This book seemed to have a lot going for it as far as Cook was concerned. Fighting ships, a new hero in the mould of Jack Aubrey or Horatio Hornblower and a touch of the supernatural.

1808 and HMS Fortitude is harrying the Spanish treasure galleons out of Manilla. This is the story of First Lieutenant Bonaventure serving under the prize hungry Captain Ross. Blown off course into the Southern Seas after a battle with a galleon Fortitude tracks it down to a mysterious island only to discover that not only have the Spaniards have all turned into psycho loonies, but there is a cave full of monsters and a volcano to boot. On the way Bonaventure falls in love with a South Sea island chick, has a bit of a barny with some bat like critters and does all the usual agonising over being second in command to a flogging captain.

Only thing was it wasn't terribly well done. Roberson's research had a number of holes in it and he really did not know his way round a 28 gun frigate. Bonaventure's English was too modern American, I never heard Hornblower refer to himself as the captain's executive officer for example and he made a number of elementary mistakes like giving the ship's Royal Marine officer a navy rank.

The strange creatures were never really explained to my satisfaction - did they evolve or were they supernatural- and why if some malevolence on the island drove the Spaniards all barmy didn't at least some of Bonaventure's landing party go nuts?

I guess my problem with the story is that someone like the late Patrick O'Brian was able to tell much the same sort of story, but replacing the supernatural elements with the sense of wonder that the sailors of the late 18th and early 19th century must have felt when meeting strange new and sometimes hostile cultures in the days before widespread literacy, global news and TV.

Apparently Bonaventure will later travel through space and time meeting up with other Bonaventure family members, in a similar way to Moorcock's Von Bek family and members of Kim Newman's Diogenes Club. I'm prepared to give him another chance, but only one.