In this sequel to Master and Commander, aside from the obvious promotion of Jack Aubrey to Post Captain (gee, way to pick a title, there!), plenty of other stuff happens to our pals Aubrey and Maturin. They fall in love, fight over a woman, Aubrey is chased by debt collectors, and Maturin begins a potentially promising career as a spy. Who could possibly suspect an eccentric intellectual who forgets to wash his face and has moss growing on his overcoat?
Though the naval jargon continues to be totally incomprehensible in book two, I continue to find the story of Captain Aubrey and Dr Maturin utterly intriguing. There's something compelling about their exciting, romantic, cramped and dirty life on board one of Nelson's navy ships that keeps me reading, even while I continue to have no clue what a xebec is. (I have a feeling that if Hornblower is still reading this blog she will be able to fill me in.)
I was saying to my husband the other day that I feel like the universe has conspired to introduce me to this fabulous genre, naval adventure fiction. In spite of having many other interesting books on my shelf at the moment, I am gobbling up the Aubrey-Maturin series; and when I found myself without an Aubrey-Maturin book one day last week, I picked up the first book in the Horatio Hornblower series from the library at my university. So now you can consider yourself warned.
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