Last updated: 12 July 2004

Unlike its companion page, Ancient Egypt in Fiction (AEF), NAF is still in its embryonic stage. This is due to the relatively amorphous nature of the theme, which is less often mentioned in bibliographic references. At this point separate category pages and an author index is not yet warranted.

Help to expand the list is encouraged!

This page is updated irregularly. All lists are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission.

Ambrose, Joan

Falcon Island --7/04

1982: Hamlyn/Beaver Books

• Three kids find proof that a 17th-century Dutch ship loaded with treasure sunk in Geelup Cove, but the discovery of a different kind of treasure -- a rare mineral -- threatens the island and the wreck. Young Adult Adventure.

Ball, Zachary (= Kelly Ray Masters Sr.)

Salvage Diver

1961: Holiday House

• Men looking for shipwrecks in the Florida Keys hire two boys and their boat. Young Adult Adventure.

Barlough, Jeffrey E.

Dark Sleeper

• Dead sailors dance, sunken ships sail, and other strange events occur in Salthead. Fantasy.

Barron, T. A.

The Merlin Effect

1996

• A thirteen-year-old girl and her father search for a sunken Spanish galleon which carried a magical horn once owned by the great magician, Merlin. Young Adult Fantasy.

Benchley, Peter

The Deep

1976

• Honeymooners in Bermuda find a sunken ship, morphine, and an amulet. Mystery/Thriller.

Benford, Gregory

Artifact

1985: New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1985

• Alien artifact found in Greece. Science Fiction.

Bradley, James

Wrack

1999: New York: Henry Holt

• An archaeologist's quest for a 16th-century Portugese wreck along the Australian coast leads to the discovery of a murder and a previous attempt to locate the wreck. Mainstream.

Cameron, Lou

The Amphorae Pirates

1970: New York: Random House

• Greek skindivers pillage the sea bottom for valuable ancient vases, which they sell to tourists. Mystery/Thriller.

Clarke, Arthur C.

The Ghost from the Grand Banks

1990: New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell

2001: The Ghost from the Grand Banks and the Deep Range, Arthur C. Clarke: New York: Warner Aspect

• In 2012, two corporations attempt to raise the Titanic for economic gain. Science Fiction.

Crichton, Michael

Sphere

1987: New York: Knopf

• A spaceship from the future is found beneath the sea and excavated. Science Fiction.

Cussler, Clive

Raise the Titanic!

Dirk Pitt

1976

• Dirk must attempt to raise the sunken "unsinkable" to obtain a rare mineral needed for a new defensive weapon. Mystery/Thriller.

Sahara

Dirk Pitt

1992: New York: Simon & Schuster

• Dirk Pitt finds the remains of a royal funeral barge sunk in the Nile. Mystery/Thriller.

Treasure

Dirk Pitt

1988: New York: Simon & Schuster

• Dirk Pitt finds the contents of the library of Alexandria preserved in the frozen remains of an ancient ship. Mystery/Thriller.

Cussler, Clive & Kemprecos, Paul

Serpent: a novel from the NUMA Files

2000: New York: Pocket

• Important archaeologists who seem to have found proof of pre-Columbian Old/New World contacts are being murdered. Venues range from the sunken Andrea Dorea to a underwater Mayan crypt. Mystery/Thriller.

Dixon, Franklin W.

The Secret Warning

Hardy Boys 17

1938: New York: Grosset & Dunlap

1966: New York: Grosset & Dunlap

• The boys investigate the loss of a pharaoh's treasure in a mysterious shipwreck. Young Adult Mystery.

Lord Dunsany

"By Command of Pharaoh"

1948: The Fourth Book of Jorkens, Lord Dunsany: London: Jarrolds

• Jorkens finds a royal soul-boat interred beside the pyramid, and the dead king is not pleased. Fantasy/Horror.

Ellsberg, Edward

Ocean Gold

Santa Cruz Treasure 2

1930

• Continuing efforts to retrieve the treasure of a sunken Spanish galleon.

Submarine Treasure (= Spanish Ingots)

Santa Cruz Treasure 3

1936

• Still trying to bring home the gold of a lost Spanish galleon, the heroes try using an S-class submarine.

