Rating: 
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: Don't Miss This Series
Review: Interested reader,If you are reading these reviews, chances are good you are wondering what all this stuff about Patrick O'Brian and the "Aubrey/Maturin" series is about. Wonder no longer. "Blue at the Mizzen" represents the last volume of what is overall a rich, wonderful collection of literature. While I've read the disappointment that some have had with the last few books in the series, I respectfully offer the view of a reader who feels touched forever by the author's hand and grateful for having read this series in the first place. Once you read "Master and Commander," chances are excellent you will adopt Aubrey and Maturin to be among your favorite characters of all time. Who could not chuckle when Stephen Maturin tries yet again trying to come aboard the ship without falling overboard? Who could not envision Killick's severe expressions when Aubrey gets grease on his number one uniform, or become anxious whenever Aubrey sets foot upon land? Who could not feel the loss of a shipmate sent over the side? It is sad to note that we finally see Aubrey make his flag as we get the news that Mr. O'Brian has made his number. I believe that "Blue at the Mizzen" and all the other books in the series need to be looked at by the prospective reader in total. If you have never read from this series, start with "Master and Commander," and I will guarantee that if you like this first volume and continue through the series, you will be touched by a truly masterful hand.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss This Series
Review: Interested reader, If you are reading these reviews, chances are good you are wondering what all this stuff about Patrick O'Brian and the "Aubrey/Maturin" series is about. Wonder no longer. "Blue at the Mizzen" represents the last volume of what is overall a rich, wonderful collection of literature. While I've read the disappointment that some have had with the last few books in the series, I respectfully offer the view of a reader who feels touched forever by the author's hand and grateful for having read this series in the first place. Once you read "Master and Commander," chances are excellent you will adopt Aubrey and Maturin to be among your favorite characters of all time. Who could not chuckle when Stephen Maturin tries yet again trying to come aboard the ship without falling overboard? Who could not envision Killick's severe expressions when Aubrey gets grease on his number one uniform, or become anxious whenever Aubrey sets foot upon land? Who could not feel the loss of a shipmate sent over the side? It is sad to note that we finally see Aubrey make his flag as we get the news that Mr. O'Brian has made his number. I believe that "Blue at the Mizzen" and all the other books in the series need to be looked at by the prospective reader in total. If you have never read from this series, start with "Master and Commander," and I will guarantee that if you like this first volume and continue through the series, you will be touched by a truly masterful hand.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, imperfect, and somehow a suitable ending
Review: Like many O'Brian devotees, I've been unable to wholly reconcile myself to the last four books or so. At some point, to say it succinctly, O'Brian began working by rote, or anyway that's how things felt to me. I finished reading this final book two days before the author's death. Even before the news broke, though, I had come to accept this as the last in the series. This book isn't perfect. It sometimes panders to my reverie for the series at its height. It also, though, provides us with an incomplete, compromised, very human close to things. Maturin isn't happy, though he lives in expectation of happiness. Aubrey is older, and if he's wiser he's also not as bright a flame, so to speak, as he once was. O'Brian might have described a conversation between Cello and Violin, ending with a muttered irresolute harmony as the daylight through the stern windows faded to grey. It ended that way.
Rating:
Summary: Ode
Review: Lord, save the tired sailors/ Their fingers numb with cold;/ And save their lonely families,/ Lord, save the foreign gold./ Lord, save our noble mission,/ For which the sea we ride,/ And save Patrick O'Brian/ Who has sailed the ebbing tide.
Rating:
Summary: A return to form.
Review: O'Brian can still weave his magic and #20 is one of his best in many years.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy end to the series
Review: Regretably Amazon only offers 5 stars. All of O'Brian's work hit 5 stars without breathing hard. Unfortunately this series is winding down, and it shows. Poor and careless editing, and careless ploting are beginning to show. If some of O'Brian's early works can reach 11 or 12 stars (on the Amazon scale) "Blue" only hits about 6 or 7. Having said that, a weak O'Brian is head and shoulders above anyone else's best. He is clearly in a league of his own.
Rating:
Summary: Such finely aged spirits!
Review: So seemingly effortless, yet so rich in every phrase --- O'Brian is again at the top of his form; not just the tale he tells, but also the way he throws off ideas, characters, and plot with brief phrases that sing together so sweetly. It's a rare fine wine, enjoyed best by those who have developed a taste for it in the first twenty volumnes. Aubrey has aged, and has grown more silent, more brooding, the aging man of action losing some of his physical prowess, his ambition, but with habits of courage so deeply ingrained; Maturin the aging philosophe, brought to life not only by his spirited study of the natural world but also by the discovery of his aging heart's new trilling at the thought of Ms Woods. God, this stuff is great!
| 
