Got to be honest, I found this pretty heavy going. Not quite as enjoyable as the last one, certainly. It was a bit slow, it had a few too many pages on ropes and ship-stuff and so on, but what really clinched it for me was Jack Aubrey. Reader, I do not like him. He may be good in a battle but that still leaves 400 pages of this imbecile to wade through. I had no pity for his women problems. Perhaps if he didn't try to juggle two cousins, knowing that his supposed best mate was interested in one, I'd feel sympathy... but all I can really think is that only someone as bland in the head as Sophia could find him a decent romantic prospect.

Frankly, I'm sticking at this series so far only through the presence of the fantastic Dr. Maturin. I live in hope that he'll finally have enough and take over as protagonist by poisoning that oblivious idiot. (How can the lummox still be oblivious, witnessing as he did Maturin getting a secret communication warning him of war before it happened? A communication that allowed them to escape enemy territory, no less. Aubrey has nothing between his ears, NOTHING.) Maturin is more interesting by a magnitude of thousands. He's simply got to snap eventually.

It would be justifiable homicide.