An Old Captivity is an overlapping tale of what Shute began in Vinland the Good. Shute's stories can be considered quaint, or old fashioned, by some, but in today's rushed society his characters are refreshingly dedicated to their trade/duties, and well thought out in their actions. This story is about an air adventure to seek archaeological data in a remote area of Greenland with just the right amount of reality to make...
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I enjoyed every bit of this story, but it wanted more. More of an ending. More of a wrap-around of set-up plot elements. More expansion on some very critical scenes. And yet, the book as is remains vividly and fondly in memory a couple weeks after reading it. The writing is lovely, the main character soundly developed (secondary characters are somewhat shadowy at times), with a lot of excellent and smoothly written detail...
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Nevil Shute's style will probably not please the modern reader much, and that is unfortunate. His love of detail and the pains he goes to make sure of what he is stating are characteristics that I enjoy in his texts. Sometimes, he goes to an almost ridiculous extent to flesh out the reality of his background, when it probably would not be missed. Yet just as he does this, you can see him entering a truly fictional world...
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Initially published in 1940 it is a touching story of a pilot, a scientist and his daughter who in the early 1930's are early North Atlantic aviators as they fly from England to Iceland and on to Greenland to search for evidence that the Irish may have accompanied the Vikings in their year 1000 AD colonies. Nevil Shute combines his incredible love of aviation and his admiration of pilots, with the mysticism which later...
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