Ken Ringle - Washington Post
“The Aubrey-Maturin series… far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart.”
Stephen Becker - Chicago Sun-Times
“There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his.”
Richard Snow - New York Times Book Review
“The best historical novels ever written… On every page Mr. O’Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don’t, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives.”
New York Times Book Review
The best historical novels ever written… On every page Mr. O’Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don’t, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives.— Richard Snow
Christopher Hitchens - Slate
“I devoured Patrick O’Brian’s 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog.”
A. S. Byatt
“Gripping and vivid… a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit.”
George Will
“O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin volumes actually constitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century.”
E. O. Wilson - Boston Globe
“I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop.”
James Hamilton-Paterson - New Republic
“Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.”
Keith Richards
“I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first with Master and Commander. It wasn’t primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships. …And of course having characters isolated in the middle of the goddamn sea gives more scope. …It’s about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me.”
Tamar Lewin - New York Times
“It has been something of a shock to find myself—an inveterate reader of girl books—obsessed with Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic-era historical novels… What keeps me hooked are the evolving relationships between Jack and Stephen and the women they love.”
David Mamet - New York Times
“[O’Brian’s] Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 novels of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, is a masterpiece. It will outlive most of today’s putative literary gems as Sherlock Holmes has outlived Bulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has outlived Charles Reade.”
Time
lf Jane Austen had written rousing sea yarns, she would have produced something very close to the prose of Patrick O'Brian.
Chicago Tribune
Addictively readable.
The New Yorker
They're funny, they're exciting, they're informative. . . there are legions of us who gladly ship out time and time again under Captain Aubrey.
Publishers Weekly
Though the Jack Aubrey-Stephen Maturin books can be profitably read separately, as fans know, together they read as one long, wonderful novel. This 16th installment (following The Truelove ) is no doubt the best chapter yet. In the early 1800s, Bluff Jack, captain of the privateer Surprise , steers his frigate across the Pacific to South America, around Cape Horn and into the Atlantic, taking French and American prizes, fighting off a Yankee Man of War and suffering dire eye and leg wounds for his trouble. Subtle Stephen, ship's doctor and British intelligence agent, almost pulls off a coup in Peru and must escape across the Andes, losing some toes to frostbite for his efforts. Favorite characters reappear here: Killick, Jack's crabby steward; Sarah and Emily Sweeting, precocious Melanesian waifs attached to Maturin's sick-berth; Sam, Jack's illegitimate black son and rising Churchman. The naval actions are bang-on and bang-up--fast, furious and bloody--and the Andean milieu is as vivid as the shipboard scenes. As usual, readers can revel in the symbiotic friendship of Jack and Stephen, who make for a marvelous duo, whether in their violin and cello duets or in their sharp dialogue. If O'Brian hasn't quite had a break-out book yet, then this deserves to be it. 40,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Nov.)
Library Journal
On the high seas in the early years of the 19th century, when full-rigged sailing ships carried cargoes of treasure and slaves and privateers were a continual threat, surgeon-spy Stephen Maturin and his good friend Capt. Jack Aubrey have set sail for South America. Their ship is a privateer with a crew more than ready to board and capture anything in their path. This 16th entry in O'Brian's long-running saga opens as the two men and their crew encounter a volcanic eruption and continues as Maturin, engaged in diplomatic scheming, heads for Peru, where he finds an exotic array of birds and animals as well as opportunities for espionage. Readers already familiar with the series will enthusiastically welcome this new chapter; others may find the references to earlier adventures and distant characters confusing. The plot groans under detailed descriptions of everything from managing the sails to galley-table etiquette. Recommended for libraries holding O'Brian's earlier works. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/93.-- Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svces., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Kirkus Reviews
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin—the amiable, music-loving heroes of O'Brian's wonderful sail-powered series (The Truelove, The Letter of Marque, The Far Side of the World, et al.)—follow orders into the midst of revolutionary South American politics. His Majesty's government has become interested in Peru, where the Spanish vicegerency is tottering and the beastly French seek greater influence. Who better to send to see that, when the old order falls, the new government is Anglophilic than that extremely clever half-Spanish ship's surgeon and spy Stephen Maturin? Maturin, concert-quality cellist, and Captain Jack Aubrey, the best violinist ever to command a man-o'-war, have successfully concluded their business in the South Pacific and are on board Surprise, a privateer. Licensed to steal anything they find in the way of enemy shipping, the duo make it a profitable crossing, taking their biggest haul from the Yankee ship Franklin, which carries, in addition to tons of loot, one Monsieur Dutourd, who says he's just another string-player and utopian disciple of Rousseau but who seems entirely too interested in Peruvian politics. Dutourd presents a problem in that he and Maturin have crossed paths in Paris, and if they land in Lima together, Maturin's identity as a British spy may become known. Along with fretting about Dutourd, Dr. Maturin is concerned about his assistant and fellow naturalist the Rev. Mr. Martin, whose belief that lust in one's heart can result in venereal disease has brought him to death's door. When the sailors at last reach the shores of Peru, Dutourd escapes and Maturin's mission, complicated enough by the various revolutionary factions, becomes a realhair-raiser involving an arduous transit of the Andes, where he is spit on by llamas and sees the great condors. Literate, leisurely, and as charming as the rest of the series. The illustrated guide to sails and masts is worth the price by itself. (First printing of 40,000)
The New Yorker
They're funny, they're exciting, they're informative. . . there are legions of us who gladly ship out time and time again under Captain Aubrey.
Chicago Tribune
Addictively readable.
Time
lf Jane Austen had written rousing sea yarns, she would have produced something very close to the prose of Patrick O'Brian.
Boston Globe
I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop.— E. O. Wilson
From Barnes & Noble
At the outset of an adventure filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are pursuing a prize through the Great South Sea, where the strange color of the ocean waters (reminding them of Homer's famous description) is a portent of violence. Patrick O'Brian's brilliantly detailed narrative reunites them in a breathtaking chase through stormy seas and icebergs south of Cape Horn, where the hunters suddenly become the hunted. "The pleasures of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels defy enumeration...These are books that offer the reader both sensual and intellectual enjoyment, the pleasures of immensely stylish writing as well as the pleasures of engagement with an author who is moralist, naturalist, and naval historian into the bargain."-- Washington Post.
