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Also it would suck to try and cool a drink in the Red Sea. I went through there on a ship and the water temperature was in the high 80s which was loving great because our potable water tank was up against the hull so all the "cold" water was coming out at 88 degrees. 2 days past Suez our AC crapped out and it was 95 degrees and 100% humidity, so I got the authentic age of sail experience there. By day 3 we wanted to die because at least it would be cooler. The computer that ran our S-band radar did die - melted the goddamn mobo.
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Jan 27, 2018 08:52
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While I would not expect much of lofty sails at 100% humidity, surely with the wind you could have arranged a bit of evaporative cooling? Also I lied, I'm on ten now and have seen a few terms that I can't even place from context. I'll have to flip back some pages to find them; the only one I remember is after they paint the ship then "Badger-Bag comes aboard to shave the crew". http://www.cannonade.net/static_map.php?map_name=HMS_Surprise&id=114512
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Jan 27, 2018 14:57
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:While I would not expect much of lofty sails at 100% humidity, surely with the wind you could have arranged a bit of evaporative cooling?  https://books.google.com/books?id=e...neptune&f=false
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Jan 27, 2018 17:36
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I found another googly book that mentioned Neptune as well. Many thanks. "..., something hairy in the background that might have been a sloth or an anteater or even a doormat but that it farted from time to time, looking round censoriously on each occasion, ..."  Edit: And how I managed to miss the horseshoe splice until now I shall not guess. Edit: Remembered another one, the Molter Vivace pun. Definitely had to look up that one. PhantomOfTheCopier fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jan 28, 2018 |
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Jan 27, 2018 23:34
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:While I would not expect much of lofty sails at 100% humidity, surely with the wind you could have arranged a bit of evaporative cooling? It's an extremely old tradition that's still part of the modern Navy (or at least the USN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony
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Jan 31, 2018 21:10
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Ah that is a much better summary. Hazing. Makes sense now. Just finished 11 having no recollection of anything other than the appearance of Samuel the son, which I didn't realize right away but remembered before it was explained. Also the episode with Jack and the pillory, though I had not remembered the outcome. I have a few more images in mind that have yet to happen, but I can't give them much order. Steady as she goes, onward to The Letter of Marque.
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Feb 6, 2018 04:25
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Ah that is a much better summary. Hazing. Makes sense now. The funny thing is as crazy as Reverse of the Medal was, O'Brian had to dampen the real trial of Cochrane because it would be too crazy for a novel. In the real trial the color of a lapel was a crucial disputed point and the politics behind it were way more nuts and petty.
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Feb 6, 2018 16:37
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I was actually sad because the prelude said that he kept to the true account, but there's only 1.5 pages where the terribly ill lawyer gives his disconnected account of the proceedings. I was really hoping for some in-court dialogue at least. Oh well, I'll have to scratch that itch by watching 'Witness for the Prosecution' again.
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Feb 6, 2018 20:06
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Instead of being productive I have spent some time going through old Patrick O'Brian newsletters from his publisher, each one has a short piece from O'Brian himself and some of you may enjoy it as I have: http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/pobnews.htm
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Feb 7, 2018 20:10
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PlushCow posted:Instead of being productive I have spent some time going through old Patrick O'Brian newsletters from his publisher, each one has a short piece from O'Brian himself and some of you may enjoy it as I have: http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/pobnews.htm This is great, thanks!
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Feb 8, 2018 22:58
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my wife got me the hornblower series for christmas and I've elected to read them in publication order. I'm up to the hotspur. also Patrick Tull's Wan Da accent: yeesh.
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Feb 10, 2018 17:10
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Wow so the middle-ending of Thirteen Gun got a bit tedious, along with the start of Nutmeg. I'm fairly certain I appreciated the jungle scenes and natural history a bit more than fifteen years ago, but then they got shipwrecked, which is an okay cliffhanger ending, but which was disappointing. I remembered a few things from Nutmeg, but not that opening. I remembered the whole bank thing but that was fairly well foreshadowed and I forgot that paperwork legalities saved him. I was on the last chapter before the platypus realization kicked in, at which point I knew that was going to be the last paragraph ten pages hence. Halfway through Truelove but not remembering much of the plot.
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Feb 22, 2018 06:37
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Truelove is a good one, I like the books that dive more into the personal dynamics of a ships crew. How is the unfinished voyage? I just finished Blue at the Mizzen and thought it was an excellent way to end the series. Is the Final Voyage worth reading?
