The first eight novels in the Patrick O’Brian seafaring stories are 99p today on Kindle. I am not a historical novel fan, but make an exception for Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell and Patrick O’Brian’s perfectly realised sequence of Napoleonic navy tales. If you only know this world from Russell Crowe’s uber-macho frockcoat action in Master and Commander, the novels are so much more vivid, detailed and complex. You only have three hours left probably, sorry, been out and about.
Aubrey and Maturin klaxon
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bump for those who like a recently updated one
I’m not really a fan of historical novels but these seem to be a cut above the rest. So I’ll try book #1. Thanks mm
And a word to those who insist they’re all standalone novels and can be read in any order – no. I mean you could, but why? Not only does one novel frequently take up the immediate narrative of the preceding, a great achievement of the series is the portrayal of ageing individuals and friendships. There is no good reason to dart about.
It won’t surprise you that I struggled with these and gave up around Book 5. I’m more of a Flashman kind of guy.
If you struggled with the first five you did well to bail out, because they get progressively less involving as the over-arching story ties itself into knots to fit historical events into a shrinking timeline. And there’s a lot of business on land which I didn’t find as compelling (at least on the fourth read-through). I’ve tried Flashman. *looks blankly into distance*
Agree 100% on the land bits, get back on the boat lads…
Surely te thread title should read Aubrey and Maturin Semaphore?
You – outside.