(1960) Sci-fi (Gadgets) / Espionage (Kidnapping) / Short story (Magazine story)
R: * * *
Plot bullets
There is a secret American government organization having, hopefully, the anomalous name of 'The Society For Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc.'.
Agent Spencer Candron has a mission. Communist China has kidnapped the famous American physicists James Ch'ien, after faking his death by political radicals. Ch'ien's knowledge of the Interstellar Drive is critical to America.
Agent Candron has a quick mind and some rather advanced methods at his disposal. He must get to China, do his job and get himself and the physicists back alive.
It is a tangled web of deception. Success relies on the right hand never knowing 'What the Left Hand Was Doing'.
The voyages of the old sailing ships was measured in years, not days.
A sailor who was not an officer or passenger, but only an 'ordinary seaman' was quartered in the forecastle, which were the living quarters situated before the mast. This part of the ship got the worst movement in bad weather as it was the part of the ship that rose and plunged most in heavy seas..
Dana (the author) signed-on with a merchant ship as an ordinary seaman for a two year voyage to the California coast and islands of the Pacific. He was an educated man, but thought the voyage might help his eyesight.
He kept a written record of his voyage with no intention to make it sensational or exaggerated.
The book, while interesting from a travel and historical sense, should not be thought of in the same sense of a novel like 'The Sea-Wolf'.
The work and the sea were masters cruel enough for any man who would spend 'Two Years Before the Mast'.
Henry L. Ratliff’s book reviews
R: * * *
Plot bullets
There is a secret American government organization having, hopefully, the anomalous name of 'The Society For Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc.'.
Agent Spencer Candron has a mission. Communist China has kidnapped the famous American physicists James Ch'ien, after faking his death by political radicals. Ch'ien's knowledge of the Interstellar Drive is critical to America.
Agent Candron has a quick mind and some rather advanced methods at his disposal. He must get to China, do his job and get himself and the physicists back alive.
It is a tangled web of deception. Success relies on the right hand never knowing 'What the Left Hand Was Doing'.
From 'Astounding Science Fiction' February 1960.
R: * * * *
Plot bullets
The voyages of the old sailing ships was measured in years, not days.
A sailor who was not an officer or passenger, but only an 'ordinary seaman' was quartered in the forecastle, which were the living quarters situated before the mast. This part of the ship got the worst movement in bad weather as it was the part of the ship that rose and plunged most in heavy seas..
Dana (the author) signed-on with a merchant ship as an ordinary seaman for a two year voyage to the California coast and islands of the Pacific. He was an educated man, but thought the voyage might help his eyesight.
He kept a written record of his voyage with no intention to make it sensational or exaggerated.
The book, while interesting from a travel and historical sense, should not be thought of in the same sense of a novel like 'The Sea-Wolf'.
The work and the sea were masters cruel enough for any man who would spend 'Two Years Before the Mast'.