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The Fort

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The Fort

By: Bernard Cornwell
Narrated by: Robin Bowerman
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Summary

‘Captivate, kill or destroy the whole force of the enemy’ was the order given to the American soldiers.

THE FORT is the blistering new novel from worldwide bestseller Bernard Cornwell.

Summer 1779.

Seven hundred and fifty British soldiers and three small ships of the Royal Navy. Their orders: to build a fort above a harbour to create a base from which to control the New England seaboard.

Forty-one American ships and over nine hundred men. Their orders: to expel the British.

The battle that followed was a classic example of how the best-laid plans can be disrupted by personality and politics, and of how warfare can bring out both the best and worst in men. It is a timeless tale of men at war, written by a master storyteller.

 Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Political Sea Adventures War & Military Adventure War
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Critic reviews

‘Nobody in the world does this stuff better than Cornwell’ Lee Child

‘Bernard Cornwell is a literary miracle. Year after year, hail, rain, snow, war and political upheavals fail to prevent him from producing the most entertaining and readable historical novels of his generation.' Daily Mail
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This was an absolute page-turner, if you can have a page-turner when it's an audiobook!

A great read!

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A very American tale of wartime confusion. Disappointing naration.
The editors would have been better of offering this story in the third person .
A clearly defined map would have helped enormously. But this is a very Swiss perspective.

A slice of the American war with the British

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Reviews were a real mixed bag here, so I was very intrigued given Cornwell is such a successful author, and one I am a big fan of. 

Personally I found it an entertaining standalone story but I understand some of the criticism leveled at it, and perhaps some is down to misunderstanding the nature of the novel. This is not a character driven narrative; yes there are the main players at the heart of the event but this is a more factual account/dramatisation of the affair rather than placing an invented character at the heart of a historical event.

So those expecting more of a Sharpe/Last Kingdom style adventure may feel disappointed.
However I do agree the narration is not one of the strengths here, I he lacked the range of voices required for the large number of overlapping conversations, which meant you could get confused as a fair few sound the same, a handful do standout (some unfortunately on the grating side) but this means there is a reliance on telling us who spoke and when which doesn't help with the flow.

This was an incident I was unaware of and as always with Cornwell, seems very well researched and highlighted the nature of each side's strengths and weaknesses. 

I also found such standalone novels a great break from the growing number of long running epics I'm finding myself tied up in!

Solid Cornwell story

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Really enjoyed this. I hadn’t heard of the Penibscot Expedition until stumbling across this in Audible. I won’t hold my breath for Hollywood to make a film about this British victory during the American War of Independence😉. A pdf map of the battle area really ought to have been supplied by Audible. Managed to get it online after a bit of looking and suggest you do the same, as the map helps to understand where all the ships/batteries/etc were.

Great bit of history

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I enjoyed this story of an event during the American War of Independence. It tells of the British setting up a fort at Magdabigwajuce on the Penobscot River, and the attack on the fort, in the early stages of its construction, by the Americans. Cornwell has drawn the characters of the protagonists well, and has described how each considered the situation and responded. The British forces were trained professional soldiers and sailors, although many lacked fighting experience, and the Americans were largely pressed men, with a few trained Marines, but they were fighting for their liberty. The American officers were, in general, extremely cautious, not wanting to squander their slim resources and always looking for a certain victory, and this led to interesting conflict between them. The Americans had arrived with many ships, and the British over-estimated the actual number of men and their firepower. Both sides were hoping for the arrival of reinforcements.

From the way Cornwell set up the various battles between the Americans and the British, I could not predict which side would win, and this feeling that victory could go to either side continued right up to the end of the book. Even when reinforcements did arrive Cornwell did not tell us immediately which side they were on, and he continued to set up situations in which the reinforcements could be dealt a damaging blow.

The narration, by Robin Bowerman, was good, with each character having a distinctive voice.

Not Sharpe, but absorbing

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