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Feb 27, 2018 10:24
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I'm on the last chapter of the first book in the series and have really loved it, even if many of the nautical descriptions go by me. The relationship between Jack and Stephen is so genuine, and the book is often really funny. One thing that was a throwaway line from Stephen very early on has me curious though. He mentions - only once - that he's recently been absorbed in cryptograms and so far it hasn't been touched on again. It's kept me guessing at an undercurrent of espionage throughout the whole book. Definitely going to pick up A Sea of Words before starting Post Captain, but I'm glad to hear that the quality of the 20 finished books doesn't waver much.
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Feb 28, 2018 12:41
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I'm on the last chapter of the first book in the series and have really loved it, even if many of the nautical descriptions go by me. The relationship between Jack and Stephen is so genuine, and the book is often really funny. One thing that was a throwaway line from Stephen very early on has me curious though. He mentions - only once - that he's recently been absorbed in cryptograms and so far it hasn't been touched on again. It's kept me guessing at an undercurrent of espionage throughout the whole book. Did he say Cryptogram, or Cryptogams ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptogam (this is an intentional bit of confusion on the part of O'Brian) quote:During World War II, the Government Code and Cypher School recruited Geoffrey Tandy, a marine biologist expert in cryptogams, to Station X, Bletchley Park when someone confused these with cryptograms.[4][5][6] At Bletchley his technical expertise allowed him to salvage a waterlogged codebook which helped crack the Enigma code.[4][5]
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Feb 28, 2018 14:47
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Ah, hell you're right 
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Feb 28, 2018 20:25
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Lockback posted:Truelove is a good one, I like the books that dive more into the personal dynamics of a ships crew. Don't bother with The Unfinished Voyage. It's only a few chapters and not worth the full price of a novel. It's nice to know, and comforting in a way, that Jack and Stephen's adventures together would continue after Blue at the Mizzen. As you say Blue at the Mizzen was an excellent end to the series. Unfinished Voyage has some scanned pages of O'Brian's own handwriting and it's neat to see how for a dinner party scene he had drawn out the table and who was sitting where. If you're interested you can get a hint of where O'Brian was going, in the Amazon preview of the novel, that it was going to be influenced by Thomas Cochrane's service in Chile and the independence of Peru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane,_10th_Earl_of_Dundonald#Chilean_Navy
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Feb 28, 2018 22:41
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PlushCow posted:Don't bother with The Unfinished Voyage. It's only a few chapters and not worth the full price of a novel. It's nice to know, and comforting in a way, that Jack and Stephen's adventures together would continue after Blue at the Mizzen. As you say Blue at the Mizzen was an excellent end to the series. Thanks! It's weird to have read all 20 in they last 6 months but then leave the unfinished voyage, but I also feel, I dunno, dirty reading a story that wasn't meant to be published. MeatwadIsGod posted:I'm on the last chapter of the first book in the series and have really loved it, even if many of the nautical descriptions go by me. The relationship between Jack and Stephen is so genuine, and the book is often really funny. One thing that was a throwaway line from Stephen very early on has me curious though. He mentions - only once - that he's recently been absorbed in cryptograms and so far it hasn't been touched on again. It's kept me guessing at an undercurrent of espionage throughout the whole book. FYI, Post Captain is maybe the lowest point in the series and hardest to get through. HMS surprise is I think the best of the whole lot and it's really the second half of the story started in Post Captain. Commit to reading them both. Before (or after) Mauritius command is a good break point anyway if you don't just charge though it. The naval terminology actually gets a little lighter and easier to read as a non sailor too, the first book is the most dense. And Stephen never learns a damned thing. Lockback fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 00:05
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The last fifty pages of Wine Dark Sea contain perhaps the greatest number of ridiculous munged metaphors of the series, both from Jack and Stephen. Whereas one usually stumbles and notes the attempt isn't quite right, the other charges ahead blindly. If you've read them you know who is whom. We have some new readers! Time to use those spoiler tags. I remembered approximately zero of Wine, though I somehow knew what was up with the screwed up sea colors and wind in the beginning. The ending is actually really good and hard to put down because they're suddenly being chased and ice is looming and it's scary to think that POB would end it there without resolution which he did once before. Oh yes, I also remembered the mercury poisoning, but thought that they spent half a book or more trying to cure it. Maybe that's later. And some laughter... "As for the boat itself let it be tossed off with a round turn" "she lost the mast, the spar, the thing in front --- the bowsprout" "He counted his chickens without his host" Also I only recently realized that perhaps there's something British blocking me from fully grasping... "Do you know about duty?" "I believe I have heard it well spoken of". Yes I get it, and it's not the first appearance of the phrase, but I just decided that maybe I don't actually know what tone of voice was used. I've always imagined the smoothest delivery, no emphasis, but it seems much more likely that a fractious tone would have been used. But then surely they wouldn't get along so well. "Oh she has a hull as well, has she? I was not aware." Edit: Content additions concluded. PhantomOfTheCopier fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 00:32
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Lockback posted:Thanks! It's weird to have read all 20 in they last 6 months but then leave the unfinished voyage, but I also feel, I dunno, dirty reading a story that wasn't meant to be published. I've read through the whole series several times and never touched 21. I read a summary once and it seemed nice but I've got no interest.
