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There you are Stephen! I get totally jealous any time I hear about someone reading these for the first time. For some reason I chuckle uncontrollably at the part where (probably not really a spoiler) Jack and the crew clean the Aubrey house by halfway dismantling it, sanding and painting everything individually, then reassembling it. They even devise a mechanical method of ensuring that the ancient flagstones pulled up from the pantry floor each get sanded perfectly level. withak fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Mar 7, 2011 |
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Mar 7, 2011 05:32
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Thirding that you can read them out of order but you would miss a lot of character development.
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Mar 13, 2011 17:56
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Evfedu posted:Also, I Jack breaking his mast and getting a new one(?) felt like I should have thought "what a clever fellow" whereas I was more left feeling "huh?", any kindly goon able to explain that to me? Not much to explain, they wouldn't give him a new mast just because he didn't like the old one, so he went out and broke the old one in a way that couldn't quite be accused of being intentional. It's been a while, but IIRC there was even some nudge-nudge, wink-wink chat with the supply guy hinting that this would be the best way to get a replacement. Anyway, these books are a lot like scifi in the sense that the author just drops the reader directly into a fairly technically-detailed world that they know practically nothing about and have to pick up as they go.
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Mar 24, 2011 23:28
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Pharnakes posted:Also, get it right guys, it was the mainyard, not a mast. Oh god I can't believe I missed this. I even have A Sea of Words sitting less than 20 feet from me. :-/
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Mar 27, 2011 05:15
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Cutaways are awesome.
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May 1, 2011 18:47
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Smashurbanipal posted:It was not a given that either would die attacking the Cacafuego. Fireshitter. Pretty badass imo.
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May 9, 2011 16:50
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Showpan posted:So can anyone here explain to me what happens during the cricket game at the beginning of The Fortune of War? I get the impression that something highly amusing happens when Stephen gets up to bat but it went completely over my head. He didn't understand the differences between cricket (which he hadn't played) and hurling (which he had). Hurling is an irish sport more like field hockey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling
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May 23, 2011 06:00
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I don't remember what exactly he did but it was basically the equivalent of walking out onto a basketball court to join a pickup game, drop-kicking the ball off the court, then taking a victory lap.
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May 23, 2011 15:07
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Some day I will find an excuse to work "lesser of two weevils" into a conversation and it will be hilarious.
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Sep 12, 2011 19:45
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Sailing boats can't move directly into the wind, but they can move at something like a 45 degree angle into the wind. So to move directly into the wind they have to zig-zag back and forth about 45 degrees into the wind to the left and right. Turning from the zig direction into the zag direction is fairly complicated and requires a lot of rearranging of the sails which is why they make a big deal about it. The other related term is "missing stays" which is an embarrassing thing that happens when they don't pull the maneuver off correctly and instead of a 90-degree turn to the left or right into the wind they have to make a 270-degreee turn in the opposite direction to end up pointing the direction that they need. withak fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Oct 16, 2011 |
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Oct 16, 2011 20:43
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The trick to understanding sailing mechanics is to realize that the sail really works like the wing of an airplane where you want the wind to blow at a small angle along the plane of the curved sail and the resulting force pulls the ship perpendicular to the plane of the sail. Trying to picture the sail as a flat surface or a parachute which is pushed in whatever direction the wind is blowing will make things more confusing. Even when they want to sail in the general direction of the wind they usually orient the sails so that the wind blows across them at an angle and can actually move faster than the wind in that direction. withak fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Oct 16, 2011 |
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Oct 16, 2011 20:56
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Cable chat.
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Feb 7, 2012 17:11
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If the specifics of some nautical terminology are required to understand the plot then someone will stop and explain things to Dr. Maturin (i.e. you). If this doesn't happen then you can safely assume that the details of the jargon aren't critical.
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Feb 7, 2012 21:13
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Rexim posted:Okay, what went on with the (seemingly) insane inmates that confronted Jack? It looks to me that they really were American navy agents and jack only mistook them for crazy people. But at some point, one of them seemed to threaten Jack with a blade, shaving some of his arm hair. That doesn't seem like something an American official would do. I am totally confused as to wether those people were American Naval intelligence or just crazy people. IIRC, the actual patients there were legitimate lunatics. The joke is that Jack is having great fun playing along with them and he continues to pretend to be crazy the one time an actual American interrogator visits to question him.
