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Surgeon's Mate (Paperback)

5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Norton
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393308200
ISBN-13: 978-0393308204
Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13.2 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 363 g

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #1,449,000 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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This is item 7 in The Aubrey-Maturin Series.

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

O'Brian's superb series on the early-19th-century adventures of Jack Aubrey, a Royal Navy officer, and his friend Stephen Maturin, Navy surgeon and naturalist, continues with a look at the darker side of Maturin's life: his work in British intelligence. Aubrey, Maturin and Diana Villiers (Maturin's fickle and enigmatic love) are passengers on a packet ship from Nova Scotia to England when two American privateers give chase. They are hunting Maturin, who has compromised U.S. spy networks. The Americans are eluded, and upon reaching England, Maturin sets off to France. Armed with safe conduct papers, he lectures on natural history and installs Villiers in Paris. Suspicious French agents try to bait Maturin but he refuses to be lured into an indiscretion. On his return to London, Maturin is sent to woo Catalan officers and troops from the French cause to the British. Aubrey provides transport, but despite his best support, including staging a splendid charade chase on the water, the mission takes a nasty turn when their ship founders; seized by the French, Maturin and Aubrey are hauled off to Paris's infamous Temple Prison.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

This time out, Captain Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin limp home from America for a brief rest before sailing to the Baltic to subvert the occupying Catalan troops--and then to the Bay of Biscay to run aground. The dashing Aubrey/Maturin naval tales (among others, The Ionian Mission--see above) continue to come out in intervals from England, where they are hugely and deservedly popular. Published some years ago in the UK, they've been arriving out of order, so readers find themselves sorting out prequels from sequels. But shipping arrangements do no damage to these polished, historically accurate, and intensely pleasurable tales of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic era. Anglo-Iberian physician and spy Stephen Maturin is again the linchpin, providing the excuse for his dashing friend Aubrey to flee the mess he has made of his British investments. Aboard H.M.S Ariel, Aubrey transports Maturin to the Baltic, where the doctor will use his linguistic skills and impeccable Catalan separatist credentials to convince Spanish troops holding Baltic islands for Napoleon that they should desert the Corsican monster and throw their lot in with England. The Baltic mission is successful, but the subsequent flight from Scandinavia runs into the rocks off the French coast. The officers are taken prisoner and transported to Paris, where they dine handsomely on meals cooked by a pretty widow as they await execution. Splendid escape. Literate and amusing. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Can I give it 6 stars?, Nov 27 2001

By	Bill Mac "hmcs_kenogami" (windsor, ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

The Surgeon's Mate picks up where The Fortune of War left off. In the previous installment our boys had escaped from Boston just in time to participate in the epic battle between the Chesapeake and the Shannon. Victorious they arrive in Halifax and more trouble begins. Aubrey's lack of land sense and Maturin's unrequited love for Diana continue to cause them problems. In fact they are the underlying tensions that follow them through each episode in the novel. Along the way we are treated to O'Brian's philosophical discussions between his two quirky heroes and among their assorted friends and associates. Like the others in the series The Surgeon's Mate is a gem.

Unlike earlier novels the action in The Surgeon's Mate is non-stop. O'Brian, always excellent in his characterization and use of language, has considerably improved the pacing from the earliest series entries. The reader is treated to the heroes travelling from Halifax to England to the Baltic to Paris and back to England in a rousing tour-de-force. Does O'Brian lose anything with the faster pace of The Surgeon's Mate? Absolutely not, he still has the strengths of the earlier books.

One aspect of the series that has made it great is the ability of O'Brian to set some of the thorny discussions of our times in the context of the early 19th century. In The Surgeon's Mate, the abortion issue creates a marvelous balanced tension. O'Brian's presentation is even handed, airing both sides of the debate but ultimately not choosing sides. O'Brian has moderated some of the great debates of the last 30 years in his Aubrey Maturin series while providing great naval action along the way.

