Rating: 
Summary: A great read!
Review: Desolation Island was the most enjoyable book of the O'Brian series that I have read to date. I think that after reading the four previous books, I am better aquatinted with the jargon unique to British sailors of the early 1800s. This better understanding is directly linked to the more pleasurable experience I had with this book. Additionally, I am far better acquainted with the main characters. My better understanding of these characters so richly animated by O'Brian's prose made this story so enjoyable. O'Brian's character development is unsurpassed.In short, Lucky Jack and Stephen are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges. The transport of prisoners, deadly disease, spies, armed conflict, a collision with an iceberg, to a near mutiny are among the challenges faced by our heroes face as they sail towards Botany Bay to rescue no other than Governor Bligh. This is a first rate read. You will find this very hard to put down once you crack it open.
Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: Desolation Island was the most enjoyable book of the O'Brian series that I have read to date. I think that after reading the four previous books, I am better aquatinted with the jargon unique to British sailors of the early 1800s. This better understanding is directly linked to the more pleasurable experience I had with this book. Additionally, I am far better acquainted with the main characters. My better understanding of these characters so richly animated by O'Brian's prose made this story so enjoyable. O'Brian's character development is unsurpassed. In short, Lucky Jack and Stephen are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges. The transport of prisoners, deadly disease, spies, armed conflict, a collision with an iceberg, to a near mutiny are among the challenges faced by our heroes face as they sail towards Botany Bay to rescue no other than Governor Bligh. This is a first rate read. You will find this very hard to put down once you crack it open.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific narration of a terrific story!
Review: Fans of swashbuckling high seas adventure will relish this latest historical novel, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith and packed with action. This continues the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend: here they sail to Australia with a hold of convicts and face a dangerous disease along the way. Highly recommended listening: packed with action and spiced with a lively reading style.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best, for now and always.
Review: I have just finished Desolation Island. I am stunned, overcome, exhausted. For days now, I have been feverishly reading deep into the night, unable to tear myself away from the fate of the crew, unable to calm my heart from the fear I felt for them, struggling against the odds at the end of the world. What an intense, moving and exquisitely beautiful story. These characters are so alive, they exist for me now, and I will never forget them. The last half of this book has to be one of the secret treasures in all of modern literature. How could I have overlooked it all these years!
Rating:
Summary: Even more brilliant than usual
Review: I have read the first five books in this series and they are all excellent. This installment is definately one of the best so far and definately better than its predecessor, The Mauritius Command. It seems that O'Brian does much better describing the voyage of a single ship, as he does here, than in describing the maneuverings of a squadron. This book is much more focused than The Mauritius Command and O'Brian has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into the plot: Jack struggles with card sharks and con artists, Stephen struggles with his drug addiction, Stephen matches wits with a beautiful American spy, there is a confrontation with a Dutch Man-of-War and a deadly contagious disease. There is more, but I don't want to give away the whole plot. Incidentially, don't read the reviews on the back cover of this book because one of them does give away the whole plot. Anyway, this is O'Brian at his very best, with brilliant descriptions, witty dialogue, well-developed, complex characters, and nail-biting action. It is so well done that it crosses the line from being simply an entertaining novel to being serious literature. No one has written better sea novels than O'Brian and I doubt that anyone ever will.
Rating:
Summary: Series humming along
Review: I started the Aubrey/Maturin series with an audiobook version of Master and Commander and switched to print with Post Captain. At first I was a little intimidated with nautical terms and the prose, but by Desolation Island, I was firmly hooked. I looked up and I was halfway through Desolation Island and already looking forward to the following novels. Needless to say, do not start with this book, start at the beginning, for the whole series is a narrative that never really comes to a close at the end of one book. That said, looking back I think Desolation Island is the best of what I have read so far (no reflection on the later books, which are outstanding). It combines everything I love about the series, it has naval battles, interesting character development between the two protagonists, Maturin's love of natural science as well as political intrigue and other developments in the overall story. Fantastic book and maybe the highlight of the series. The chase with the Dutch 74 gun is a fine example of why I love the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Cover Art
Review: I think a good word needs to be said for Geoff Hunt, the creator of all the cover art that appears in the Aubry/Maturin series. His cover paintings are not only fine art, but the nautical detail is perfectly accurate. If you want to know how ships-of-line actually looked, and under all conditions of wind and sea, then these covers alone are well worth the price of buying the entire series. Best of all, you don't need to purchase the hard cover versions, because the covers even of the paperbacks will compel the attention and analysis of the most critical historian of the era and of wind ships in general. In that respect, Desolation Island is one of the best paintings ever done showing a man-of-war working off a lee shore in calm weather.
Rating:
Summary: Cover Art
Review: I think a good word needs to be said for Geoff Hunt, the creator of all the cover art that appears in the Aubry/Maturin series. His cover paintings are not only fine art, but the nautical detail is perfectly accurate. If you want to know how ships-of-line actually looked, and under all conditions of wind and sea, then these covers alone are well worth the price of buying the entire series. Best of all, you don't need to purchase the hard cover versions, because the covers even of the paperbacks will compel the attention and analysis of the most critical historian of the era and of wind ships in general. In that respect, Desolation Island is one of the best paintings ever done showing a man-of-war working off a lee shore in calm weather.
Rating:
Summary: Some great scenes, but far from his best book . . .
Review: I've been reading the Aubrey-Maturin series straight through, from the first volume. While it has one of the most exciting battle scenes and some of the absorbing problems to be solved I've yet
encountered, this is also, untimately, the most frustrating of the first five volumes. Jack Aubrey, having given up his commodore's pendant at the end of the Mauritius campaign, is back to being a post captain, this time commanding the slow, aging _Leopard_ on a voyage to relieve the embattled Gov. William Bligh in Australia. For reasons of state security, he must also transport a batch of convicted felons, among whom is an American women strongly suspected of spying for the United States, and he must deal with an intellectual young man who has stowed away aboard to be close to Mrs. Wogan. Virtually the whole story takes place aboard the one ship, so the author has the opportunity to investigate his characters in great depth -- always one of his strongest points. The only real naval action, a prolonged stern chase in horrible weather, in which _Leopard_ must flee from the much stronger _Waakzaamheid,_ a Dutch 72-gun ship, is absolutely riveting, as is its sudden and tragic resolution. Then there are the icebergs. But when the book ends, _Leopard_ is still a thusand miles or more from New South Wales and Bligh is nowhere in sight. "Ah," I thought, "it's a two-parter." But it isn't, because I peeked at the next volume. I don't believe O'Brian has enitirely played fair with the reader this time, and it annoys me not to know what happened in the rest of Aubrey's commission.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best of Patrick O'Brian.
Review: If you like descriptions of terror and danger and despair in a novel, this book is for you. Aubrey and Stephen crack up on a god forsaken island, repair their ship and survive (surprise, surprise). Stephan learns to drink water boiled with birdshit - no kidding!. A little bit of intrigue is mixed in - (with a delicious babe of course), and the ripples fall over into the next of the series.
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