Rating: 
Summary: The Boys Down Under
Review: The fourteenth of Patrick O'Brian's brilliant twenty-volume nautical series finds Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the south seas. After we get off the deserted island where O'Brian left us shipwrecked in "The Thirteen Gun Salute", we get a new ship, fight the French, find the Suprise, and finally end up visiting the penal colony that is today Australia. O'Brian, of course, has done his homework. The brutality, violence, corruption, and degradation of Australia make for some harrowing reading. Maturin occupies himself with his nature studies, surrounded by wholly new species, including the platypus that provides us with another cliffhanger ending. Because while "Nutmeg" is a sequel to the previous volume, it is also left unfinished. O'Brian's dry wit, intelligent prose, and nautical research are as powerful as ever. On to the next one.
Rating:
Summary: The Boys Down Under
Review: The fourteenth of Patrick O'Brian's brilliant twenty-volume nautical series finds Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the south seas. After we get off the deserted island where O'Brian left us shipwrecked in "The Thirteen Gun Salute", we get a new ship, fight the French, find the Suprise, and finally end up visiting the penal colony that is today Australia. O'Brian, of course, has done his homework. The brutality, violence, corruption, and degradation of Australia make for some harrowing reading. Maturin occupies himself with his nature studies, surrounded by wholly new species, including the platypus that provides us with another cliffhanger ending. Because while "Nutmeg" is a sequel to the previous volume, it is also left unfinished. O'Brian's dry wit, intelligent prose, and nautical research are as powerful as ever. On to the next one.
Rating: 
Summary: Great as always but turning into chap books
Review: The Nutmeg is as good as O'Brian gets in his writing, plotting, character development, sense of place and time, all the things that make a great great historical novelist. Having said that, as others have noted, this would not be the book to start reading the Aubrey/Maturin books. It starts in mid story and ends much the same and would leave much to be desired for anyone who was to try to read it as a stand alone book which is why I marked it as four stars rather than five. (This is not true of all of the books in this series; many can be read on their own although all benefit from the reader knowing about what preceded the story being read.) Other than chronological order, there is no plot thread that holds this particular volume together as a book. Rather, this is more directly the second volume of at least a two volume book which started with The Thirteen Gun Salute. Then again, this entire series could be thought of as a single 6000 page novel which, for those of us who love Aubrey, Maturin, Killick, Pullings and all the rest, nothing could be finer than a story that goes on and on.
Rating:
Summary: Great as always but turning into chap books
Review: The Nutmeg is as good as O'Brian gets in his writing, plotting, character development, sense of place and time, all the things that make a great great historical novelist. Having said that, as others have noted, this would not be the book to start reading the Aubrey/Maturin books. It starts in mid story and ends much the same and would leave much to be desired for anyone who was to try to read it as a stand alone book which is why I marked it as four stars rather than five. (This is not true of all of the books in this series; many can be read on their own although all benefit from the reader knowing about what preceded the story being read.) Other than chronological order, there is no plot thread that holds this particular volume together as a book. Rather, this is more directly the second volume of at least a two volume book which started with The Thirteen Gun Salute. Then again, this entire series could be thought of as a single 6000 page novel which, for those of us who love Aubrey, Maturin, Killick, Pullings and all the rest, nothing could be finer than a story that goes on and on.
Rating:
Summary: Why are you reading this series??
Review: The Nutmeg of Consolation finds our friends about halfway through a circumnavigation that began 2 books ago. This is the story of their travails in extreme south east asia. The story deftly builds on earlier plot lines and concludes several angles in an almost shocking manner. This is a book that must be read in the context of all the others that came before. I have read the series through book 19 and have read them in order. As many, many other commentators have mentioned, this series is really one book with twenty chapters (e.i. the individual books) and should be read in order. Not only does this help understand the chracters but allows the reader to move along with the protagonists and understand their reasoning. The series is masterful and one easily begins to understand the somewhat obscure jargon and period expressions. However, I have benefited from the growing cottage industry in companion books to this series, especially Dean King's "A Sea of Words". This is a good guide to fully appreciating the scope and breadth of these beautifully written novels.
Rating:
Summary: The saga continues
Review: The Nutmeg of Consolation finds our friends about halfway through a circumnavigation that began 2 books ago. This is the story of their travails in extreme south east asia. The story deftly builds on earlier plot lines and concludes several angles in an almost shocking manner. This is a book that must be read in the context of all the others that came before. I have read the series through book 19 and have read them in order. As many, many other commentators have mentioned, this series is really one book with twenty chapters (e.i. the individual books) and should be read in order. Not only does this help understand the chracters but allows the reader to move along with the protagonists and understand their reasoning. The series is masterful and one easily begins to understand the somewhat obscure jargon and period expressions. However, I have benefited from the growing cottage industry in companion books to this series, especially Dean King's "A Sea of Words". This is a good guide to fully appreciating the scope and breadth of these beautifully written novels.
Rating:
Summary: Never trust a platypus . . .
Review: This fourteenth novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series begins where the last one left off, with Jack, Stephen, and 157 crew members cast away on a not-quite-desert island in the South China Sea, attempting to build a schooner from the remains of the wrecked DIANE. After time out for a game of sand-lot cricket (these are Brits, after all), they find themselves holding off a concerted attack by predatory Malays. O'Brian certainly knows how to start his story off with a bang! With a little fortuitous assistance, they make their way back to Batavia, and Gov. Raffles supplies them with a recently raised Dutch ship -- which Jack renames NUTMEG. They set off to rendezvous with the SURPRISE, with adventures and single-ship action along the way, and eventually make it to the penal colony at Botany Bay. O'Brian has some pointed and highly critical observations to make on the British governance of early Australia, and he also maintains his high standards of character development, wit in describing the relationship between the captain and the doctor -- their personalities are extremely differenent in many ways -- and beautifully painted pictures of life and weather at sea. This is one of the best so far of the latter part of the series.
Rating:
Summary: Never trust a platypus . . .
Review: This fourteenth novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series begins where the last one left off, with Jack, Stephen, and 157 crew members cast away on a not-quite-desert island in the South China Sea, attempting to build a schooner from the remains of the wrecked DIANE. After time out for a game of sand-lot cricket (these are Brits, after all), they find themselves holding off a concerted attack by predatory Malays. O'Brian certainly knows how to start his story off with a bang! With a little fortuitous assistance, they make their way back to Batavia, and Gov. Raffles supplies them with a recently raised Dutch ship -- which Jack renames NUTMEG. They set off to rendezvous with the SURPRISE, with adventures and single-ship action along the way, and eventually make it to the penal colony at Botany Bay. O'Brian has some pointed and highly critical observations to make on the British governance of early Australia, and he also maintains his high standards of character development, wit in describing the relationship between the captain and the doctor -- their personalities are extremely differenent in many ways -- and beautifully painted pictures of life and weather at sea. This is one of the best so far of the latter part of the series.
Rating:
Summary: Very good although highly technical
Review: This is another in the "Aubrey/Maturin" series. As with previous books by O'Brian, it is somewhat technical in that he writes in a 17th century sea captin language. This is an excellent story and once you get use to the prose, it is quite a page turner
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