Geofferson

Has anyone here read the Master and Commander novels, the Aubrey/Maturin Series, by Patrick O'Brian? I saw the movie and am curious as to how the books are.

The following site has the details on all 20 novels for those interested: http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/pobtitles.htm#aubrey

TeeSeeJay

I've always been interested in them, but have never done anything about it. Perhaps if I see the movie, I'll have an impetus to pick up the M&C book, finally.

So, uh, I guess I'm useless to you. Sorry.

Mutley Hyde

Sorry, but I'm behind the curve... I've just finished the first book in the Horatio Hornblower series. I gotta finish the next 10 of those before moving on.

minifigg

My hub reads them.
He loves them!
He reccommends them to everyone.
Read them in order, though.
That is key in this series.
The first book is Master and Commander, NOT Far Side Of the World.
So, the film title is misleading.
mini

scout

I've read most of these books and highly recommend them, but they take committment because they are very heavy reading for most people, at least until you get used to O'Brian's style. But once you get into them, they are very, very addicting. I know they have tons of copies of Master and Commander at the used book store I go to, but not nearly as many of the other volumes in the series, suggesting to me that many people buy the the first book in the series, Master and Commander, but don't finish it and therefore end up abandoning the series. Other alternatives in nautical fiction are the Richard Bolitho books by Alexander Kent, the Lord Ramage novels by Dudley Pope, the Alan Lewrie novels by Dewey Lambdin, and the Nathaniel Drinkwater novels by Richard Woodman. Of course, the Hornblower novels started the genre, but I'm assuming everyone knows about them already. All of these take place in roughly the same time period, 1775-1820.

CWB

I am not sure that Hornblower started the genre.

Have you not come across Captain Frederick Marryat RN, who wrote a number of books in the genre (Mr Midshipman Easy, Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful, The Naval Officer)?

Marryat was born in 1792 and died in 1848, having been a naval officer until 1830.

I have read all the O'Brian books a number of times and am a big fan. They are not summer holiday pulp fiction by any means, and require an intelligent reader but well desrve a go.

scout

Oh sure, Marryat probably started the genre if you want to go back that far. I haven't read his novels, but I'm certainly familiar with him. My assumption, however, and I could be wrong about this, was that the recent reprinting of his books was largely due to the resurging popularity of the nautical fiction genre as a whole. I'm not sure many people knew about Marryat until recently so I would tend to credit Forrester as starting the genre, at least in the modern era. But I wonder if Forrester read Marryat and if that influenced his writing at all? There must be a biography of Forrester out there somewhere that would have the answer to that question.

freezerburned

Sorry, late to this thread. Although the series takes longer to get into its swing, once it does it's immeasurably better than the Hornblower series. After awhile I got tired of hearing how great Hornblower was, and just assumed he'd pull something out of his ass ... you never got the character development you do with the O'Brien series.

Deke Rivers

I tried my best to get through the first book..never made it..its not so much the writing style as the use of words that ive never heard of..
I consider myself a reasonably well versed and intelligent person but this one had me scratching my head ..it was chore to read

Mordred

Interesting. I've read the first 5 or 6 books in the Hornblower series yet (in chronological order) and can't say I feel exactly the same way. Of course he's going to be the hero and do something amazing to save the day (especially since he has to live to become the Admiral of the fleet or whatever), but I do think there is some character development there. I'm curious to read the M&C series now since you say they're better.

How would you compare the styles? Hornblower is a very easy read, although it seems like half the time I don't have a great idea of exactly what is going on. Forrester's nautical knowledge is excellent, but I don't know all the parts of the ship/rigging so it can be hard to visualize. I kind of like the fact that he doesn't bother explaining what everything is, but it can be confusing at times. I really just need to get a naval dictionary Is M&C done in a similar style?

Mordred