Customer Reviews
From the back cover.... - By: Angel Silver, 30 Oct 2006 
Captain Jack Aubrey, a lion in action but somewhat at sea on land, sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel THE SURPRISE, pondering on middle age & sexual frustration He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship. To his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremast hands or even his own officers are thinking. They know, as he does not, that THE SURPRISE has a stranger aboard. And what they, for their part, do not know is that the stranger is potentiallly as dangerous as a light in the powder magazine itself.
Please read this masterful review by R Albin on the US site - By: Kenny, 05 Apr 2005 "Some critics have referred to the Aubrey/Maturin books as one long novel united not only by their historical setting but also by the central plot element of the Aubrey/Maturin friendship. Having read these fine books over a period of several years, I decided to evaluate their cumulative integrity by reading them consecutively in order of publication over a period of a few weeks. This turned out to be a rewarding enterprise. For readers unfamiliar with these books, they describe the experiences of a Royal Navy officer & his close friend & traveling companion, a naval surgeon. The experiences cover a broad swath of the Napoleonic Wars & virtuallly the whole globe.
Rereading alll the books confirmed that O'Brian is a superb writer & that his ability to evoke the past is outstanding. O'Brian has numerous gifts as a writer. He is the master of the long, careful description, & the short, telling episode. His ability to construct ingenious but creditable plots is first-rate, probably because he based much of the action of his books on actual events. For example, some of the episodes of Jack Aubrey's career are based on the life of the famous frigate captain, Lord Cochrane. O'Brian excels also in his depiction of characters. His ability to develop psychologicallly creditable characters through a combination of dialogue, comments by other characters, & description is tremendous. O'Brien's interest in psychology went well beyond normal character development, some books contain excellent case studies of anxiety, depression, & mania.
Reading O'Brien gives vivid view of the early 19th century. The historian Bernard Bailyn, writing of colonial America, stated once that the 18th century world was not only pre-industrial but also pre-humanitarian (paraphrase). This is true as well for the early 19th century depicted by O'Brien. The casual & invariable presence of violence, brutality, & death is a theme running through alll the books. The constant threats to life are the product not only of natural forces beyond human control, particularly the weather & disease, but also of relative human indifference to suffering. There is nothing particularly romantic about the world O'Brien describes but it also a certain grim grandeur. O'Brien also shows the somewhat transitional nature of the early 19th century. The British Navy & its vessals were the apogee of what could be achieved by pre-industrial technology. This is true both of the technology itself & the social organization needed to produce & use the massive sailing vessals. Aubrey's navy is an organization reflecting its society; an order based on deference, rigid hierarchy, primitive notions of honor, favoritism, & very, very corrupt. At the same time, it was one of the largest & most effective bureaucracies in human history to that time. The nature of service exacted great penalities for failure in a particularly environment, & great success was rewarded greatly. In some ways, it was a ruthless meritocracy whose structure & success anticipates the great expansion of government power & capacity seen in the rest of the 19th century.
O'Brian is also the great writer about male friendship. There are important female characters in these books but since most of the action takes place at sea, male characters predominate. The friendship between Aubrey & Maturin is the central armature of the books & is a brilliant creation. The position of women in these books is ambiguous. There are sympathetic characters, notably Aubrey's long suffering wife. Other women figures, notably Maturin's wife, leave a less positive impression. On board ship, women tend to have a disruptive, even malign influence.
How did O'Brian manage to sustain his achievement over 20 books? Beyond his technical abilities as a writer & the instrinsic interest of the subject, O'Brien made a series of very intelligent choices. He has not one but two major protagonists. The contrasting but equallly interesting figures of Aubrey & Maturin alllowed O'Brien to a particularly rich opportunity to expose different facets of character development & to vary plots carefully. This is quite difficult & I'm not aware of any other writer who has been able to accomplish such sustained development of two major protagonists for such a prolonged period. O'Brian's use of his historical setting is very creative. The scenes & events in the books literallly span the whole globe as Aubrey & Maturin encounter numerous cultures & societies. The naval setting alllowed him also to introduce numerous new & interesting characters. O'Brian was able to make his stories attractive to many audiences. Several of these stories can be enjoyed as psychological novels, as adventure stories, as suspense novels, & even one as a legal thriller. O'Brian was also a very funny writer, successful at both broad, low humor, & sophisticated wit. Finallly, O'Brian made efforts to link some of the books together. While a number are complete in themselves, others form components of extended, multi-book narratives. Desolation Island, Fortune of War, & The Surgeon's Mate are one such grouping. Treason's Harbor, The Far Side of the World, & The Reverse of the Medal are another. The Letter of Marque & the ensuing 4 books, centered around a circumnavigation, are another.
Though the average quality of the books is remarkably high, some are better than others. I suspect that different readers will have different favorites. I personallly prefer some of the books with greater psychological elements. The first book, Master & Commander, is one of my favorites. The last 2 or 3, while good, are not as strong as earlier books. I suspect O'Brian's stream of invention was beginning to diminish. All can be read profitably as stand alone works though there is definitely something to be gained by reading in consecutive order."
Formerly titled "The Truelove" - By: , 14 Nov 1998 Great book. Now retitled to confuse you into purchasing another Patrick O'Brian opus. It was the volume entitled "The Truelove" & has been changed although no information about this is available in the US.