Perhaps it's time to put O'Brian's novels in a special category- six stars.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Solid genre work, April 25 2001

By	Robert H. Nunnally Jr. "gurdonark" (Allen, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I purchased a few more of the Aubrey-Maturin series, the clerks behind the counter tried to recall upon which cable network the series was being televised. Their memories did not serve them well, because they had the Aubrey-Maturin series mixed up with the A & E channel's Horatio Hornblower series. The mistake was understandable,though, because O'Brian's series clearly shows the author's awareness that he is plowing a field that a series of naval novels has already furrowed. Yet, the Aubrey/Maturin novels do not seem like "knock-offs" of the Horatio Hornblowers; instead, they are quite interesting in their own right. Aubrey, the sea captain, and Maturin, his ship's surgeon and an intelligence agent, are both interesting, larger than life, and yet human, characters. The technique of telling real-life sea battles and portraying real historical personages as minor characters is as old as naval historical fiction, but O'Brian does it so well it never seems forced or pedantic. The recurring themes of the novel--the consummate sea captain who is all asea on land, the consummate intelligence agent who is anything but intelligent in matters of the heart, do not seem too clicheed,though the author and the reader use them as touchstones, decorative fill-in between the exciting naval stuff. The Surgeon's Mate manages to make both its naval scenes and its "other story" quite interesting, which is not always as true as the other O'Brian books, in which the naval battles are so fascinating, one longs to be done with the romantic and personal troubles of the protagonists and move on to another sea engagement. The social commentary--people of the very early 19th C. were human like us, but the social structure was quite different--is, as always in this series, effective because it is not a centerpiece. We see over and over in these books how cultured and yet how barbaric the practice of this time could be.

This is a really good read. This is a really good series. If you haven't given Maturin and Aubrey a go, you should!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Two for One, April 1 2001

By	richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

This is the seventh in O'Brian's 20-volume series. It follows the now well-established formula, as Captain Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin sail smoothly from one book to the next. This book is really two tales, two unconnected sea voyages, split by an interlude in England that feels more like an intermission. Picking up where the previous volume left off, the two find themselves in Canada where Aubrey's behavior may surprise you. The first voyage brings them home for the first time in many months (and three volumes). The heart of the story is the second voyage that takes them to the Baltic for the first time (both for them and for readers) on an intelligence mission. As the voyage ends, they find themselves in France and Maturin at his most interesting in extricating them from a dilemma and in reconnecting with Diana Villiers.

O'Brian is simply a great writer. This series is not for everyone, for the prose is spare and sophisticated, the plotting both delicate enough to sustain readers for many volumes on end, yet bold enough to satisfy fans of adventure tales. The nautical terms are easily mastered, this is not a book for sailors, but for readers who enjoy good adventure stories.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Lives up to the high standard set in his previous books
Before reading each of the last couple of books in this series I think to myself that surely this book cannot be as good as the ones before it and each time, after reading it, I... Read more

Published on Mar 14 2001 by Roger Lee

5.0 out of 5 stars Maturin at the forefront...
In "The Surgeon's Mate", as the title suggests, Stephen Maturin is the main protagonist. Although of course Jack Aubrey is always present to help Maturin accomplish his... Read more

Published on Sep 2 2000 by L. Alper

5.0 out of 5 stars An Aubrey/Maturin Baltic adventure

It would be a disservice to the reader to expose the plot too much, but suffice to say that Captain Aubrey and Doctor Maturin have resolved their adventire in America ('The... Read more

Published on Jun 17 2000 by Joseph H Pierre

5.0 out of 5 stars The privateer "Liberty" and her "Mr. Henry: " Patrick Henry?
Jack Aubrey may be resigned to the perils of his profession, but Stephen must now be silently wondering if maybe he and Jack are the men who never return. Read more

Published on Oct 31 1999 by Doug Briggs

5.0 out of 5 stars A superlative example of a masterful series of books.
The Aubrey/Maturin cycle is not only one of the most exciting historical adventure series written in this century, but is also a work of deep psychological characterization,... Read more

Published on Jul 25 1998 by lonextract@ameritech.net

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the best of this series in my opinion.
I have read ALL of the P.O'Brian books in this series, a couple of times. But every time I come to this one I have to slow my reading down, so that I can make it last! Read more

Published on April 8 1998