Please see my comments on Vol. 1, Master and Commander. ( )

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Patrick O'Brian's fourth Aubrey-Maturin novel, The Mauritius Command, may be my favorite so far. He's retold in exacting detail the 1810 British campaign against Mauritius and Réunion, with the added bonuses of his excellent characters (Aubrey replacing the actual fleet commander, Sir Josias Rowley).

We first meet poor Aubrey stewing at home, but good Maturin soon arrives and provides a good opportunity for escaping the confines of Ashgrove Cottage. Aubrey is put in charge of a small fleet destined for the Indian Ocean, to harass French shipping and take several of their island outposts. O'Brian, using almost all the actual names of ships and captains (with the exception of poor Rowley), weaves his tale expertly around the historical campaign, to great effect.

A good addition to the series.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

Between Mediocrity and Excellence, yet Slowly Ascending: THE MAURITIUS COMMAND, the fourth novel in the series by Richard Patrick Russ (1914-2000) writing under the nom de plume of "Patrick O'Brian," is a distinct improvement over one of its predecessors, POST CAPTAIN. Russ/O'Brian seems to have abandoned his annoying experiments in writing techniques and has settled down to, more or less, a simple, straight-forward narrative style, which is imminently more readable.

As in earlier volumes, this book does not continue precisely where its predecessor left off. However, in this case the missing events are easily understood and reconstructed in the reader's consciousness. We do find that Jack Aubrey's marriage to Sophie is not precisely fulfilling for him; not surprisingly, we find that Aubrey's first love remains the sea and that he is not exactly the model of a perfect spouse. Of course, if one reads the author's real-life biography, Russ/O'Brian was far from a perfect husband, and one wonders whether he has somewhat patterned Aubrey after himself, but let us not read too much into that.

Soon, Aubrey is called to sea again, and the maritime action resumes and continues throughout the remainder of the book. Unlike POST CAPTAIN, this volume does not ramble for pages and pages about Aubrey's floundering on-shore life, thank goodness.

If one has a creative imagination, he could actually begin with THE MAURITIUS COMMAND, but the reader will certainly have a more complete appreciation of the characters if he has begun with the first volume, MASTER AND COMMANDER, and has approached each successive volume in order (POST CAPTAIN, then HMS SURPRISE, and only then THE MAURITIUS COMMAND). Perhaps we should consider each novel as an additional chapter in one extraordinarily lengthy book. This is not necessarily a criticism, just a caution to a reader who might be tempted to sample Russ/O'Brian's work by starting in the middle of the series.

The author does engage in some character development, and, by this fourth book, the person of Dr. Stephen Maturin has become more complex that we suspected at first. Not only is he an unusually gifted physician, but it seems as though he has shadowy political connections and is as instrumental as a "secret agent" as he is as a doctor. While this certainly provides a most interesting twist to the character of the good doctor, I sense that Russ/O'Brian is learning about his creation at the same time we are. I do not feel that he prepared us for this sort of complication in Maturin's nature. While I enjoy the increased complexity in the doctor, I am not at all sure that the author intended this from the beginning but suspect that he may be developing his characters by whim rather than by intent.

THE MAURITIUS COMMAND keeps the reader entertained throughout its length, but, after having now read four books in the series, I feel that Russ/O'Brian is a somewhat superficial writer who realizes that he should paint some complexity into his characters to keep them from becoming mere stereotypes but does not quite understand how to do this. As a writer, he is certainly superior to the authors of what we used to call "dime novel bodice-rippers," but he is far from displaying the skill of a C. S. Forrester or a Herman Melville.

I would suggest that the Aubrey-Maturin series of maritime adventure books is decent entertainment but that the novels are not especially memorable. I also find myself wondering whether the surface action, that is, the plot or superficial story line, may not become repetitious and boring before one reaches the end of the multi-book series. I'm actually hoping that Russ/O'Brian will mature more fully as an author as he accrues more experience in writing the future volumes. We shall see how he handles the fifth book, DESOLATION ISLAND, next.

Possibly my least favourite in the series, probably because it's rooted in a real historical campaign, but still four stars. ( )