"The Complete Aubrey-Maturin Novels" - Combined Book Review

If you like stories of the sea- or any sort of historical or military fiction- you owe it to yourself to discover this series of books by Patrick O'Brian. Originally published as twenty separate volumes over nearly thirty years, these are the continuous story of Captain Jack Aubrey- an English naval officer as brave and resourceful on the sea as he is naive and over-trusting by land- and Stephen Maturin, a half-Irish, half-Spanish physician and naturalist with a secret life as an intelligence agent for the Royal Navy. The time is the Napoleonic Wars; Continental Europe is in the grip of the First Consul's rule, and the Navy is the last and only line of defense between Napoleon's massive armies and England's vulnerable shores.

From the protagonists' implausible pairing, which begins in a near-duel, changes key into a fast friendship, and finds Stephen taking ship as Jack's medical officer, comes a wealth of adventure. There are battles galore with intricate naval strategy, shattering broadsides of cannon, bloody boarding parties and hand-to-hand wrangling - romances happy and unhappy for both Jack and Stephen, with competing suitors, jealousy, and the mother-in-law from hell - a panorama of domestic and exotic settings from Georgian London to all ends of the Mediterranean Sea to the Antarctic to South America. Through it all, Jack is the stalwart, infinitely capable sailor who nonetheless manages to find whatever pitfalls unscrupulous landsmen set for his trusting nature, and Stephen does his best to prevent his friend from making his more egregious mistakes.

Although the naval history that O'Brian inserts his characters into is real (many of Jack's battles are fictionalized from ones that happened to real commanders and ships), it is the characters that make these books a delight. Beyond Jack and Stephen, their diametrically opposed wives (the domestic, conventional Sophie and the wild, dashing Diana), the recurring crew members like Tom Pullings, Barret Bonden and the incorrigible Preserved Killick, and a host of supporting cast populate this naval world with people the reader can understand, sympathize with and love or hate as the occasion requires.

About ten books in, the stories begin to seem somewhat formulaic - a new mission, a new ship, a battle or two, triumph. But then in volume 11, "The Reverse of the Medal", O'Brian throws his biggest curve-ball yet and casts Jack out of the Navy and so far down it's hard to see how he'll come back. But once again Stephen has an unconventional solution... will Jack be reinstated, and die an Admiral at last?

The books are still in print individually, but the bound set of "The Complete Aubrey-Maturin Novels" consists of five hard-backed volumes, each containing four of the original stand-alone books. As lagniappe, the last volume contains the 40-odd pages of "21" - the untitled, unfinished twenty-first book that O'Brian was working on when he died. The books come in a handsome slip-case with naval paintings and a portrait of O'Brian on the sides, and have dust-jackets that echo the case.

The only disappointing factors in this collection are the typographical and typesetting errors - of which there are many, varied and most of which are new to this edition, apparently due to resetting of the text for omnibus volumes. Not only misspellings, but occasional extra words, and omissions of carriage returns (particularly in dialogue, confusing who is speaking and changing the sense of the conversation) mar the otherwise enjoyable experience of this collection.

However, don't let a few typos get in the way of what can be one of the great imaginative and historical reading experiences for anyone who enjoys history, stories about the sea, and great characterization in a meticulously-recreated early-nineteenth-century world. Like Stephen Maturin in his early voyages, you'll initially find yourself overwhelmed by the naval slang and terminology - but learning that is part of the fun, and as you find your way around the ships of the wind-powered era, you'll also be caught up by this massive story.