William Brinkley: The Last Ship

“Time to climb down,” I said, rising. “We don’t want to be left behind.”

“Great Christ no, sir,” he said, quite vigorously, standing up alongside me. “It’s going to be much too interesting a voyage to be left behind. Just imagine. To find out what’s out there…”

His voice trailed away. We started down the hill and made our way toward Pushkin, her two ensigns fluttering in the cold wind that had begun to come off the ice cap, the ship ready to cast off on her voyage to rediscover the world… But that is another book.

WILLIAM BRINKLEY (1917–1993) was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II before becoming a reporter and bestselling novelist.

“A combination of On the Beach , Lord of the Flies , Swiss Family Robinson , and a Bible in which the doom of Revelation precedes the promise of Genesis.”

“With a spare, introspective monologue and a minimum of showy devices, The Last Ship achieves a gentle sort of horror climaxed in one of the most hair-raising scenes in any novel: the voyage up the Thames into the shrouded poison of bombed London.”

“A fat-novel, stay-up-all-night, can’t-turn-the-pages-fast-enough kind of yarn.”

“A completely engrossing modern sea tale… Brinkley weaves a yarn worthy of Melville or Conrad… But anyone serious about modern fiction will doubtlessly discover in The Last Ship a haunting tale of the sea, a grotesque warning about man’s stupidity, and a wonderful array of well-drawn and developed characters in a novel that is as rewarding to complete as it is a pleasure to read.”

“Extraordinary… Here is a true classic in the old-new literature of survival.”

“Earns superlatives… vivid… [It] reminds me of Moby Dick in its feel for the sea, its passages of absolutely lyrical beauty, its deep (but not heavy) seriousness, and its narrator’s continuing reflections and brooding concern, his love for his ship and crew.”

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First published by Viking Penguin, Inc., 1988

This edition published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2013

Copyright © 1988 by William Brinkley

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ISBN 978-0-14-218143-0

ISBN 978-0-698-15667-8 (eBook)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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