The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn
1922
The sea gives no second chances. When a meteor strikes the merchantman Saturn in the middle of the ocean, Fourth Officer Eric Blackburn watches his entire world drown. He survives where no one else does, pulled from the water by whatever cruel fortune decides he's worth keeping alive. From that moment, he is no longer the humble officer who signed onto a cargo ship. He becomes something else entirely: a man with nothing left to lose and everything to find. Rescued and drawn into a treasure hunt aboard the brigantine Yorkshire Lass, Blackburn sails into a world of savage kings, bloodthirsty pirates, and islands that should not exist. War-mongering apes and watermelon-sized killer spiders are just the beginning. The adventure builds toward hidden riches, but the real prize is watching a broken man reassemble himself into someone capable of facing the impossible. Collingwood writes in the grand tradition of Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island: no preamble, no philosophy, just forward motion and survival. The prose crackles with period energy, the dangers feel genuinely deadly, and Blackburn's transformation from survivor to adventurer feels earned. This is adventure fiction at its most elemental.
