One of the best
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This is one of the best episodes in the long saga of Stephen and Jack (impossibly long, of course). All the wit and adventure you expect only to a higher more refined degree. It is essential to treat the books as a long novel starting from the beginning 'Master and Commander'. Within this there are high points (which do not imply low points), for me these are; Post Captain, HMS Surprise, Desolation Island, The Surgeons Mate, Treasons Harbour, The Reverse of the Medal and Wine Dark Sea.
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If you've got this far..
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...you will not be disappointed. The books opens with a sea-chase, but Maturin is quickly embroiled with the tangled politics of Peru under the Spanish Empire, while Jack Aubrey is at sea snapping up every prize he can find. Though the action is gripping as in any of O'Brian's books, as usual along the way there is plently of time to be side-tracked into discussions of the Knipperdolling sect, utopian colonies and the flora and fauna of South America. The plot isn't one of his best, but by now these are more slices of life than stories with a clear beginning middle and end, and as ever it's the characters who keep you reading till the end.
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