Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good end-of-the-world yarn.
Review: A disclaimer: The Last Ship originally sparked my interest as a post-apocalyptic novel. Nuclear apocalypse fiction is a developing fascination of mine, and this novel does fit the bill. My evaluation, however, is colored in places by the fact that my interest is not with the book's naval aspect.
I spent quite some time hoping the narrator's character would display some evidence of dichotomy from the author. I hoped in vain that the endless and redundant rants about the sea and excruciatingly verbose style were simply characterization devices. This is not the case.
One would think that if humanity were nearly wiped out by a nuclear exchange that the leader of the last group of humans would have better things to worry about than the nobility of life at sea and how superior sailors are to land-dwellers. Apparently not: the narrator's steady, reflective, methodical disposition, apparently meant to indicate his personality's solidity, is downright laughable considering the circumstances. From this novel I can only conclude that William Brinkley would be almost gleeful if something resembling his narrative were to occur. It is clear that the apocalypse angle is nothing more than a plot device. Be forewarned: The Last Ship is not a serious consideration of post-nuclear holocaust humanity.
Brinkley's writing style is sloppy-painfully convoluted, in fact. The book could easily be made 100 pages slimmer simply by removing unnecessary prepositional phrases and making the verb tenses more direct. Never before in the history of the English language have the perfect and passive tenses been used with such unjustifiable superfluity. Not only is the style pretentiously complex, forsaking directness for the appearance of erudition, but it is also entirely inappropriate for the subject matter. I had to remind myself constantly that the book before me was, in fact, post-apocalyptic. Brinkley apparently does not understand his subject matter's severity.
If you're looking for nuclear apocalyptic fiction you'd be better served picking up the genre's three gems, Neville Shute's On the Beach, Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, and Walter Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz. Additionally, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is a masterfully allegorical examination of the topic. The Last Ship only treats it with frivolity.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written, but a good read.
Review: Brinkley was, perhaps, trying for profundity. Unfortunately, he failed. Throughout the book he employs a very strange sentence structure that, I think, is intended to show a seriousness of purpose. Instead, it is annoying, and makes for tedious reading.It is interesting that some of the previous reviewers peg Brinkley as an ardent champion of women's rights. Although he does show an appreciation of the talents women can lend to the operation of a Navy ship, I don't think his views of women's supposed ruthlessness would be embraced wholeheartedly by many feminists. Finally, though, he tells an interesting story. It seems, at times, implausible (would Big Ben really survive a nuclear blast? if drifting radioactive fall-out has covered all of Europe and Africa, why would the Mediterranean Sea be safe?), the endless philosophizing is wearisome, as is the gung-ho promotion of all things Navy, and the end is inexplicably abrupt, but all-in-all he does a good job capturing the reader's imagination.
Rating:
Summary: A good premise, poorly executed...
Review: Brinkley writes like Herman Melville--and that's not a good thing. His narrator, the captain of a U.S. Navy destroyer, describes his ship's post-World War III wanderings with an annoying verbosity that calls to mind the worst of "Moby Dick." Ponderous musings, unnecessarily long sentences, and a thunderous sense of self-importance slow the passage of this book and make the reader long for smoother sailing elsewhere. There's simply no need for such pompous long-windedness in the age of the word processor. (Brinkley wrote it in 1988, and I have no idea whether or not he used one, but he'd have been well advised to suffer a little eye strain, pare things down a bit, and eliminate redundant observations.)
Having said that, the premise and structure keep the reader interested. Post-apocalyptic fiction offers authors the chance to create new sets of ethical dilemmas and conundrums, and Brinkley's are original and generally well thought-out. His captain, having participated in a world-destroying nuclear cataclysm, must shepherd his crew of men and (far outnumbered) women past radiation-ravaged beaches and through fallout-laden clouds to the uncontaminated waters of the South Pacific, where they hope to establish a lasting community. The island they find is well-described; it leaps off the page as a fully realized, realistic place.
Some aspects of the story ring false, though. In the interests of telling a tale of postwar co-operation between Soviets and Americans, Brinkley produces scenarios that strain credibility, such as having a Soviet sub captain go off in search of nuclear fuel for both his sub and the American ship, even though the American ship's reactors would doubtless be designed to different specifications. Also (and more importantly) his imaginings of the sexual dynamics between the male and female crewmembers feel all wrong. As anyone who's spent time in any gender-mixed military unit will tell you, young men and women don't always sit idly by, obeying every rule from on high regarding their relations with each other. Some will succumb to the temptations of love, lust, biology and boredom and will find ways to liase in spite of every rule and prohibition. The crew of this book would have been dealing with such issues not when they got to the island, or after they survived World War III, but long, long before; the captain might not have known about every specific case, but he'd have known something was afoot.
