From Publishers Weekly
For Aubrey/Maturin addicts, there could be no better gift: a new, albeit incomplete, story with freshly piquant details, wry humor and salty nautical action. Although the official word was that O'Brian had finished the series with 1999's
Blue at the Mizzen, he was in fact working on a new installment at the time of his death in 2000. This short volume juxtaposes a facsimile of O'Brian's handwritten manuscript of the untitled novel with a printed version of the text, which corresponds to O'Brian's loosely edited, typed pages. As the tale opens, our heroes are off the coast of South America, trying to find a friendly place to put the
Surprise in for victuals and water. Jack Aubrey has received the happy news that he has been given the rank of rear admiral of the Blue, and all is well for the time being. But the Catholic locals are surly at best to the mostly Protestant crew. To fix things, Stephen Maturin does some judicious buttering up and Aubrey reunites with Samuel Mputa, the region's Papal Nuncio and, incidentally, one of his "indiscretions" from his days as "a long-legged youth" serving on the South African station. The typescript of the third chapter ends mid-sentence, but the handwritten manuscript continues on to include a duel between Maturin and a romantic rival, leaving readers begging for more. Alas, this fragmentary but worthy addition to the series is truly the end of a literary era, leaving only readers' imaginations to fill in the rest of the story.
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From Booklist
At the time of his death at age 85, Patrick O'Brian was working on the twenty-first installment in his hugely popular Aubrey/Maturin series
. Published side-by-side in both printed and manuscript form, these three chapters will be eagerly devoured by devoted fans who can't get enough of the seafaring exploits of stalwart Captain Jack Aubrey and his erudite sidekick, Dr. Stephen Maturin. Although inevitably leaving the reader wanting more, this all too brief introduction to another salty adventure will provide scholars and O'Brian aficionados with intimate insight into the author's creative process. The corrections and marginal notes that abound in the facsimile of the handwritten draft constitute a treasure trove of information concerning O'Brian's unique methodology and narrative style.
Margaret FlanaganCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
