Antoine Vanner found himself flattered when nautical novelist Joan Druett described him as the "The Tom Clancy of historic naval fiction". Vanner's "Dawlish Chronicles" series of naval adventures are set in the late Victorian era when technological progress was more rapid than at any previous time in history. The plots play out against a background of growing international tension. There was little open confrontation between the great powers - Britain, France and Russia, with Germany, Japan and the United States catching up - but their rivalries were often fronted by proxies, just as between the Communist and Western blocks during the Cold War. "I've always been fascinated by this period," Vanner says, "and I saw it as the ideal setting for a series dealing with the Age of Fighting Steam, as an alternative to the large number of novels set in the Age of Fighting Sail."
