This was Patrick O'Brian's 11th book in the Aubrey/Maturin series and while I prefer to be sailing one of the seven, I did enjoy this book. My frustrations are two-fold: not enough sailing and Captain Aubrey's bad luck. Yes, I feel for Stephen's bad luck, too, but he functions more as plot device than character, I'm afraid.
O'Brian writes about the (largely landlocked) incidents in a traffic-accident sort of way: vivid, terrible and peeking-between-your-fingers-"can't watch" addiction. I hope that O'Brian gets Jack away from this lee shore and gives him some sea room soon.
I don't own the next one (yet), so it may be some time before I'm able to write about it.
