends, at least in their own minds.

'The Old Ancient Ship' is a mysterious and ghostly sea story. A strange old mariner, Bill Blood, has hitched a ride on a boat travelling to a remote set of islands in the Pacific. When they make a forced stop at one island to repair a leak in the ship, the crew are eager to go aboard the deserted island and explore. Bill Blood goes with them and leads them to an ancient ship full of skeletons lying in the middle of the tropical forest and overgrown with creepers and foliage. Blood tells them the peculiar and terrible tale of the ancient vessel and those who died in her....