https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyermen
Don't Mess With The US Navy
Another author is Gary Jennings.
A series of 6 about the Aztec culture,
The Journeyman about Marco Polo,
Raptor, Theodoric the Great and the collapse of Rome in the 6th century.
WEB Griffin does “The Corps” and “The Brotherhood of War” series. They could keep you busy for awhile. I particularly liked the Brotherhood series. Lots of been there done that type of experiences to spark the interest.
If you liked the Hornblower series, I highly recommend you take a look at Dewey Lambdin’s Alan Lewry novels — same time frame, same navy. VERY well written.
Chris Durbin is also quite good; he’s been doing a series of naval fiction books set in the 1760s featuring a Brit and a Virginian.
But since you like the Napoleonic War stories of Forester, may I suggest that you go and read the granddaddy of them all, Capt. Frederick Marryat? He actually was in the British Navy during that time - eventually attained the rank of post-captain, but retired from the dull postwar navy to write full time.
I think "Mr. Midshipman Easy" is his best, but he wrote other good ones, including "Peter Simple", "The Kings Own" . . . also a great little children's book "The Children of the New Forest", set in the English Civil War and worth reading by grownups.
From the point of view of a historian, my objection to the Hornblower books (not saying that they aren't good - they ARE) is that Lt/Commdr/Capt/Adm. Hornblower himself is a 20th century man in fancy dress. His mental processes, his concerns, his moral thinking - all are identifiably NOT the way that a late 18th c. man would think. But I think that makes his books more attractive to modern readers -- in a sense it's fantasy that makes it easier for the reader to identify with the hero.
Jack Easy definitely is NOT a 20th c. man. The woke will have a fit over Marryat's depiction of Mesty, the African prince sold as a slave who becomes Easy's sidekick (overlooking the fact that he frequently outsmarts the bad guys and rescues Easy -- sort of like Jeeves or Bunter. In Kipling's words - "We were together since the War began. He was my servant—and the better man.")
Anyhow, the story's a roaring good read and I highly recommend it.
William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition was pretty good, fo sci fi, or anything by him.
I think the best book I have read in the last 10 years is a military-fiction:
Mark Helprin: “A Soldier in the Great War”
I recommend the Flashman Papers series by George MacDonald Fraser. Its historical fiction but the history is actually pretty accurate and you won’t belive the immense number of end notes each book contains. He’s a bounder, cad, womanizer. Liar, coward who is in about every major event during his lifetime and always comes out the hero. I prefer listening to them because the reader is outstanding. The series does not need to be read in order other than the first book, Flashman. The Wikipedia article on the Flashman Papers is pretty accurate.
Next Dan Simmonds books Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion they are outstanding science fiction. They are really 1 book. If you like book 1, Hyperion you’ll be ticked off if you don’t have Fall of Hyperion before your done with the first one.
Anything by John Ringo. He writes military science fiction. I particularly liked The Looking Glass War series and the Empire of Man series. Both need to be read in order.
His Honorverse series with David Weber is also outstanding again read in order. This a sprawling space opera.
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold is another space opera and is well written. While it doesn’t need to bread in order the books are sequential its not that important.
A Cry of Angels by Jeff Fields. Imagine Tom Sawyer crossbred with To Kill a Mockingbird, beautifully realized.
David Weber’s Honor Harrington series.
Taylor Anderson’s Destroyermen series.
A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith.
It’s a cross between Lonesome Dove and a James Mitchner novel about successive generations of Florida Crackers along the time line of 1860 to 1970.
https://www.amazon.com/Land-Remembered-Patrick-D-Smith/dp/1561641162
If you want to stick with the Nautical them I recommend Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana. It is an autobiographical story about his time on Clipper ships sailing to California and back in the 1830s.
The Bounty Trilogy-Charles Nordhoff
Mutiny on the Bounty -amazing story.
Scientific/Phantastic Fiction:
The Space Trilogy - by C. S. Lewis
The Dream Dancer series - by Janet Morris
The Golden Torc series - by Julian May
The Riddle-Master series - by Patricia McKillip
Macroscope - by Piers Anthony
Venus Plus X - by Theodore Sturgeon
The Mote in God’s Eye - by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
bkmk
Mark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyermen
A million thanks, there are years of suggestions on this thread and I look forward to exploring as many of them as I can. FR is full of really cool folks.
You may like the books and authors here:
https://timelessauthors.com/viewforum.php?f=124
The Nathaniel Starbuck series by Bernard Cornwell.
bttt