David Dennington's Blog

The Screenplay of The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe is to be published as a paperback and a Kindle book this summer or in early Fall.

The story opens with the birth of a child sired by the brother of the unfortunate child’s mother. It’s a tale of struggle and searching for the child by the desperate mother. Not uplifting. This tale of despair describes the human condition in all its worst forms; degradation, ignorance, futility, crushing poverty, cruel luck, meanness, depravity, hopelessness. No complicated plot. Nothing to celebrate, except to experience life, the writing and excellent narration by Ed Sala of the audiobook.

Harrowing. I would not recommend this book if you wish to remain sane. I don’t think I will ever be quite the same. Nevil Shute’s ON THE BEACH was pretty rough to take, but this is worse. I was born in WW 2 and bombed out buildings were my playgrounds. But I never felt the horror of what had taken place in those places – it wasn’t real. I guess it was normal to a kid. When reading THE ROAD, I knew how it must have felt to be a pioneer forging westward with danger lurking behind every tree, and starvation only days away. That feeling of being alone. That desolation. THE ROAD brings it all home to you: McCarthy at his terrible best.

Review
McCarthy has created a whole universe of lost downtrodden souls and hopeless losers--criminals, prostitutes, and thieves down by the river and around Knoxville TN. All of them destroyed by alcohol, including Suttree himself, who most of the time, seems to be not such a bad human being—although, why he has deserted his wife and child is unknown. Suttree has come from a well-to-do family, but for some reason, not fully clear, chosen to live the life of a bum, living on a squalid, rat-infested houseboat, fishing for his meager living and drinking himself blind when funds or friends allow. The characters, sometimes in jail, or tangling with brutal police, are rich, funny and loveable. Raw, shocking, hilarious, entertaining, tragic. McCarthy’s writing is magnificent. The audiobook is beautifully narrated (and acted out) by Richard Poe, and its production excellent. I felt at a loose end when it came to end—the mark of great writing. But like most of McCarthy's work, not for the squeamish.

Helium is comprehensive but very readable. It flows in a way that one can sit and read the book from start to end.

The discovery and history section is especially fascinating. The story of its discovery in the sun and later on Earth is undoubtedly the most intriguing of any element, and this book corrects the myths that have long surrounded it. The story of its production and use begins with an idea to replace explosive, hydrogen-filled military blimps in World War I, and winds through the giant flying aircraft-carriers of the 1930s, Zeppelin's desire to obtain helium for the Hindenburg and its sister ship, the US Navy's anti-submarine blimps of World War II that escorted 89,000 ships with the loss of only one vessel to enemy action, and the importance of helium to the space race and the cold war. Looking to the future, the Helium-3 section cuts through the popular press' hype and fantasy about fusion energy, to reveal the facts.

The book provides enough detail to educate the reader on any aspect without getting too complicated, but offers references and suggestions for further reading for those who wish to investigate further. I highly recommend it for students, for those in the natural gas and industrial gas businesses, and for any helium user who wants to know more about it.
David Dennington, Author of The Airshipmen .

CONSPIRATA relates the rise of Cicero to the pinnacle of his career as father not only of Rome, but of all politicians. As a brilliant orator, he showed himself to be cunning, greedy and corrupt. Sound familiar?
I was struck in reading this enjoyable account that nothing has changed. Human nature is what it is. Everything in this story, which took place more than 2000 years ago, is being replayed before our eyes today. A push by one psychopath and a few cronies for absolute power, the incitement of the mob into violence, wokism and cancel culture, the promise of a loaf for every citizen for every day of their lives, political intrigue at every level, etc., etc. Nothing in our human condition changes.
An engrossing read, linking us with our fellow humans of yesteryear. There’s much I learned from Harris’s work. We all know what happened to Julius Ceasar; Harris's insight makes his end understandable. So too the end of the King of France, Robespierre, D’Anton, and the rest, when finally the people had had enough.

BBC Humberside will be interviewing narrator, Lauren Dennington, this Saturday 2nd April at 11:10 UK time regarding her audiobook, The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe.

Much of the story revolves around the great airships R100 and R101, as well as Captain Hinchliffe's fatal Atlantic flight with the beautiful Elsie McKay. If you're interested in listening, here is the streaming link to the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/liv...

