Authors Med - Mir
Medland, Maurice
Point of Honor. Kensington, 1997. 307 pages
Engineering Officer Lt. Blake leads a small boarding party from his destroyer to a derelict freighter, where they are stranded due to worsening weather and an accident on the destroyer. They find smashed radios, 30 tons of cocaine, $350 million in cash, and several bodies, all with broken necks and their tongues cut out. If any of the party are to survive, they must get the ship underway and ride out a tropical cyclone despite being shorthanded and without a qualified deck officer. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that a ruthless killer is still aboard, and of course, the owners of the drugs and cash will certainly want it back when the weather clears. Our hero does just about everything right, but he's pretty much out of his depth.
Melchior, Ib (1917-2015)
V-3. Dodd, Mead, 1985. 310 pages
V-3 is a poisonous exsiccating gas developed by Hitler to succeed the V-1 and V-2 rockets. In the present, aging but still fanatic Nazis plan to unleash the gas and kill millions. Army intelligence reactivates chemist Einar Munk who, as a wartime operative for the OSS, first learned of the gas's manufacture. His orders: find it and contain it. In this desperate mission, Einar is aided by his wife, Birte. Einar discovers the V-3 in a sunken U-boat, the canisters dangerously near final corrosion and each of them booby-trapped.
Melendez, Francisco
The Mermaid and the Major: The True Story of the Invention of the Submarine. H.N. Abrams, 1991. 63 pages
Translation of: El verdadero inventor del buque submarino por Annibal Gobelet, su fiel criado. Illustrated by the author. For young readers.
Melville, Herman (1819-1891)
Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life during a four months' residence in a valley of the Marquesas. Wiley & Putnam, 1846. 278 pages
Omoo: a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. Harper, 1847. 389 pages
Redburn: his first voyage. Being the sailor-boy confessions and reminiscences of the son-of-a-gentleman, in the merchant service. Harper, 1849. 390 pages
Mardi: and a Voyage Hither. Haper, 1849. 2 volumes
White-Jacket, or, the World in a Man-of-War. Harper, 1850. 465 pages
An allegorical novel about the harsh life of a seaman onboard a nineteenth-century U. S. Navy frigate.
Moby Dick, or The Whale. Harper, 1851. 634 pages
"From Hell's heart I stab at thee."
Israel Potter, His Forty Years of Exile. Putnam, 1855. 276 pages
"Billy Budd, Foretopman" in Billy Budd, and other prose pieces. Constable, 1924. 399 pages
Written in 1891.
Melville-Ross, Antony (1920-1993)
HMS Trigger. Ballentine, 1982. 281 pages
U.K. title: Trigger. Captain Peter Harding, operating the submarine HMS TRIGGER in the Mediterranean in 1943.
Talon. Collins, 1983. 317 pages
Harding and his former first lieutenant, John Gascoigne survive an accidental sinking of a Royal Navy submarine. Harding transfers to the Fleet Air Arm, and faces the Japanese as a fighter pilot. Gascoigne takes command of HMS TALON and attempts to match Harding's record in war patrols against the Japanese in the last year of the war.
Shadow. Collins, 1984. 219 pages
Peter Harding joins his first submarine, HMS SHADOW, in 1940 as navigation officer, and rises the position of executive officer during two years of warfare. Many of the other characters in TALON and HMS TRIGGER are also in this book.
Command. Collins, 1985. 256 pages
WWII submarine action.
Meriwether, Louise
Fragments of the Ark. Pocket Books, 1994. 342 pages
South Carolina Sea Island slave Peter Mango leads a group of runaway slaves in an attempt to steal the Confederate gunboat SWANEE at Charleston and deliver her to the Union Navy. Inspired by an actual incident.
Metcalfe, W. (William) Charles
Frank Weatherall : or, Life in the Merchant Marine : a sea story for youth. John and Robert Maxwell, 1886. 352 pages
Aboveboard : a tale of adventure on the sea. James Nisbet & Co., 1891. 329 pages
Steady your helm! or, Stowed away. James Nisbet & Co., 1892. 413 pages
Watch and watch, or, The decoyed. James Nisbet & Co., 1892. 212 pages
Rogues' Island; or the Pirate's Lair. J. F. Shaw, 1893. 378 pages
14-year-old Charlie Currie joins the Merchant Navy as an apprentice on a sailing vessel. In the South China Sea the ship is run down in fog by a steamer, and a Chinese pirate junk rescues a group of survivors. In their ultimate escape (which includes the rescue of a beautiful English girl captive) our hero takes a minor part, being told to keep out of the way during the fighting, but he saves the junk they steal by jamming his body in a shot hole below the water line. Ah Sing, cousin to Fong Tah, the pirate chief, plays a key role. For a combination of altruistic and financial reasons he helps the escape, duelling to the death with Fong Tah in the process. Ah Sing's reward is to be made steward on an English ship. Politically incorrect nowadays, but contains admiring comments on junk contruction. Later reprinted with the title Honours divided; or, Rescued from rogues' island; a story of the China seas.
