Intelligent life is discovered through a radio wave from a planet 400 light years away. Now Earth is in a race to beat their own radio waves to this planet before they discover that we exist. Through faster than light travel, a series of gateways are built and positioned between our sun and theirs, while the largest most highly advanced warship, the Victoria, is built and made ready for its maiden voyage and possible first contact mission. Captain Kristopher Freeman, takes his first command as the ships captain and as the youngest captain in Earth's history to ever be given such a high responsibility. The shakedown cruise turns into a real mission when one of Earth destroyers is unexpectedly destroyed in that far off system by another race Earth didn't know existed and wants to take this own world for their own. Can Captain Freeman and Victoria protect his world? Read it to find out!

"During the century 1850-1950 Vancouver Island attracted Imperial officers and other Imperials from India, the British Isles, and elsewhere in the Empire. Victoria was the main British port on the north-west Pacific Coast for forty years before the city of Vancouver was founded in 1886 to be the coastal terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway. These two coastal cities were historically and geographically different. The Island joined Canada in 1871 and thirty-five years later the Royal Navy withdrew from Esquimalt, but Island communities did not lose their Imperial character until the 1950s."--P. [4] of cover.

What begins as the sheer desire for adventure turns into a spiritual quest as a young woman comes to terms with her family, her dreams, and her first love. Tania Aebi was an unambitious eighteen-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere—until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a twenty-six-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she’d have to sail around the world—alone. She chose the boat, and for the next two and a half years and 27,000 miles, it was her home. With only her cat as companion, she discovered the wondrous beauties of the Great Barrier Reef and the death-dealing horrors of the Red Sea. She suffered through a terrifying collision with a tanker in the Mediterranean and a lightning storm off the coast of Gibraltar. And, ultimately, what began with the sheer desire for adventure turned into a spiritual quest as Tania came to terms with her troubled family life, fell in love for the first time, and—most of all—confronted her own needs, desires, dreams, and goals…

In 2001, a woman’s skeleton was found in the woods overlooking Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital. Despite an audit of the hospital’s patient records, a forensic reconstruction of the woman’s face, missing-person appeals, and DNA tests that revealed not only where she had lived, but how she ate, the woman was never identified. Assigned the name Madame Victoria, her remains were placed in a box in an evidence room and, eventually, forgotten. But not by Catherine Leroux, who constructs in her form-bending Madame Victoria twelve different histories for the unknown woman. Like musical variations repeating a theme, each Victoria meets her end only after Leroux resurrects her, replacing the anonymous circumstances of her death with a vivid re-imagining of her possible lives. And in doing so, Madame Victoria becomes much more than the story of one unknown and unnamed woman: it becomes a celebration of the lives and legacies of unknown women everywhere. By turns elegiac, playful, poignant, and tragic, Madame Victoria is an unforgettable book about the complexities of individual lives and the familiar ways in which they overlap.

Titanic II suffers a collision on her maiden voyage. Sinking with half her lifeboats damaged, Captain Matt Ferguson hatches a desperate plan to keep history from being repeated.

After centuries of virtual isolation, during which time international sea travel was forbidden outside of Japan’s immediate fishing shores, Japanese shogunal authorities in 1862 made the unprecedented decision to launch an official delegation to China by sea. Concerned by the fast-changing global environment, they had witnessed the ever-increasing number of incursions into Asia by European powers—not the least of which was Commodore Perry’s arrival in Japan in 1853–54 and the forced opening of a handful of Japanese ports at the end of the decade. The Japanese reasoned that it was only a matter of time before they too encountered the same unfortunate fate as China; their hope was to learn from the Chinese experience and to keep foreign powers at bay. They dispatched the Senzaimaru to Shanghai with the purpose of investigating contemporary conditions of trade and diplomacy in the international city. Japanese from varied domains, as well as shogunal officials, Nagasaki merchants, and an assortment of deck hands, made the voyage along with a British crew, spending a total of ten weeks observing and interacting with the Chinese and with a handful of Westerners. Roughly a dozen Japanese narratives of the voyage were produced at the time, recounting personal impressions and experiences in Shanghai. The Japanese emissaries had the distinct advantage of being able to communicate with their Chinese hosts by means of the "brush conversation" (written exchanges in literary Chinese). For their part, the Chinese authorities also created a paper trail of reports and memorials concerning the Japanese visitors, which worked its way up and down the bureaucratic chain of command. This was the first official meeting of Chinese and Japanese in several centuries. Although the Chinese authorities agreed to few of the Japanese requests for trade relations and a consulate, nine years later China and Japan would sign the first bilateral treaty of amity in their history, a completely equal treaty. East Asia—and the diplomatic and trade relations between the region’s two major players in the modern era—would never be the same.

Built in 1913, the Canadian Pacific Railway's ship Princess Maquinna steamed up and down the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island in summer and winter, calm weather and storms, for over forty years, and has become one of the most beloved boats in BC’s maritime history. Princess Maquinna, sometimes referred to as the “Ugly Princess” but most often “Old Faithful,” transported Indigenous people, settlers, missionaries, loggers, cannery workers, prospectors and travellers of all kinds up and down Vancouver Island’s rugged and dangerous west coast, stopping at up to forty ports of call on her seven-day run. The Princess Maquinna faithfully served as the lifeline for all those who lived on the west coast of Vancouver Island before it became accessible by roads. Because of this strong connection she became the “Best Loved Boat” in BC’s maritime history. Kennedy recounts battles through eighty-knot gales along the exposed coastline sailors called “The Graveyard of the Pacific,” and reveals the bigotry that forced Indigenous and Chinese passengers to remain on the foredeck of the ship while other passengers sheltered from the elements inside. He brings the history of this beloved ship to life with rich detail, recalling a time when this remote part of British Columbia was alive with mines, canneries and now-forgotten settlements.

In the era of commercial sail, clipper ships were the ultimate expression of speed and grace. Racing out to the gold fields of America and Australia, and breaking speed records carrying tea back from China, the ships combined beauty with breathtaking performance. With over 200 gorgeous paintings and illustrations, and thrilling descriptions of the adventures and races on the water, this beautiful book brings the era vividly to life. Chapters include: The origins of the clippers - from the gold rush to the tea trade A hell ship voyage with 'Bully' Waterman, one of the most successful and notorious captains of the era Marco Polo, the fastest ship in the world - her rise to prominence and subsequent decline Mary Patten's battle with Cape Horn - a lady captain takes charge in a very male world Mutiny aboard the 'wild boat of the Atlantic' The great China tea race of 1866 - an amazingly close race across the world, only decided in the final few miles The Sir Lancelot defies the odds - her eccentric captains and rivalry with the legendary Thermopylae The Cutty Sark's longest voyage First-hand accounts, newspaper reports and log entries add fascinating eyewitness detail, whilst the stunning images show how the designs of these thoroughbreds developed over the years. A wonderful read and worthy celebration of these racehorses of the sea.