Today I finished book 20 of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey / Maturin novels. I couldn’t put stop reading these books from the first one, which I read after seeing the film MASTER AND COMMANDER: FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD. The series is complete, though of course I would have loved more, but then of course O’Brian died at age 85 in January 2000, so there won’t be any more books.

I can’t recommend these books more highly. The books are easy to read and enjoyable, and while their is a huge amount of nautical terminology you can get books to explain it all in detail, and you don’t need to know it all to enjoy, you can be like Maturin and really never understand the sea.

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS…

The books follow the story of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his close friend and surgeon Dr. Steven Maturin, who is also a spy working to stop Napoleon, and end oppression and slavery everywhere. Aubrey is one of the best fighting captains around, working his gun crews till they are the fastest in the navy, and he his known as Lucky Jack for his ability to find enemy ships and take them for Prize money. These books follow Jack from when he is made Master and Commander of a sloop until he is given his Blue at the Mizen and made an Admiral (and not a yellow admiral with no fleet), and we follow him and many of his crew through all the books and through many many adventures.

This is certainly one of my all time favorite book series. I highly recommend to all who enjoy high adventure or ships of any kind.

These books have made me watch the film so many times, and my only complaint is that Aubrey exceeds his orders in the movie, which he would never do, not wanting to lose his post captain position. Well that and Maturin is way too good looking, but the film is so accurate. I loved all this so much I even went with my mom, my girlfriend and her mom to see the Rose, which was remade to be an exact replica of the Surprise from the books, and is the ship from the movie. And this is me at the helm.