HMS Surprise

from ASBiskey

I really enjoy Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. I have read and enjoyed many of them. I continue to fear I will become jaded "They sailed, they fought, same old, same old". However, I continue to find this series, and this book in particular, some of the best reading I have ever done. The...

from read.to.live

I don't know if I will be able to put in words why I love this book. I enjoy spending time with the characters: they are larger than life, but accessible; human, drastically flawed, but honorable and good company. I find life at sea fascinating, all of it: the ocean, the storms, the navigation, t...

from redfiona

Great, rollicking read, and I apologise to anyone in Leicester that I confused while reading it as I walked. An absolute page-turner gem of a book, filled with more vim than Post Captain, but explaining that book's occasional languors as being part of the set up, because we needed to know Sophie ...

from BooksForDinner

Each book I read of O'Brian knocks me out. Only the first three so far, but yikes. What beautiful language. The dialogue stays true to the period, but the narration does not, which I think is perfect. **Spoiler** The scene in which Stephen is saved from his torturers in an old church by Aubrey an...

from DarthDeverell

H.M.S. Surprise begins almost immediately after Post Captain ended, with Captain Jack Aubrey's famous luck again failing him on land as his hard-won fortune slips away from him. In Patrick O'Brian's third story, Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin must embark on a mission to the Far East to deliver an...