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Summary: Farewell Admiral Aubrey and Dr. Maturin
Review: Thanks to the late Patrick O'Brian for wrapping up the series on an up note. I grew as a mariner with each book in this series from a landlubber to...maybe a ships boy. Patrick O'Brian brought this incredible era of honor, corruption and raw bravery to life for me with this historically accurate series. Now that I'm reading the memoirs of the Admiral that Jack Aubrey is based on, I'm finding that much of the action in these books really happened as Mr. O'Brian tells it.
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Summary: A wonderful way to say goodby.
Review: Patrick O'brien has left this world. His books and charachters have stayed at the turn of the century long ago and far away. His ships still sail, his music still sings, and his natural science still finds a world to explore and wonder at. He has created a world that will live longer, and find more resonance, than mere history and biography. I wish him well and fair winds. The circle is closed. A wonderful book, a wonderful series, a wonderful end.
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Summary: Magnificent saga
Review: Patrick O'Brien once described the Napoleonic Wars as "the Troy tales" of the British people, playing as central a role in the national myth as the Trojan wars did for the ancient Greeks. His incomparable series, based on the vicissitudes of the professional career of Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy, who rises from humble Lieutenant to Admiral (with one reduction to the ranks and a court martial and public disgrace along the way), has become a cult among his many admirers. There are three main reasons for this. First, the naval lore and action are quite as good and compelling as the battles of C S Foresters's Horatio Hornblower. Second, these are real novels, more than rattling good action yarns, with complex characters, credible women (Diana Villiers is a grand creation) and a genuine historical sense of life ashore that reveal O'Brien's admiration for Jane Austen. Above all, the series is given life and depth and tension by the heart of the books, the friendship between Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the half-Irish, half-Catalan, who is naturalist, physician, musician and spy. At times, the reader is lost in the world of Charles Darwin and the voyage of 'The Beagle' as Maturin delights in the flora and fauna that come the way of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic, the South Pacific and the Newfoundland Banks. At times, one is lost in a world of culinary history, or of secret intelligence, or primitive surgery. The French enemies are drawn with intelligent sympathy, and the American naval adversaries treated with proper respect. To embark upon the long voyage of this marvellous series is to plunge into a compelling and enchanting world. I have bought half a dozen copies of the first book of the series, 'Master and Commander', to lure choice friends into this sweet obsession of O'Brien's world. My own favourite remains 'The Mauritius Command', but I know that once I begin it, I shall have to recommence the pleasure of re-reading the series. Life is too short not to surrender to the indulgence, again and again.
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Summary: Return the CD and buy the book instead
Review: I've read the whole A/M series at least 3-4 times and just can't get enough of it. Commuting 45 minutes each way to work and back daily, I rent a lot of CD/books from a "Books on Tape" type retail store. Since all the PO'B books in the store are on cassette tape, I was thrilled to finally see one on CD and rented it immediately. I had already read this book and was keen to hear it read to me. Boy, was I unimpressed. The reader was dull, droll, awful. Aubrey sounded like a creep, and Maturin was worse. I turned it off within the first few minutes so that I would not have the reader's voice replace the one's PO'B helped me create in my imagination.
Rating: 
Summary: Forgot to describe the action
Review: I have read,and bought all of the series. I was disappointed, when comparing with the others in the series. Much time is spent in describing minute details, but when it comes to action, such as the battle at the taking of the shore installation, it is all condensed into a few paragraphs. It is as if including the battle was an afterthought. Because it is a continuation of the series, it is worth reading, but is disappointing.
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Summary: "...with fair winds and flowing sheets..."
Review: I picture O'Brian near the end, facing his mortality, wrestling ghosts from WWII, writing in a lonely room at Trinity College in his adopted Ireland, finishing what surely was a pure labor of love. We all grow old and we cannot expect the same writing strength from a man of 70 as from a man of 40. Nor can we expect to read the like of O'Brian again, as his generation will be the last to possess the combination of erudition, intellectual curiousity and a psychic link to the past that formed the life of his novels. Read O'Brian as an antidote to the values of the present. Read O'Brian to realize that there was a time in the recent past when, for many people, friendship, honor, love, learning, loyalty and courage were present in everyday life, and when expediency was not always the best policy. Read O'Brian for what is surely one of the greatest sustained efforts in literature, for 20 volumes that together form a novel that in style, lanuage and subject matter, could have been published contemporaneously with Dickens - and is yet timeless.
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Summary: RED SKY
Review: Another great sea story. Goodby my friends. May you allways have the weather gauge.
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Summary: A Fitting Final Capter
Review: Although Blue at the Mizzen is readable on its own, it is perhaps an injustice to it to do so. The book, as with any one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, is merely chapter 20 in what is trully an epic. Each volume/chapter is integral; there is not a single weak link in the tale. It was thus with great sadness that I read of Mr. O'Brian's recent death; Blue at the Mizzen is the final chapter. Things could be worse. Mr O'Brian, intentionally or no, has brought the resolution of many long-standing issues to his characters, though these resolutions also promise new beginings which the reader will now have to make up on his (her) own. Blue at the Mizzen is the type of novel Mr O'Brian's vast readership have come to expect: tragedy ballanced keenly with triumph, exploration of world and soul, the peculiar gains we find in loss, and the losses we face in victory. Blue at the Mizzen is a must read for anyone who has read the epic till this point. Others will still find it enjoyable, but are strongly suggested to start with volume/chapter one: Master and Commander.
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Summary: Striking authenticity
Review: This final novel from Mr. O'Brian surpasses recent favorites of mine such as "Gates of Fire" and "The Triumph and the Glory", and stands alone as my best-loved historical fiction novel. "Blue at the Mizzen" brings history to life as only the best novels of this fascinating genre can, the characters are vividly drawn and the setting and action are portrayed with striking authenticity. But it's the humanity and candor of those brilliant characters, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, that make these novels so superb. These novels will be read and admired a century from now, you owe it to yourself to read them all.
Rating:
Summary: Blue at the mizzen
Review: This is another great book by a true master. I will miss this author very much. I only hope that somewhere on his estate is the final Aubrey-Maturin chapter and that it will someday be shared with the fans and readers of O'Brians wonderful literature!
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