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A review of ITV's Hornblower series

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This video is a fascinating account of the production of the ITV television version of C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels. It also brings out some of the real historical events and characters which iknspired both the books and the TV series. The Horatio Hornblower books were, of course, one of the inspirations for David Weber's Honor Harrington novels, as David Weber has made quite clear. One thing which struck me on watching this video was that the duel at the climax of the fourth Honorverse novel, "Field of dishonour" has some significant similarities, although the plot is not identical, to the ITV version rather than Forester's original version of the duel in "The Even Chance." The video ends with a comparison between the Hornblower books ad TV series, and the Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell and the TV series made of those books. The comparison is well done but misses one significant trick. C.S. Forester, the author of the Hornblower novels, ...
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Music for week commencing 12th Jan 2026: Bardcore retell Star Wars as a revolt against the Hapsburgs!

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Epiphany music spot: "The Three Kings" by Peter Cornelius

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Twelfth Night

Christmas is not celebrated in the galaxy far far away, though "Life day" has some similarities. For anyone reading this who does celebrate Christmas, today is "Twelfth Night" which is the last day of Christmas 2025/6. So remember to take all your Christmas decorations down!
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Music parody for week commencing 5th January 2026: "Star Trek, The Next Conquistadors

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Book review "Thrawn: Alliances" parts 1-4, the graphic novel version

The original book, "Thrawn: Alliances" by Timothy Zahn is a novel set in the current Disney Canon version of the "Star Wars" universe. I reviewed that novel in the post immediately before this one: this is a companion review of the four part graphic novel (or comic book) adaptation which credits Timothy Zahn and Jody Houser as the writers, Pat Olliffe and Andrea Di Vito as the artists and Rachelle Rosenberg as the colorist. (A number of other contributors are listed on the credits page.) Like the written novel on which is is based, these graphic novels are reasonably consistent with and form part of what is at January 2026 the approved Disney "canon." It is perhaps worth making clear at the start that the four existing graphic novels published in 2024 only cover about the first two thirds of the original book.  The original Timothy Zahn novel has a two-part prologue, twenty chapters, and a two-part epilogue, and 345 pages. The graphic novels essentially co...
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Book Review: "Thrawn: Alliances" by Timothy Zahn, original novel

"Thrawn: Alliances" by Timothy Zahn is a novel set in the current Disney Canon version of the "Star Wars" universe. The novel sits in the middle of Timothy Zahn's second trilogy of works about the Chiss Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nurodo or "Thrawn" consisting of "Star Wars: Thrawn" (2017) "Thrawn: Alliances" (2018) "Thrawn: Treason" (2019.) These novels are reasonably consistent with and form part of what is at January 2026 the approved Disney "canon" as do the three books of the "Thrawn Ascendancy" prequel trilogy set during Thrawn's youth and while he was an officer of the Chiss Ascendancy. Thrawn: Alliances tells two stories set a little less than twenty years apart, alternating between the two. The first story arc takes place in 20-19 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) during the latter part of the Clone Wars (e.g. between the action of the two Star Wars prequel films  "Episode II: Attac...
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