Thirty Fathoms Deep

Santa Cruz Treasure 1

1930

• Using an ex-US Navy salvage ship, some former Navy personnel search for a Spanish galleon that sunk off the coast of Peru.

Treasure Below

Santa Cruz Treasure 4

1940

• The heroes are still trying to get that Spanish gold home!

Hall, James W.

Hard Aground

1983: New York: Dell

• A wealthy Florida man's murder is tied up with a $400-million sunken 16th-century Spanish treasure ship. Mystery/Thriller.

Hardy, Tad

The Mountain That Burns Within Truth

Truthquest 1

1997: Chariot Victor

• In eastern Turkey, a girl, her archaeologist uncle and a friend hear rumors that Kurds have found a ship "hidden by the Hand of God." Young Adult/Fantasy.

Hill, Sandra

The Last Viking

1998: Lovespell

• A woman attempting to build a replica of a Viking ship on the coast of Maine encounters a Viking warrior who has been swept forward in time. Romance (Supernatural).

Holdstock, Robert

Celtika

The Merlin Codex 1

2000: Earthlight

• Merlin, who was once one of the Argonauts (under the name of Antiokus), must raise the wreck of the Argo. Fantasy.

Lee, Rachel

When I Wake

2000: New York: Warner

2000: Wheeler Large Print

• A woman who has lost her unborn child and her marriage takes up her lost mother's quest to find an ancient mask of the Storm Mother, lost in a Spanish shipwreck off the Florida coast centuries ago. Romance.

Lewis, Hilda

The Ship that Flew --5/04

1939: Oxford: Oxford University Press

• A model Viking ship that once belonged to the Norse god Frey takes four children on adventures through time. Young Adult Time-travel.

Masterton, Graham

The Pariah

• An evil spirit dwells trapped in the hold of an old shipwreck off the Massachusetts coast. Horror.

McSkimming, Geoffrey

Cairo Jim and the Sunken Sarcophagus of Sekheret: A Tale of Mayhem, Mystery, and Moisture

Cairo Jim

Hodder Headline

• Cairo Jim and his companions go in search of archaeologist Captain Neptune F. Bone, who went missing while diving for a royal sarcophagus in the Red Sea.  Young Adult Adventure.

Merritt, A.

The Ship of Ishtar

1924: Argosy All-Story Weekly (serialized in 6 parts: 8 November - 13 December)

1924: Los Angeles: Borden Publishing Co. (abridged) (illus. Virgil Finlay)

1926: New York: G. P. Putnam (abridged)

1945: New York: Avon

1948: Fantastic Novels (March) (cover illus. ? Lawrence ; int. illus. Virgil Finlay)

1949: : Los Angeles: Borden Publishing Co. (unabridged) (illus. Virgil Finlay)

1973: London: Tom Stacey

translations:

French

La nef d'Ishtar

Éditions J'AI LU

• A Babylonian boat model transports an American archaeologist back and forth to another dimension where a priestess of the goddess Ishtar contends with an evil priest of the god Nergal. (Some printings may be abridged.) Fantasy/Horror.

Perez-Reverte, Arturo

The Nautical Chart: a novel of adventure

2001

• A woman discovers the location of the Jesuite-owned brigantine Dei Gloria, sunk in the 17th century. Mystery.

Preston, Douglas J. & Child, Lincoln

Riptide

1998: New York: Warner

• A water-filled pit on an island off the coast of Maine is rumored to shelter a 17th-century pirate treasure, which becomes the target of a high-tech hunt. The island, however, seems to resist technology. Mystery/Thriller.

Sullivan, Tim

Martian Viking

1991: New York: Avon

• Johnsmith Biberkopf, sentenced to a Martian penal colony and under the influence of an illegal hallucinagen, discovers a dimension where Viking ships fly through space. Science Fiction.

Thorne, Jim

The White Hand of Athene

1974: New York: Pinnacle

• Mystery/Thriller.

Tilton, Lois & Doyle, Noreen

"The Chapter of Coming Forth by Night"

2000: Realms of Fantasy (February) (pp. 42-55) (illus. John Berkey)

• A goddess attempting to free her imprisoned husband confronts a nineteenth-century British papyrologist and an American tycoon-cum-treasure-hunter. Among the finds is a gold sun-boat amulet. Fantasy/Horror.

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© 2003-2004 by Noreen Doyle