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Mar 1, 2018 01:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Quick informal poll -- Books -> movie -> thread -> books I first came across the books at my grandparents' place when I was about 11 or 12, read the first few pages of Master and Commander and sort of stored the rest of the titles away in my head. Shortly afterwards the film came out, which I greatly enjoyed, but it wasn't until many years later that I actually read the books as a result of this thread recommending the series as being infinitely better than Hornblower.
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Mar 7, 2018 09:07
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If you want to buy Jack's dress uniform Russel Crowe is selling a bunch of props and accoutrements from his movies https://www.sothebysaustralia.com.au/list/AU0822/34 I just hope whoever adopts Killick gives him a loving forever home
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Mar 8, 2018 18:11
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I didn't realize Christy-Palliere was real:quote:Born in Dinan, Côtes-du-Nord, to a captain of the French East India Company, Christy-Pallière began his sailing career in 1773, as an apprentice on an East Indiaman. He was ensign in 1774 and voyaged to China and to India in 1776-1777. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Anne_Christy_de_la_Palli%C3%A8re
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Mar 8, 2018 20:25
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Rut roh, two hundred pages of Yellow Admiral then only two more to go. How will I survive after I finish?  Edit: Other than a short break, I've been cracking on. I guess I started mid November. PhantomOfTheCopier fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Mar 9, 2018 |
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Mar 9, 2018 00:48
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Read them again!
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Mar 9, 2018 00:55
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I didn't realize Christy-Palliere was real: Lots of real people pop up here and there. My favorite is Heneage Dundas: quote:Rear Admiral George Heneage Lawrence Dundas CB (8 September 1778 – 7 October 1834) was a senior officer in the Royal Navy. As a junior officer he came to prominence due to his brave conduct during a fire on the first-rate HMS Queen Charlotte. As a result of this he was appointed to the command of the sixth-rate HMS Calpe in which he took part in the Battle of Algeciras Bay in July 1801 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dundas_(British_admiral)
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Mar 9, 2018 15:40
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jerman999 posted:Read them again! Yeah, I'm starting in on a new readthrough now. It's always a great feeling, every few years, to return again to that tall, handsome, pillared octagon . . . . Oh, the happiness on his face. The light on his face! edit: going back over the thread to review, this is still the best post I have ever made on these forums: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3393240&pagenumber=15&perpage=40#post434657750 Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Mar 9, 2018 |
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Mar 9, 2018 17:52
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PlushCow posted:Instead of being productive I have spent some time going through old Patrick O'Brian newsletters from his publisher, each one has a short piece from O'Brian himself and some of you may enjoy it as I have: http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/pobnews.htm Belated thanks for these & a strong recommendation to read for anyone who already hasn’t done so. O’Brian’s voice is so comically strong that it’s almost like Aubrey-Maturin flash fiction.
