Master and Commander

I enjoyed it quite a bit more the second time around (12 years later), having the internet handy was a huge help in figuring out the nautical terminology.

What lacks in plot is made up in a slow but solid character and relationship development between Jack and Stephen. I'm eager to find and read Post-Captain now ...

Drowning in a sea of detail. 

I am sucker for sailing ships and I really liked the movie they made from these books. So I thought I gonna have to read them.

No idea how to judge this. I didn't hate it, I didn't like it, I enjoyed it, sort of at least. It was overall not bad. So I am going to read the next one, but not right now, this feels more like something I will read between other books to break up some writing type from one author, or get away from some too much read book type

I'm not sure whether to rate this 4 starts or 5 stars. On the one hand, the world-building is amazing and actually feels like the book was written in the 19th Century. On the other hand, the book assumes a virtually expert-level knowledge of 19th Century sailing terminology. How you get on with the book will largely depend on how willing you are to set aside the dictionary and just go with the flow.

In any event, the book is very well written and is genuinely thrilling at times (in fact, one of the battles manages to be thrilling even though witnessed from a distance). I'm very much looking forward to the next in the series...

The first third of this book is slow and heavily bogged down by long, dry passages of O'Brian showing off his scholarly knowledge of ships. I like ships and admire the attention to authentic historical detail, but God, Pat! It's turgid stuff. You cannot and will not understand all the nautical jargon in this book, to such a degree that another dude wrote a whole other book just to help.

The quicker you can get through those early rocky waters, the better. The sprinkling of great Aubrey/Maturin character moments just about got me through, as their relationship is the star of the show from the first chapter. Their different types of naivety and dog-vs-cat contrast in personality are so entertaining and endearing. O'Brian's character work is wonderful and witty, and I also really enjoy his omniscient, bygone-era style of narration.

The book gets exponentially better as it goes on, delivering the ship-based combat, tense pursuits, bad weather, and interpersonal drama I wanted from the start. I understand that the later books in the series are less laden with dumpings of encyclopedic technical detail, so I look forward to getting into those in future. This one's a challenging but ultimately worthwhile opener.

I was disappointed with Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I had heard such great things about this book and was excited to dive into it, but unfortunately, I was underwhelmed.

Firstly, the language and terminology used in the book was completely impenetrable. O'Brian makes extensive use of nautical terms and historical language that left me completely lost and unable to follow the story. I found myself constantly flipping back to the glossary at the back of the book, which only served to disrupt the flow of the story even more.

Furthermore, the pacing of the book was incredibly slow. There were long stretches of dialogue and descriptive passages that dragged on for pages, making it a struggle to get through. I found myself constantly checking to see how much further I had to go before reaching the end of the book.

Overall, I would not recommend Master and Commander to anyone. It was a bit of a dud and I almost didn't finish it.

It's a rare pleasure to enjoy a book where at least half of what goes on goes entirely over your head.

A hoot of a tale. For a sailing nerd I loved the unapologetic technical accuracy even though 80% went sailing over my head (or googling like mad) The characters, so far, are pretty one dimensional, the plot is no more deeper than a shipping log, but I understand that both are fleshed out in subsequent books. It is, however, a very cozy read, familiar, even though I cannot quite put my finger on why. I can myself dipping into the next ones as I get a chance.

I so wanted to like this one. I got to chapter 6 - and just couldn't drag myself through it any further. It became a quality of life issue. Was listening to this one via audible. Tons of detail about the boat, sails, etc - easy to get lost in the details. Also easy for the mind to wander and lose track of the story.

In science fiction circles, there's often a debate about “hard” vs “soft” sci-fi, and which makes for better literature. Proponents of hard sci-fi argue that it's essential to get the scientific details of a story right, and that things which violate known rules about physics (time travel, faster-than-light spaceships, etc) should be avoided. Fans of softer stuff, on the other hand, argue that the story is what's important, and that scientific accuracy is important only to the degree that it advances or helps the plot of the story.

Master and Commander is kind of like the hard sci-fi version of a sailing novel set during the Napoleonic wars. It seems very historically and navally accurate, and from reading the author's forward it's obvious that achieving that accuracy was of great importance to him. It's almost too accurate, though - as someone without a background in sailing, it took me a good chunk of the novel to understand was was going on, when the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin was what I really cared about, rather than the technical stuff.

I can see what people like in this, it just isn't for me.

These are great books. However, O'Brian is famous for his use very arcane language(party because he is one of the last writers to have gone to sea as a boy in the early part of 20th century). If your unfamiliar with sailing nautical terms you should pick up the lexicon for the series called “A Sea of Words”.