Just released: The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe narrated by actress, writer, editor, Lauren Dennington.



Praise for The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe

"Another riveting tale from David Dennington, author of The Airshipmen. This time, he cleverly weaves together a couple’s amazing love and the temptation it faces with the drama of a transatlantic flying record attempt and a spine-tingling psychic connection from beyond the grave that becomes the only hope of preventing a horrific aviation disaster. It’s an intriguing recipe that makes it hard to put down The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe."
David Wright, Daily Mirror Journalist

Video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22tL...

One hundred years ago this month Airship R38/ZR-2 plunged into the River Humber, killing 16 American and 28 British airshipmen. That event affected designers of the next generation of airships significantly. One such man was Nevil Shute. I got interested in the great dirigibles in my youth. Naturally, this book appealed to me. Nevil Shute, never afraid to tell it the way he saw it, was highly critical of the designers of R38/ZR-2 and then later of R101. His opinions on many subjects ruffled more than a few feathers and Richard Thorn goes into this aspect of his personality in detail.
I was sorry when this book ended, so I knew it was an excellent read. Nevil Shute’s stories fascinated me from being a teenager—especially his book Slide Rule, which told of his time growing up in England and playing truant to avoid his tormentors at school—he possessed a bad stutter. And then his time in Dublin, Ireland, when is father was the postmaster and where ‘the Troubles’ suddenly erupted on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916. On that violent day the young Shute bravely acted as a stretcher bearer. He was seventeen.
Then he moved on to study engineering at Oxford, later joining the De Havilland Aircraft Co as an aeronautical engineer building aeroplanes. This led to him joining Barnes Wallis as his No 2 man at Vickers building and flying Airship R101’s nemesis, R100. When all that literally blew up, (well R101 did, R100 was smashed up in her shed on government’s orders), Shute built his own aircraft company, which grew so big and successful that the board fired him. This is not uncommon apparently, clever people can only take a company so far. After that period, he went to work for the government, developing special weapons for use in WW2.
Richard Thorn did a great job with this biography. His writing style is pleasing. There was much I learned about Nevil Shute Norway that I did not know. I’d done a lot of research on him and written about him. He was much tougher than I thought—formidable indeed! But then, he would have had to have been, bearing in mind all he’d achieved. He was no shrinking violet. Anyone who flies a plane from England to Australia with only a few hours under his belt and with a copilot (I should say co-traveler) who could not fly or navigate a plane, could not have been a shrinking violet—pretty crazy perhaps! But not that.
Shute was always thinking ‘outside the box’, his topics original and fresh, controversial. Aside from love, aviation and sailing, he brought into his stories, politics, race, religion, spirituality and war, from every corner of the globe. His work was cinematic and easily translated in movies—and many were. His books were often snapped up by film companies even before they hit the book racks.
Richard Thorn tells us more of Shute’s time in Australia where a whole new, important chapter of his life began—a chapter I was not familiar with. Thorn also gives us real insight into where the ideas for each story came from as well as progress, writing and publishing of each book.
A great read, one I’d thoroughly recommend.
David Dennington, Author of The Airshipmen Trilogy and The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe.

Phew that was a downer!

I need a rest and am reading All Things Bright and Beautiful to give myself a boost.

Then I got plunged into Chernobyl on TV and was right back on the beach with Nevil Shute and suffering a slow death from radiation sickness. I can see why it’s the most successful TV series ever made. Although, The Night Of, and the Sopranos do take a lot of beating.

On the Beach is a nicely constructed story and it must have been a strong warning during the fifties—not that we’ll ever not be under the nuclear threat. There are enough lunatics in the world to make it entirely possible.

The whole story was of course unsatisfying which was Shute’s intention I suppose. The American commander never does allow himself to fall for the saucy Australian bad girl who drinks too much—but who could blame her. The American clings to the memory of his wife and family and is highly virtuous—and entirely believable. His family, like most of the rest of the world are dead and the radiation cloud sweeps into the southern hemisphere to complete the job of eliminating man from the earth—yes and women!

I need to see the movie again with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardener to see how faithful they were to Nevil’s book.

I cannot say it was exactly enjoyable, but I could not stop reading.