Blu oltre la prua

The end of the war had meant that almost all the soldiers and sailors and those multitudes who had kept them in activity were now obliged to find civilian work, and obviously wages dropped, when there were any wages to be had at all. The last completed novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series. Patrick

As Aubrey and Maturin slow down with age, so do their adventures. And yet regardless of the slackening of excitement and intrigue - elements so prevalent in most of the prior books - I still found Blue at the Mizzen enjoyable, partly because I'm so comfortably familiar with the characters and partly Leggi tutto

I re-read the whole series this summer, and I am not coherent or sane in how much I love it. It's one of my favourite series ever. This is the story of two people and their lives together, a captain in the Royal Navy and a surgeon who's also secretly a spy working against Napoleon, and I LOVE THEM O Leggi tutto

This is another excellent historical novel by Patrick O'Brian, in the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin series. In this story, Aubrey starts to feel passed over, as other, less experienced captains are promoted to the rank of admiral. Meanwhile, naturalist and surgeon Maturin falls in love with a beautifu Leggi tutto

So here ends the Aubrey-Maturin epic saga, though a further book was left incomplete at the time of O'Brian's death. It's a good thing, really. The struggle to find anything original for the pair to do, growing ever more difficult since as far back as book 10, had by this point proved impossible. Wi Leggi tutto

I've been putting off finishing the Aubrey-Maturin books for some time, but I guess this day had to come. While I admit I lost track of what the heck was going on in Chile for a while, I think this final volume is as good as most in the series, with some excellent birding / romancing on Stephen's pa Leggi tutto

2 stars seems too harsh, yet 3 is too generous. :/ This is the first Aubrey/Maturin book that had me wondering just WTFing point was. Naval action doesn't appear until 85% of the way into it, and that coincides with the vague mission actually taking center stage in the story. The vast majority of it i Leggi tutto

I can't believe it's over. I know, it's a little ungrateful to complain about the end of a 20-book series, but I'm still not ready. I also know that it's probably gotten tedious, my always giving 5 stars to the Patrick O'Brian books, but you know what? They're just better than most other books. I co Leggi tutto

I’ve loved reading these twenty Aubrey/Maturin novels and they are some of the very few books which I’ve re-read. They’ve given me a very complete joy, and I can only echo the words of author Jan Morris, who is quoted on the back cover of my copy: ‘We aficionados scarcely feel them to be novels at a Leggi tutto

Well, I finally finished the series, all but the last book left uncompleted when O'Brian died--but I'm reading that next! A lot of folks seem disappointed in this book because "nothing happens" until the end. Um, how is that different than a lot of the rest of the series, and also, how did you not f Leggi tutto