I couldn’t wait so I used my Xmas loot of Barnes and Noble gift cards to purchase the next four O’Brian Aubrey novels; The Fortune of War, The Surgeon’s Mate, The Ionian Mission, and Treason’s Harbour. All trade paperbacks (of course I still have the Easton Press editions coming, I just couldn’t wait to start the next volume).
Right now I’m in reading The War for All Oceans (a post about this book to appear soon) a great book on the Napoleonic Wars and the British Navy. Picking up The Fortune of War from my nightstand with all intention to just read the first couple of paragraphs just to size up how O’Brian opens this story. Alas, that first few paragraphs became 77 pages last night. I am going back to The War for All Oceans, since I am close to finishing it and it compliments the O’Brian series quite nicely.
It feels good to be back with my old friends of Aubrey and Maturin. And this book has the makings of a great story.
We left Aubrey with a badly damaged Leopard on Desolation Island making repairs. The opening of The Fortune of War has the Leopard making port in New Holland and Aubrey recounting his passage across the South Atlantic chased by the Dutch Ship of the Line Waakzaamheid. Which made me think back to one of the most powerful scenes O’Brian has written. We learn that Maturin’s false intelligence he planted with the American operative has taken root and now Aubrey and Maturin have been ordered back to England.
Since this novel takes place at the eve of the War of 1812 the American Navy will take a prominent role. I am very interested in seeing how O’Brian portrays them.
). Lt. Pullings has followed him to his command as well as his Steward Preserved Killick, his Coxswain Bonden, and Midshipman Babbington. 