The boy skipper: or, 'I have only done my duty'. Jarrolds, 1895. 264 pages
Undaunted : a story of the Solomon Islands. John F. Shaw, 1895. 288 pages
Nailing the colours ; or, The light that shines. Jarrold & Sons, 1895. 360 pages
On the face of the deep ; or, The Bird-borne missive. Jarrold & Sons, 1897. 291 pages
On the other tack : a story of the sea. Jarrold & Sons, 1898. 298 pages
Billows & bergs. Frederick Warne, 1902. 399 pages
The Voyage of the Stormy Petrel. Religious Tract Society, 1905. 320 pages
Grit and pluck, or, the young commander. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1906. 354 pages
Frank and fearless, or, Adventures amongst cannibals. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1907. 374 pages
Ice-gripped, or, The tomboy of Boston. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1907. 251 pages
Pigtails and Pirates: a Tale of the Sea. Blackie, 1908. 240 pages
Reprinted under the title: Among Chinese pirates.
Ocean chums. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1910. 255 pages
The mystery of the 'Albatross'. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1911. 256 pages
Junk ahoy! A tale of the China seas. Jarrold & Sons, 1912. 272 pages
Young salts. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1912. 312 pages
Blown out to sea. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908. 336 pages
Dick Trawle, second mate. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1909. 375 pages
Tom Bolt; or, The Mutiny on the "Nemesis". Jarrold & Sons, 1910. 271 pages
Michelsen, G. F.
Mettle. University Press of New England, 2007. 255 pages
Lorenzo Fuller is a Cape Cod-based seaman who has assumed command of a huge freighter carrying grain to ports along the east coast of Africa. Two complications surface immediately: the resistance of the crew to Lorenzo's "hard ass" management style and the fact that Lorenzo's son Dowie is a crew member, despite the owners' promise that they would never be assigned the same ship. Their relationship has deteriorated since Lorenzo's divorce from Dowie's mother.
Michener, James (1907-1997)
Tales of the South Pacific. Macmillan, 1947. 326 pages
Island life in WW II US navy.
Return to Paradise. Random House, 1951. 437 pages
Sequel to Tales of the South Pacific.
The Bridges of Toko-Ri. Random House, 1953. 146 pages
A US carrier task force operates off the coast of Korea during the "Police Action." The courage and professionalism of the flyers and sailors is contrasted with the uncertain, perhaps pointless, war.
Chesapeake. Random House, 1978. 865 pages
The four-hundred-year saga of America's Eastern Shore, from its Native American roots to the present. The central scene of Michener's historical novel is that section of Maryland's Eastern shore, hardly more than 10 miles square. To this point come the founders of families that will dominate the story. A panoramic narrative of human and animal life on Maryland's Eastern Shore focuses on a ten-square-mile area at the mouth of the Choptank River and the families that settle there, from 1583 to the present.
Caribbean. Random House, 1989. 672 pages
A fictional account of the history of the Caribbean area includes the racial, political, and economic struggles from the arrival of Columbus and Spanish control to present day problems.
Miers, Earl Schenck (1910-1972)
Pirate Chase. Colonial Williamsburg, 1965. 129 pages
Williamsberg youth gets captured by Blackbeard's ship, and is forced to serve with them or die. After escaping, he returns home, helps Virginia's Governor Spotswood to eliminate Blackbeard, and joins the expedition sent to fight the pirates.
Miéville, China (1972- )
The Scar. DelRey, 2002. 638 pages
Fantasy novel about Armada, a huge floating city, that is sailing to the edge of the world.
Miller, Drew
Seen from a Windmill: a Norfolk Broads revue. Heath Cranton, 1935. 236 pages
Miller, Merle (1919-1986)
Island 49. T.Y. Crowell, 1945. 186 pages
WW II Pacific Theater action.
Miller, Sharon B.
Danger Aboard the Evening Star. Moody, 1974. 160 pages
Jeremy Cuffe signs on as a ship's boy on a whaler owned by one of his grandfather's friends to reach his father, who is a missionary in New Zealand. Along the way he encounters numerous adventures and learns to love the life of a whaler. For young adults.
Minns, Steph
One Man Drowning. New Generation, 2009. 472 pages
Running away in 1762 from a dull life in fashionable Georgian Bath, Jesse Sunderland joins an ocean-going merchant ship. Just nineteen years old, naïve and keen for adventure in the expanding world where England rules the seas and dominates the colonies, he has to not only deal with the harshness of this life at sea but coming to terms with himself and essentially his homosexuality, a hanging offence by law in these times.
Mirvish, Robert F. (1921-2007)
The eternal voyagers. Sloane, 1953. 314 pages
Life, love and work in the merchant marines.
Red Sky at Midnight. William Sloane, 1955. 343 pages
Yet another novel about the trials of the Murmansk run during World War II.
Point of Impact. William Sloane, 1961. 312 pages
Heavily influenced by the Andrea Dorea sinking, the novel chronicles life aboard a great ocean liner until the moment it collides with a heavily laden oil tanker
The Last Capitalist. William Sloane, 1963. 320 pages
In Murmansk during the Great Patriotic War, 12 year old Dmitri, orphaned, discovers free trade, becomes secure in providing what people want by salvaging after bombings, gathers a cadre of youngsters around him -- and defies Russian authority.
There you are, but where are you? Dutton, 1964. 253 pages
Comedy of a third-rate ship that becomes part of the Merchant Marine during WW II.
Holy Loch William Sloane, 1964. 345 pages
Romantic entanglements between a remote Scottish village and the crew of a Polaris submarine stationed in the Firth.