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Mar 10, 2018 12:54
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https://immortalmemoryblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/minorca-aubrey-and-maturin-become-part-of-the-immortal-memory/
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Mar 12, 2018 07:13
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Lockback posted:
Post Captain is the hardest to get through, but arguably the most important book of the whole series, setting up all the domestic parts for the rest of the series. It's also the most masterfully written in my opinion, full of subtleties and nuances and a series that's already so perfectly written. But Jack behaving like a scrub the whole book and Stephen's resentment and depression makes it very hard to read or re-read. Them being on the worst ship ever built with a crew that's not very happy for most of the book parts on sea (not many in the first place) doesn't help either. Decius fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Mar 12, 2018 |
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Mar 12, 2018 08:41
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Decius posted:Post Captain is the hardest to get through, but arguably the most important book of the whole series, setting up all the domestic parts for the rest of the series. It's also the most masterfully written in my opinion, full of subtleties and nuances and a series that's already so perfectly written. But Jack behaving like a scrub the whole book and Stephen's resentment and depression makes it very hard to read or re-read. Them being on the worst ship ever built with a crew that's not very happy for most of the book parts on sea (not many in the first place) doesn't help either. It's crazy how much stuff happens in it. I just re-read it yesterday and there's so much plot essential stuff in there.
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Mar 12, 2018 15:26
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I'm nearly done with Post Captain, and it was nice to see some of my suspicions from Master and Commander confirmed. The Jane Austen-ish drawing room drama isn't much to my taste but thankfully only a few chapters are reserved for it and the rest is very good.
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Mar 12, 2018 15:52
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Post captain has a ship full of bees, it can't be bad.
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Mar 12, 2018 15:58
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Decius posted:Post Captain is the hardest to get through, but arguably the most important book of the whole series, setting up all the domestic parts for the rest of the series. It's also the most masterfully written in my opinion, full of subtleties and nuances and a series that's already so perfectly written. But Jack behaving like a scrub the whole book and Stephen's resentment and depression makes it very hard to read or re-read. Them being on the worst ship ever built with a crew that's not very happy for most of the book parts on sea (not many in the first place) doesn't help either. As MeatwadIsGod mentioned, the drawing room stuff was not the series strongest suit, and the I think the tone suffered from the listlessness of the characters more than it should have. I don't think it's a bad book, but it does strike a tone that is different than Master and Commander and isn't really returned to until the trial. I really give my warning since Post Captain and HMS Surprise are really a continuation of one another, the reader can get dogged down by Post Captain when you really need to read those two together, both are essential to one another. That and HMS Surprise is my favorite of the entire series. uPen posted:Post captain has a ship full of bees, it can't be bad. This is a fair point.
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Mar 12, 2018 22:06
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Aubrey trying to press his debt collectors was also really funny.
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Mar 12, 2018 22:09
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Lockback posted:Aubrey trying to press his debt collectors was also really funny. Oh he didn't just try also, dog-watches basically post captain is the best book in the series edit: though now that I'm into HMS Suprise, when the Surprise shows up it's almost like Captain America busting onto the scene. If I were writing O'Brian parody I would name the ship the Marie Sue Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 01:11
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The only thing wrong with post-captain is how shockingly long it is. It goes on forever and feels like 2 different books, probably because O'Brien didn't want to release a book that was mostly Jane Austen with a bear suit.
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Mar 13, 2018 02:23
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I'm nearly done with Post Captain, and it was nice to see some of my suspicions from Master and Commander confirmed. The Jane Austen-ish drawing room drama isn't much to my taste but thankfully only a few chapters are reserved for it and the rest is very good. Just wait and it will turn into some of your favorite parts. Aubrey/Maturin is still ultimately a comedy of manners. Hell, it taught me to actually enjoy Jane Austen.
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Mar 13, 2018 04:00
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Well I took a break from the series for a few months. I've read a bit of science fiction in the mean time, but have found myself giving up on just as many books as I've finished reading. I think I've come to the point where if I'm not feeling the writing, I will toss a book without remorse, whereas in the past I would push through no matter what. I ordered Nutmeg from the library and it should get in today. What I'm saying is I feel guilty about leaving Stephen and Jack shipwrecked on the island and feel like I need to go back for my "friends" 
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Mar 13, 2018 12:00
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Posted on this page above that I too encountered tedium at the end of Thirteen Gun, but I kept going until it got interesting again. Just finished Yellow Admiral, and the last two are very likely to be done in a fortnight, putting me around four months for the series. I probably remember more of the earlier books because I've read them more than once; I know I restarted at least once, but also that I started in the middle during a later attempt. I'll have to think about a reread, but maybe at a different pace, two or three a year, but I don't know if I can keep focus like that. This thing with the digitalis in Yellow Admiral. The ship's doctor provides a broken story about the patient dosing himself. Did the doctor actually do it out of spite against the old hard-nose?
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Mar 14, 2018 00:22
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