Although Monsarrat said he was "always impressed" by the work of Joseph Conrad, his own work is not very much like that of Conrad, despite their similar interests in such matters as the sea, courage, leadership and (seen in books other than The Cruel Sea) colonialism. Monsarrat's characters lack the psychological richness of Conrad's, and his novels are philosophically much less powerful or profound.

J. Jaffe, noting that in The Cruel Sea and other works Monsarrat is really a writer of "adventure fiction," calls him "a worthy successor of Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, and Robert Louis Stevenson." Monsarrat indicated warm admiration for Evelyn Waugh, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and Richard Aldington, and some affinities can be found between his work and theirs, although any major direct influence might be hard to demonstrate.

Although it is not a question of precedence, The...