Rating: 
Summary: No Hornblower
Review: I have read all the volumes of Hornblower last year and decided to give O'brien a try. I don't know if all his books are like this but this is a joke compared to Forrester.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining as always
Review: I love great historical fiction and O'Brian's Napoleonic era novels, although not as timely as more recently set novels like the Civil War's "Cold Mountain" or WWII's "The Triumph and the Glory", capture the era in magnificent fashion. But no matter what type of fiction you like you should read the Aubrey/Maturin novels, they are wonderful, finely-crafted examples of the story-telling art. If you want to learn how to write a novel, read Patrick O'Brian, If you love to read great novels, he's your man too.
Rating: 
Summary: Scrub
Review: About a third of the way through I thought, "O'Brian has died and they're having someone ghost-write this!" Stephen and Jack are mere caricatures. The bright, witty dialogue is missing and I just felt that some one had 'played me the flat' and that person was an awful scrub.
Rating:
Summary: Making what one can of the end...
Review: While some of the reviews here have lambasted "The Hundred Days", after taking a step back and looking at it on its own rather than in the spot light pointed at his previous works in the series, I'd have to say that O'Brian did a more than passable job. Things that must be taken into consideration include the stage in development of both the characters and the story, as well as, of course, the immense build-up of expectations that met "Hundred Days" on its release from the yard. One must remember that POB's series is not comprised of massive line-of-battle ships, but consists of a sizable squadron of fast, nimble frigates of the sort before Americans got hold of the idea. Given that, in the proper context, POB has given us another lovely, though less lively, installment. Read it not becasue it's the best O'Brian has given us, but because it's much better than most of what those other than O'Brian have given us.
Rating:
Summary: an utter disappointment
Review: Don't read this book. If I could, I would give it zero stars. O'Brian's series of Aubrey/Maturin novels are among the greatest works of historical fiction ever written, but the series should have ended with the previous volume, a gem, #18, "The Yellow Admiral," which nicely ties up a number of plot threads, leaving us to imagine a happy future for our favorite characters. "The Hundred Days" is both unnecesssary and bad. I am not the only Aubrey fan I know who was left wondering whether O'Brian was in fact the author -- it reads like someone trying to imitate O'Brian's style, and failing badly. Abandoning his beloved slow match in favor of the flint lock is just one of several things that Jack does that are completely out of character. In the subsequent and final volume, #20, "Blue at the Mizzen," little better than this one, O'Brian attempts to backtrack and have Aubrey compensate for the most glaring one of these lapses, but it's too little and too late.
Rating:
Summary: Another really good O'Brian novel.
Review: I finished reading "The Hundred Days", number nineteen in Patrick O'Brian's "The Aubrey-Mautrin Novels" series. Another excellent novel. Even with number nineteen in the series I am not yet tired of these novels. There were the usual wonderful days at sea and good foreign intrigue. I am anxious to start number twenty which I have ready on my reading queue.
Rating:
Summary: Beating the Deadline
Review: I, as countless others, noticed within pages that this book did not have the heft, color, culture or beauty of the past entries. It felt like the OUTLINE of a possible book, with none of the nuances and flourishes filled in. A pale watercolor against the previous Rembrandts. And let's lose a vital character like Diana OFFSTAGE, as if she were a minor character, a footnote when really she balanced and made whole the Maturin we came to know. His tempestuous love affair made an otherwise dour, eccentric character come into his own; a character arc that paid off handsomely. Aubrey and the good doctor go through the motions as if ghosts of voyages past. They play music, engage in intrigue, visit (in a glancing manner) foreign exotic ports, and eat their toasted cheese -- but it's a vessel that's altogether too unseaworthy for the journey. Either the prolific author's powers have waned at this late stage, or he was trying to beat the deadline (he's 85 after all) and finish the saga with a round number; 20 (Blue Mizzen's out now). That's a cruel assessment, but his fault entirely for writing so beautifully of a time past that we came to expect that level of excellence, or more to the point, crave and need it like a good serving of plum duff and spotted dog. May his high standards unfurl and send us sailing at 12 knots and above on the next peregrination. For now, I'll take a bolus and bit of laudanum to ease the pain and curl up in my hammock while awaiting another installment.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fainter Smell of Sea Air
Review: As a dyed-in-the-wool Aubrey/Maturin devotée, and after devouring the first eighteen installments in this magnificent saga, I was quite disappointed in "The Hundred Days."Oh, the feel of the times still is present. The luscious taste of the language, of the wardroom, of the decks remains. But, something seems flat and stale in this book. I often had the impression that Mr. O'Brian was just "getting through" the thing and that little of his heart was in it. I was not happy with so much of the action taking place behind the scenes, as it were. I would have preferred to be present while it unfolded. I couldn't smell the salt air.
Rating:
Summary: Two Books in One
Review: Much of what other disappointed O'Brian fans have said about The Hundred Days is certainly true, but I think I noticed something unusual which may be a clue to "what happened". The first half of the book is exceptionally poor, with almost no use of nautical terms, repetitive expressions (surely there is another word that will do in place of "said"), and lack of historical flavor. The second half is much better and, although not up to the best of previous volumes in this series, approaches The Yellow Admiral, for example, in style and plot. Is this just my imagination? Perhaps. Maybe I got used to the "new" O'Brien by page 100 and was able to get over my initial shock. Still, what is the reason for killing off Diana and Bonden? I can see that a literary purpose might be served by the former (but it is never realised), but Bonden! I wonder if there could be something about the author's health (he is no longer young, more's the pity), production schedules, or ? which caused The Hundred Days to fall so short of the mark.
Rating:
Summary: Two Books in One
Review: Much of what other disappointed O'Brien fans have said about The Hundred Days is certainly true, but I think I noticed something unusual which may be a clue to "what happened". The first half of the book is exceptionally poor, with almost no use of nautical terms, repetitive expressions (surely there is another word that will do in place of "said"), and lack of historical flavor. The second half is much better and, although not up to the best of previous volumes in this series, approaches The Yellow Admiral, for example, in style and plot. Is this just my imagination? Perhaps. Maybe I got used to the "new" O'Brien by page 100 and was able to get over the shock of the start. And what is the reason for killing off Diana and Bonden? I can see that a literary purpose might be served by the former (but it is never realised), but Bonden! I wonder if there could be something about the author's health (he is no longer young, more's the pity), production schedules, or ? which caused the apparent inconsistency within The Hundred Days.
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