Blue at the Mizzen, by Patrick O'Brian

[rowyn]

I took a while reading this one, because it's the last complete Aubrey-Maturin novel. After twenty books, it's strange to think of it being over, and endings are always melancholy. This one is, in some ways, particularly so, because O'Brian did not intend the book to be his last. It just worked out that way.

So, like so many other Aubrey/Maturin novels, it ends abruptly, with the main characters rushing off to some new mission. I'll read the published chapters of the unfinished 21st novel, but this is all the closure I expect at this point. Not one of my favorites from the series, although the new midshipman, Horatio Hanson, is endearing. I'll give it a 7.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that you were still reading the series after 20 books. I don't think I've ever read a series that didn't start to get really old by book 9 at the latest.

[rowyn]

I'm kind of surprised I made it through, too. At times it did feel like 'I've read this story before', but i enjoyed the series all the way through. Not an easy read and still not my native genre, but good books. :)

I'm not sure I've made it through any other series of this length about the same characters, though I liked all the Vorkosigan books. I forget how many of those there are: 10 maybe, about Miles Vorkosigan specifically.

[alltoseek.livejournal.com]

That's why the Aubery-Maturin series is more like literature than like the formulaic stories of most popular fiction. Most critics agree that it's really more like one long epic story than it is a series of novels - that's one reason the endings are so abrupt. They're basically chapter endings instead of novel endings.

The characters develop and mature over the series, while still remaining themselves. You don't hardly see the changes as you are reading along (just as you don't notice them in your friends); you notice when you go back to the beginning and read again and they are so young :D