If you're a particular fan of the genre, you might feel a compelling need to read this--if not, spend your money on Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny," which is still perhaps the best sea story written in the past half-century.
Rating: 
Summary: This One Stays With You.
Review: I first read The Last Ship some 10 or 12 years ago. I got hooked. I know all about the writting style complaints, but hey, my other favorite book is Moby Dick...call me a sucker for over-wrought sea stories!
This is less about the "end of the world as we know it," and all about escapeism and fantasy projection. Who among us, as a perfect fantasy, does not dream about removing civilization's constraints, wondering what we'd do in a world without rules and restrictions? So we sign on to the Nathan James and find out by looking through Brinkley's eyes.
I think it is a pretty good view. The ending does suck...very unsatisfactory. Unless, that is, there were to be a sequel in the work. Since the book was written so many years ago, I fear Brinkley has dropped the implied promise of the book's last page.
Too bad. I'd like to know what happened to the crew members who left for "home."
I recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: HORRIBLE!
Review: I picked this book up at a used books store and I am glad I didnt pay full price for it. Heck, after reading 20 pages of it I wished the darn ship with her verbose captain would have sunk. The ideal is great, but the writing style is horrible. It takes the captain practically forever just to have a simply conversation with someone. This book would have been great if it was simplier to read, but it is not. If the captain talked to the crew like he talks to the reader then I can see why his sailors mutineed. I would jump ship also just to get away from him. Don't waste your money. Even if you can get it cheap.
Rating:
Summary: A Potential Classic Ruined!
Review: Like other critics here, I am horribly torn over this work. Here is a storyline as compelling as "On the Beach". Out of the blue an all out nuclear war starts. After all missiles are launched it appears the only survivors are the mixed male/female crew of a US Navy destroyer situated in the North Atlantic. The wize and capable captain decides to sail into the South Pacific after discovering all major land masses are contaminated with radiation. After discovering a sanctuary (and a friendly Soviet nuke sub crew that also managed to survive) he must then reorganize a new society made up of technically adept people and too few women!
The basic outline of the story is excellent. Unfortunately, the author's wrighting style blows it out of the water (pun intended). Brinkley seems to be really into complex sentences with lots and lots of graduate school level words. This gets really distracting.
If you really like post apocalypse novels, you probably need to read this one. If youre not interested or just want to try out this genre, find something else.
Rating: 
Summary: I really enjoyed this book
Review: Maybe I'm biased, but I really love end of world books, and this was no exception. Written in a believable style, this book really makes the reader stop and think. Very pleased with this book.
Another EOW book that really interested me is 'Earth the New Frontier' by Adam Celaya. Really good post-apocalyptic book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written book, BUT...
Review: My original review was written when I had read about 2/3 of the book. At that time I gave it 5 stars and roundly chewed out the reviewers who said it was "dry" or not written well. Well, now that I've finished, I have a slightly different view. I still think it is beautifully written. And I still think that readers who love language and appreciate complex writing will enjoy it. (And for those who thought it was poorly written, consider your reading skills as the source of the problem.) However, the ending did not live up to the book's earlier promise. After hundreds of pages that kept me on the edge of my seat, filled with incredible sights and events, the ending simply limped along in a disappointing way. And, although I'm no prude, an extremly crude sex scene toward the end of the book turned me off and made the narrator of the book much less appealing as a character, somewhat tainting the rest of the book for me. (It wasn't so much that the sex scene was crude, but what it said about the character's emotional immaturity that disturbed me.)
Rating:
Summary: Just Say "No" to Brinkley
Review: Never mind the laborious writing style - William Brinkley tries to write a clever apocalyptic thriller and does a pretty shoddy job of it. His "nautical" narration and dialogue are rife with laughable anachronisms and a cursory understanding of modern naval warfare and how a warship operates at sea, while trying desperately to sound authentic. Similarly, Brinkley apparently never stopped to think that breeding generations of people who by design have no idea who their fathers are will ultimately repopulate the planet with inbred mutants as successive generations unwittingly procreate with their own siblings (again, perhaps a Naval officer in reality wouldn't know such things, but Brinkley tries to feed it to the reader as a brilliant device to save mankind while maintaining the peace on the island). Read "On the Beach" instead..
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Opportunity
Review: This book has a cool premise, but the author wastes the idea with his needlessly dense prose. Don't get me wrong -- I read a fair amount of dense books, but this one wasn't worth it.
And did anyone else pick up vibes (subtle or not so subtle) of political and moral ideology that just helped to make the storyline sink? I felt beaten over the head innumerable times for why women should be in the Navy in combat positions, why nukes are evil, etc. Simultaneously, my interest waned considerably. Very soon into the book, the joy of reading was replaced with the tortuous process of trying to finish it in order to find out what happens in the end, but with little enthusiasm and fun in the process.
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