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Mar 1, 2012 05:27
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If there is any nautical jargon that is actually critical to understanding the plot then someone will stop and explain it to Dr. Maturin (i.e. you).
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Nov 26, 2012 20:33
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Leopard_(1790) Today is the 223rd anniversary of the launching of the horrible old Leopard.
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Apr 24, 2013 17:43
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What reason is there to think that the guy isn't a cousin?
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Sep 18, 2013 22:45
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What reason would there be for subterfuge?
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Sep 19, 2013 02:58
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I'm sure you will survive.
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Sep 19, 2013 04:43
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Probably.
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Jan 24, 2014 00:53
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BeigeJacket posted:What exactly is a 'slime draught' and why is Stephen so fond of prescribing them to his patients? A bunch of nasty-tasting poo poo to drink so that the patient can be sure that he has received medicine.
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May 9, 2014 01:40
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AlphaDog posted:I might have actually misread it. It's right near the start of The Hundred Days, when Jack's talking to Queenie. Wasn't she asking to confirm that Brigid wasn't in the wreck? The last "she" referring to the little girl, not Diana? withak fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 00:21
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Bubbacub posted:Six Frigates Seconding this.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:18
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Always read a series in published order.
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Jan 7, 2015 17:59
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I got the whole set used on ebay for ˜$80 a long time ago.
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Mar 22, 2015 16:09
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Duckbag posted:There is so much vague implication and obtuse jargon in Maturin's descriptions of people and events that I often feel like I'm missing something important that I just can't place. Sometimes I figure it out eventually, sometimes I have to wait for him to talk to Jack about it, and sometimes he gets to keep his secrets. Normally, I let the arcane medical chatter wash over me the same way I handle the more inscrutable descriptions of fouled leads and flying tops'l yards (or whatever), but sometimes I feel like I really should be looking up some of these terms he's using. For nautical terminology, if it matters to the story then someone will come along and explain it to Stephen (i.e. you).
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Jul 21, 2015 14:24
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Murgos posted:If anyone is curious as to what Aubrey's Nile medal looked like: http://www.historicmedals.com/viewItem.php?no=1018&b=2&img=A The medallion bears an image of a person holding a giant medallion bearing the image of the subject of the medallion.
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Jul 29, 2015 03:48
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Saw this tonight which makes me reconsider my "no bumper stickers ever" rule.
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Feb 10, 2016 03:23
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I thought that the joke was they they thought that dismantling her cabin would be a disturbance, but then they are going to fire off all of the cannons a bunch of times anyway.
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Mar 15, 2016 15:18
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Speaking as a connoisseur of nerdy boat stuff, "Patrick O'Brien's Navy" is a great coffee table book.
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Nov 27, 2016 07:42
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Professor Shark posted:I was wondering, though: in this book and Desolation Jack's ships are in danger of sinking and in both cases they make way for Brazil. Why do they not go to Africa? Are they really sailing that far out? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds Unless you are really far south, getting to Brazil is a lot faster than getting to Africa from much of the southern Atlantic.
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Jan 24, 2017 22:16
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Arglebargle III posted:they need to figure out how to film ocean water in miniature You just have to pick the right viscosity.
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Jul 24, 2017 14:57
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It was an owl.
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Aug 3, 2017 14:06
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They are there to put down mutinies.
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Aug 29, 2017 12:46
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Arglebargle III posted:Doesn't he intentionally break the Sophie's first main yard? I think that was a different incident. They wouldn't give him the new one when he had a functional old one, so he went out and broke the old one in a way that was just barely on the right side of not being on purpose.
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Oct 1, 2017 21:57
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Those photos gave the an extremely vivid flashback of museum-smell.
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Oct 3, 2017 03:42
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That Tor blog series led me to this, which is great: The Reverse of the Hammock
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Oct 27, 2017 23:44
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Getting blackout drunk is a kind of anesthesia.
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Dec 14, 2017 02:32
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Phy posted:I'm sorry to interrupt fun quote time but I just finished The Thirteen Gun Salute, and did Stephen just spend the entire book practicing with a sharpshooter's rifle only to ice Wray and Ledward offscreen? 
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Dec 21, 2017 17:20
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That European spleen totally made Van Buren's day.
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Dec 21, 2017 23:56
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