H.M.S. SURPRISE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Patrick O'Brian | 416 pages | 04 Nov 2002 | HarperCollins Publishers | 9780006499176 | English | London, United Kingdom H.M.S. Surprise PDF Book Artesania Latina worked together with the National Maritime Museum of London to create this model and has the exclusive copyright worldwide. Mar 02, Brendan Monroe rated it really liked it Shelves: audiobook , ships-and-courtship , all-aboard , british , great-character-alert , napoleonic , war. The opening debate over the Spanish gold -- prize money won at the end of Post Captain -- is a fascinating peripheral episode, and an important expansion of Sir Joseph Blaine. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me. It cuts Jack to the quick. I certainly enjoyed this book much more than I did Master and Commander which, quite frankly, I found opaque and uninteresting. I love stories about seafaring voyages and everything to do with the ocean has long fascinated me. Stephen's reunion with Diana in Bombay is as it should be, and Patrick O'Brian 's evocation of India is impressive and rather sad when it touches on the death of Stephen's guide, Dil a death Stephen is inadvertently responsible for, having given her the silver bangles that led to her murder. I've had this book listed as "reading" for the past three or four months, after all. Friend Reviews. Can it be timidity? The seriousness of a Sunday inspection of crew's tidiness, the ephemeral ferociousness of a white squall, the return of exotic animals aboard the ship, and the monstrous nature of the south Atlantic under a storm how Jack and his crew weather this is just as riveting as the best battles the author has written, thus far, in the series are some of the plot elements that enliven the story. Around page 50 Aubrey is writing to his beloved Sophie back home. And, finding the plot and characters less exciting than in the past, I found myself with less patience for being unable to picture much of what's going on not sharing the author's fascination with Napoleonic Wars era ships and guns , and for the writing style that sometimes requires re-reading a paragraph several times to understand what's happening due to unstated assumptions and norms and the author's habit of omitting key facts. I shall do the same once I have seen the Captains. Torture and duels, written with a touch of Impressionism that needs your attention, thrust and parry through out the book in a way that makes you wonder if O'Brian wrote it just to see how much one man can plausibly endure. Sep 02, Cheryl Klein rated it it was amazing. I loved this book. Date of Birth: December 12, It's my second time through H. She was sold in but returned to service in and was renamed HMS Surprise. O'Brian died in January No ominous lurking shape, however; only a school of shining little fishes and a few swimming crabs. Yet for all that, I still feel disappointed. Toward the end, bafflingly, view spoiler [the envoy dies en route and so they give up and turn around, with no attempt to deliver his message or even let the sultan at their destination know of the situation. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion. With an economy and subtlety that are dazzling, he is able to lay bare the souls of both institutions and individuals in a way that reveals how intricately th The opening scene of "HMS Surprise" — which pits the venerable spymaster Sir Joseph Blain against the incompetent new First Lord of the admiralty and a cohort of greedy, politicking officials — is a study in what makes Patrick O'Brian perhaps the greatest genre novelist of all time and one of the premiere prose stylists of the 20th century. White looked up at the mizen-peak, where a tricolour streamed out bravely. She was hulked as a prison ship in and sold in There is a tantalizing chapter of blue-seas naval exchange between Aubrey and the unprotected East China fleet and the stalking French Admiral Linois. Or, as in Maturin's illustratively complex case, being half-Catalan, half-Irish anti-Bonapartists who regularly present to the Royal Society. The Aubrey-Maturin Series on Goodreads Perhaps it will. To view it, click here. All of this lush scenery is a joy to behold in O'Brian's capable hands. H.M.S. Surprise Writer Download as PDF Printable version. Stephen loves Diana Villiers Sophie's cousin , but she has run off with Canning, a much liked Jewish merchant with interests in Diana's birth home -- India. The ending was great, however, as Jack gets his heart's desire from the fair Miss Williams, and Stephen learns that he's able to cope without the daily drops of laudanum that had previously been his crutch to get him through the day. The seriousness of a Sunday inspection of crew's tidiness, the ephemeral ferociousness of a white squall, the return of exotic animals aboard the ship, and the monstrous nature of the south Atlantic under a storm how Jack and his crew weather this is just as riveting as the best battles the author has written, thus far, in the series are some of the plot elements that enliven the story. For Conradian power of description In its way, this beginning of this series reminds me a bit of the beginning of Alan Furst's Night Soldiers series. I'm not sure, however, how long my attention can be plucked by expansion of the duet to include Diana and Sophie. Before the partners of the mainmast were renewed he came home with a wreath of marigolds round his bare dusty shoulders, an offering from a company of whores: he hung the wreath on the right-hand knob of his blackwood chair and sat down to his journal. Special Offers. It is an accepted convention. It's my second time through H. I certainly enjoyed this book much more than I did Master and Commander which, quite frankly, I found opaque and uninteresting. Read more View all 6 comments. Aubrey pauses in the midst of his chatty letter and reflects upon one of his recent and particularly violent battles - oddly inhuman in it's unusually calm, calculated butchery. Looking up he saw the silvery undersurface, the 'Surprise's' hull hanging down through it and the clean copper near her water-line reflecting an extraordinary violet into the sea: then a white explosion as Stephen shattered the mirror, plunging bottom foremost from the gangway, twenty feet above. Beat the quarters! Jack loves Sophie Williams, but cannot marry her because he is arrested for debt and Mrs. Want to Read saving…. View all 18 comments. No doubt he was tempted, but surely he might blush for his fall? Aubrey is on the defensive, pitting wits and seamanship against an enemy enjoying overwhelming local superiority. Third in the series of Aubrey-Maturin adventures, this book is set among the strange sights and smells of the Indian subcontinent, and in the distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Jack, you rock! Surprise is an important element of the series, both because of her importance to the running plotline, and because of the emotional attachment she has earned among the characters in the book and real life fans of the series. Stitched sail set and rigging threads. Place of Birth: Chalfont St. See details. Enlarge cover. H.M.S. Surprise Reviews Place of Death: Dublin, Ireland. Under Captain Edward Hamilton , Surprise sailed in the Caribbean for several years, capturing several privateers. Full description. Most of this book is a long sea voyage, aimed toward what seems to be Cambodia. High seas drama is also present in the form of two naval engagements, which comprise a single battle with a French squadron, with the climax featuring uncertainties stemming from a convoy of East Indiaman, surprising maneuvers, and broadside after broadside. Chapter 4. Maybe it's that I am reading Ulysses at the same time. His knowledge of the era and the characters that existed within it is so exact that you really do vanish inside the story. It was so clear that he could see the light passing under the frigate's keel: her hull projected a purple underwater shadow westwards, sharp head and stern but vague beneath because of her trailing skirts of weeds--a heavy growth in spite of her new copper, for they had been a great while south of the tropic. The books are now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book format. On the personal level, Jack is mostly stagnant, isolated in his commanding role and with few occasions for shoreward misdeeds. The descriptions of naval battles, especially the one towards the end of the book, are terrific, edge- of-the-seat reading. In my second run through these books, I was amazed at how well everything was woven together and how the tiniest elements of personality were allowed to occasionally rise to the top and have their due. Surprise is one of my favorite novels. After a moment he stood up. Nevertheless, I've hit my limit with this series. This one is steeped in the emotional lives of Jack and Stephen. But moral considerations were irrelevant to Diana: in her, physical grace and dash took the place of virtue.