I got all mine at Barnes&Noble, including The African Queen.

A good Forester companion is C. Northcote Parkinson's The Life And Times Of Horatio Hornblower. He goes out of his way to make Hornblower seem real, including official portraits of HH as a Commodore and Lady Barbara.

I think so. Two excellent O'Brian companions are Harbors And High Seas and A Sea Of Words, both by Dean King, and available in a combo set deal at Amazon right now!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080...e=UTF8&s=books

Don, your wife might like the second one; it explains a lot.

And don't forget to go through Neal, your friendly drug...uh, book dealer!

I just finished reading the first half of that, yes, it is pretty good. I stopped, though, because I have not read all the HH books. I need to pick up the next one and get started, they are very good.

Thank you, gentlemen, for these excellent tips. Who'd ever thought that a subsim hobby would develop into a hidden, upstairs, library; one in which if another book is added, the 2nd floor joists will collapse into the kitchen below? :D

I've replaced the kitchen table with a floor jack in the center of the room...just in case.

I'm beholden, really, I now have all the ballast a guy could ever need.

hehe,

all the best,

I have a question for those of you with the O'Brien omnibus set pictured above in the thread. The Amazon reviews mention a lot of typos and such and rather thin paper. Is it very distracting or are the books low quality? I enjoyed Master and Commander and it looks like the omnibus set is by far the cheapest way to get the entire set without scrounging through every used book store on tthe planet (which would yield lots of different editions which really sets off my library OCD :P

Anyway, would you guys recommend the set and say the typos are inconsequential?

Just a quick question about the series.

Is the main protagonist of the books protrayed as a real-life person with faults, strengths, weaknesses and mistakes...or one of those "super"-protagonist where they are protrayed as the "perfect" hero with a faultless spirit, unquestionable judgement and only the purest motivations?

Personally I hate those "perfect" hero types. I used to read a lot of Tom Clancy, but after a while "Jack Ryan" started to make me sick to my stomach :shifty:

Jack Aubrey knows his function at sea, it's his natural element; ashore he's a ordinary guy, some would say, not the sharpest tack in the box...lets his temper fly, gets in trouble, wanted by the debt police, can't control his lust, dodges lawyers for none payment, avoids them by going to sea (sometimes); falls into financial ruin as his prize money burns a hole in his pockets...chicken one day, feathers the next. Once he's married and has children...well, you know the drill.

I personally bought 1-10 as individual novels, one at a time and passed them around when I was finished with them. I too like the "set" edition and may purchase a set just for the grandkids.

I have not seen any more typos than I normally see in a printed book, if any. And yes, it is a neat and cost efficient way to get the O'Brian Library. Buying the trade paperbacks would cost at leas 3 times more.

Yes, all true. Aubrey is also an honest captain, usually loved by his men, and he cares not for the lash. He's at his best when trying to tell a joke... he usually flubs it with hilarious results.

Ah, but in battle, no one knows a ship better than Lucky Jack Aubrey. When the cannons begin roaring, his face clouds with fury like a thunderstorm.

I would definitely recommend Hornblower, then. He's a naval genius who spends most of his time thinking he's stupid. He's one of the most depressed 'heroes' you'll ever meet. He spends all his time wanting one thing or another; when he finally gets it he realizes he really wanted something else. He's highly successful, but considers every success to be purely through luck, and he agonizes over every decision, sure that whatever he does will herald the end of his career.

I just learned something new! I was reading through a dictionary of slang words, and I came across "Jerry-build". That really has nothing to do with Jack Aubrey or Horation Hornblower, but the connection is a side-note in the same category: "Jury Rig", which as any fan of sailing ships knows means to make a quickie repair, usually replacing a lost mast or spar, which is only meant to last until the ship makes port for real repairs.

The new thing I learned is this: I've always been told that "Jury-Rig" was probably a contraction of "Injury-Rig", meaning to temporarily fix the "injury". The slang dictionary quotes an English Scholar from the 1750s, who said that it actually comes from the French word "Jouriere", which means "For the day".

Cool, huh? I thought so.

My soon to be brother-in-law is a huge fan of the Patrick O'Brian series and was on the last book while visiting here with my sister earlier this summer. I bought Master and Commander then on his recommendation but found it a tough read (due to the coloquial language and slang from the time period that is over my head) and never got past the half-way mark; maybe I'll give it another whirl.

I resurrected this thread to mention a book I had forgotten, but now I can share.

Every Man Will Do His Duty: An Anthology of Firsthand Accounts from the Age of Nelson, is just what it says-tales of naval adventure and combat from the age of sail, told by the men who actually lived it. I have had a copy for years, and believe me, it is amazing. Everyone from Lord Cochrane himself (telling the story of his first command as a young lieutenant) to lowly gunners, all giving eyewitness views of real navy life in those times.

And now it's so old it's quite cheap:
http://www.amazon.com/Every-Man-Will...e=UTF8&s=books

Just ordered it Steve.

I'd have to say that the Aubrey/Maturin series is the best I've ever read. I too had to slow myself down. One of the many things that make this such a marvelous series is that the themes constantly change. The locations are stunning as well as the twists and turns their adventures take over the course of the years.

I'm eager to start reading them all over again, but I think I'm going to start into the Hornblower series next.

Silly thing regarding the movie that my friend and I noticed a few weeks back: Did anyone else notice the guy freezing his arse off with his trousers down in the front of the ship? What a place to have to use the bathroom! It is somewhere around the time when they are making their turn to head back north around the tip of South America; the ship is coming straight at the viewer. For all the nitpicking people on websites after the movie came out I never saw this mentioned :rotfl:

O'Brian is no better than a simple scratcher compared to Marryat.He was a Nelson era naval captain not a fake Irishman.
http://www.athelstane.co.uk/marryat/life.htm