HMS Surprise

Rating:
Summary: A fine introduction to Patrick O'Brian's work
Review: As other reviewers have noted, O'Brian is a wonderful writer. His ability to describe the early ninteenth century world of life on a naval ship is remarkable for the depth of his knowledge and way he can bring events to life. One can almost small the sea! O'Brian has a good ear for dialogue and his characters, particularly the principals Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, emerge as fully rounded, utterly credible figures. O'Brian's descriptions of battles at sea are riveting, but he is equally good at conveying the thrill scientific discovery in the form of Maturin's enthusiastic collection of animals and insects in the best Darwinian manner. Where I have a slight reservation about the book (and therefore four rather than five stars) is that the plot tends to wander a little -- a bit like H.M.S. Surprise's own journey. Like many ocean voyages, one realises that the journey is probably more important then the destination. Nevertheless, "HMS Surprise" is a wonderful, evocative book. A pleasure to read and (as it was for me) a fine introduction to O'Brian's novels.

Rating:
Summary: A Voyage of Friendship
Review: Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy in the midst of the wars against Napoleon, and his particular friend Stephen Maturin, physician, naturalist and intelligence agent, journey from England to India and back in this epic of friendship. Along the way there are battles to be fought, storms to be weathered, and love to be found.

This is also the first book of the twenty-volume "Aubreyad" where we encounter the Surprise, that sleek, swift frigate which transports the two friends through so many other oceans and adventures.

But this is not your Napoleonic technothriller. No, this is a cut above Ramage, Bolitho, even Hornblower. This is literature, and there are observations on relationships between men, women, men and women, men and the sea, and the ultimate questions of the human existence, wrapped up in language wonderfully witty and hilariously humorous. This, and the others in the canon, are not books that will be read once lightly and forgotten. No, you will come back to them time and again for the pure pleasure of the reading and to discover something fresh each time.

Rating:
Summary: My Rieiew
Review: I found the book pleasure to my reading senses. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to turn to the next page. This is by far the best of the Aubrey series.
I found Doctor Stephen character very entertaining if I was a character in a book I would like to be him he is smart and sophisticated can do complicated math in his head in short time I really enjoyed the way O'Brian portrayed this character.
I really loved the way that the vocabulary of the book fits in with each character it is very enjoyable to read. When I read this book and I finish I just want to read it again and again.
This book really shows how life would be upon a real Man of War vessel it is amazing and how they were punished and taken care of liked being dragged the length of the ship. I would recommend this book to any one who enjoys a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books of perhaps the best naval series ever
Review: In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary. Still, I'm glad to add my words. These stories concern Jack Aubrey, a ship captain in the English Navy at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and his great friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish-Catalan doctor and spy who in the first book joins Jack's crew as ship doctor.

As H. M. S. Surpries opens, political machinations cost Jack his prize money (earned in the previous book0, and Stephen's cover in Spain is blown. As a result, and also because Stephen is scheming to see his lover Diana again (who has been taken by her keeper Richard Canning to India), Jack takes command of the aged frigate H.M.S. Surprise, and is sent to Cambodia (stopping in India) to deliver the new British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong.

Thus the setup for a long, wonderful, account of the voyage to the Orient and back. The pleasures of this book are remarkably varied: high comedy, such as the famous drunken sloth incident; high adventure, as the men of the Surprise battle not only the South Atlantic at its fiercest, but also the French; and bitter disappointment and even tragedy, in Stephen's seesaw relationship with Diana, as well as Stephen's involvement with a young Indian girl.

The pleasures of this book, however, are not restricted to a fine plot. The ongoing development of the characters of Jack and Stephen, and of their complex and fully described friendship, is a major achievement. In addition, the many minor characters are fascinating: the envoy Mr. Stanhope, Stephen's Indian friend, the various ship's officers and men, other ship captains, and so on. And O'Brian's depiction of the building of an effective crew, the relationship of captain to officers to men, is another fascinating detail, and something he revisits from book to book, as Jack encounters different crews in different circumstances. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion.

Jack and Stephen are heroic in certain aspects of their characters, but they are both multi-faceted characters, with terrible flaws and endearing crotchets in addition to their accomplishments. And they truly come across to this reader as characters of their time, and not 20th Century people cast back into the past. Even Stephen's very contemporary racial and religious attitudes are well-motivated by his background, and expressed in language which reeks wonderfully of his time: "Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, if anyone can speak of a heterogeneous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way."

I recommend all these books highly. It was with great difficulty the first time through the series that I restrained myself, upon finishing each book, from immediately starting in on the next one.

Rating:
Summary: Just good friends
Review: It has been awhile since I've read a book in this series, but returning to it I felt like I had never taken a break. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin have become my good friends, and O'Brian swept me away with their exploits instantly. Even thought the style is decidedly un-modern, O'Brian's narrative thrust is irresistible. In this, the third volume of the series, Jack is still in debt due to the Admiralty refusing to honor a war prize based on a technicality, thus putting his engagement to Sophie in danger. Maturin is in real danger as the new Lord governing the navy broadcasts his name in a public meeting, thus raising possible questions about his role as a spy. Stephen's heart is troubled as well; he still moons over Diana Villiers, from the events of the second book.

How can you possibly dislike a book that contains a line such as this: "Jack, you have debauched my sloth." Yes, O'Brian has a certain amount of levity, although it is often hidden underneath the layers of the manners of the time. His style is somewhat like that of Jane Austen, where the most cutting of phrases are being said in the nicest of ways. You either like this sort of thing or don't. I like it, when I catch it, but I yearn for annotations, just knowing that there are some subtleties that are escaping me.

Rating:
Summary: Another jem in the string.
Review: Like the preceding Aubrey and Maturin books by O'Brian, this is a beautifully written, meticulously realistic tale. In this, the third book of O'Brian's seafaring saga, things take a painfully tragic twist.

In the setting of the sea voyages, the dual romantic dramas of Captain Aubrey and Doctor Maturin continue to unfold. What reader can truly care that the bold and dashing Diana Villiers has been subjected to all sorts of low, nasty gossip, when Maturin has realised that his love for her has survived it? And will Aubrey's fiance, Sophie, break their engagement in the face of his long and silent absence at sea? Especially with a charming new minister in the neighborhood...

Always before, in spite of rivalries and breaks, the good captain and doctor's fortunes have risen and fallen pretty much together. But in this book, only one will win through to joy.

Aside from the poignant human drama, this book holds the most dramatic description of a storm at sea that I have ever read. O'Brian's prose drove my heart rate to amazing heights for the usually non-athletic pursuit of reading! His gift for succinct description is purely wonderful.

Another wonderful book in a series of wonderful books.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific writing, terrific characters, terrific seamanship!
Review: This is the third novel in the Jack Aubrey-Stephen Maturin series, and the story just keeps rolling right along. It's difficult to maintain the pace and the reader's interest for more than the first couple of volumes in any sort of fiction series, but O'brian certainly has the knack. This time, the newly-posted but still heavily indebted Captain Aubrey is detailed to ferry a diplomat to the court of an Indian prince . . . having been the unknowing beneficary of Maturin's leverage at the Admiralty. He's impatient at being out of the principal theater of the war with France, but happy to have any ship at all -- especially the frigate SURPRISE, in which he had served as a midshipman. Besides helping his friend, Dr. Maturin has his own reasons for visiting India -- Diana Villiers has gone there in the company of a wealthy merchant from the City and the East India Company. For O'Brian spends as much time on the details and development of his characters' personal interrelationships as he does on naval maneuvering and battles. And the descriptions of rounding the Cape of Good Hope are mesmerizing!