Hornblower and the "Hotspur"

By: C.S. Forester

Narrated by: Nicolas Coster

Only 27 years old, Horatio Hornblower has distinguished himself as a capable and intrepid officer in the Royal Navy. On a reconnaissance mission with the Hotspur, a three-masted frigate under his command, Hornblower and his crew narrowly avoid capture by their French adversaries, but the danger is not over. In the meantime, misgivings about his recent marriage also weigh heavily on the young officer's mind.

In this 10th novel of the Hornblower series, C.S. Forester depicts another rousing adventure set during the Napoleonic wars.

©2011 Nicolas Coster (P)2007 Phoenix Books, Inc.

It takes an "Indefatigable" listener.

I absolutely love this author and the Hornblower series. I read them many years ago and really enjoyed the first two books as narrated by Christian Rodska. His narration is fantastic. For some reason they changed to Nicolas Coster and the audio is a great disappointment. There are times you have to have him turned way up to even understand his mumbling. Then he shouts certain parts and really runs you ragged trying to listen. He mispronounces words such as the ship name "Indefatigable" which is very distracting. Overall if you can plow through the narration the story is great. And you do get more used to Mr. Coster as you go.

Loud and quiet

The story is as good as the others I've heard in this series but I had a very difficult time maintaining a suitable volume with Mr. Coster as narrator. His voice is one that can be very clear at a reasonable volume level and next moment faint enough that I had to turn it up. Much of the first half of this book was frustratingly inconsistent in volume. He does a good job of voices and once I resigned myself to having a quick habd on the volume I enjoyed it.

CS Forester rules!

This is the third installment in the Hornblower series in which I’m now entirely caught up. My very literary friend turned me on to this series. Excellent window into the British Navy during the late 18th and early 19th century. Character development is well executed. The moral choices laid before a Horatio and how he answers them are a credit to the author’s deft handling of his character’s. Excellent stories

dentures

Loved the book, but the readers denture clicking was distracting. Also, I felt like it was worth the money as there are so many books in this series.

great book, questionable narration

I'm a "lubber" but please, "fore-castle"? "Rat-lines"? Did anyone QA this? Pretty sure it's "focsle" and "rat-lins".

ssssslooooooow

A good read but dear lord the narration drags on. At 130% its almost bearable.

the reader is not great

The story is great but the reader is terrible. the first few chapters he mumbles and sounds like he's got too much saliva in his mouth while reading. He gets better later on but the voices he does for the characters is awful and not even consistent throughout. It makes it hard to concentrate on the story for me but I'm just thankful he doesn't read all the books in this series. I wish they would have the guy who reads the other books read this one as well.

another excellent Hornblower book but you need...

This is an excellent read however the very talented dramatic narrator is painfully slow. Listen to it on 120% speed

This book starts to show some of Hornblower's very true human flaws.

I enjoyed the narrator

a lot of people are giving this book bad reviews because of the narrator, however I thoroughly enjoyed is reading he doesn't have a great knowledge of Naval term but his voice acting is outstanding

Volume Varies

Love the story. Narrator varies volume of voice which i don't like very much. Not a big problem.