Iver P. Cooper – författare

A ship is not just a mode of transport, it is a life support system. Ideally, it provides fresh air at a comfortable temperature and humidity, healthy food and drink, adequate lighting at night and below deck (but without setting the ship on fire or interfering with navigation), and sleeping and sanitation facilities. It must be kept dry and afloat. Provision must be made for disasters, whether that be a man overboard, or the ship itself sinking or running aground. Fires and contagious diseases must be fought if they arise.The quest to improve life at sea has progressed, albeit haltingly, on two parallel fronts. The first is analyzing the problems and finding and implementing scientific solutions. The second is by changes in laws and regulations so as to require healthier practices. This book, with a unique problem-solution format, examines the problems of life at sea and how they have been ameliorated.

In the 16th century warships engaged at close range, sometimes with yards touching, and small arms fire and hand-to-hand combat were at least as important as the "great guns." As time went on, the big guns became more decisive and increased in destructive power, range and accuracy. This book explores how naval armament, armor, ballistics and gunnery evolved from the 16th to 20th centuries from a scientific and technological perspective. It separates out the functional aspects: the guns, their distribution on warships, the propellants, the projectiles, etc., and examines the development of each.

A cosmic catastrophe, the Ring of Fire, strands the West Virginia town of Grantville back in time in the middle of the Thirty Years War. One of its ripple effects is that Japan has pulled back from a policy of isolation and staked out its own claims on the west coast of North America. But it is not the only power interested in that part of the New World, and the native Americans have also responded, in different ways, to the unexpected colonists. And there are conflicts among the colonists themselves. In settling the fate of this part of the New World, a few remarkable individuals have an outsize role to play: Oyamada Isamu, a samurai on his first independent command; Yells-at-Bears, a young native woman of Vancouver Island; Father Blanco, a Jesuit priest and former missionary; and Iroha Data-hime, the daughter of the Grand Governor of New Nippon.