I probably wouldn't have picked this up on my own, as it's not my usual thing, and I have (at best) bland and vague memories of the movie, but a chap at work recommended the series highly and brought me a copy, so here I am.

The negative: the jargon makes the reading a bit of a tough go. I know some nautical terms, but there were a great many here, as well as slang and colloquialisms that made me slow down over a number of passages. Also, I wasn't enthralled by the story - there are somewhat exciting sea battles, but overall, not a lot seems to happen.

The good: O'Brian really commits. Instead of telling a long-ago story with modernish language and prose style, he's using the aforementioned colloquialisms and structuring characters' speech and writing (I'm told) as it would've been at the time. It helped pull me into the book even as I was wondering what the heck people were saying. Likewise, he doesn't shy away from the mores of the time - the characters have attitudes towards women, foreigners, and shore folk that are much less present (and pretty much not tolerated) today. I wasn't always comfortable reading their thoughts, but they did add authenticity. However, even though I don't think I'd be great friends with Aubrey or Maturin or Dillon, O'Brian was able to engender in me some sympathy for each of these characters - at times.

So, what appears to be a well-written book exploring two men's life in the very early 1800s Royal Navy, complete with elaborate period trappings and a somewhat disappointing storyline. I'm not champing at the bit, but would consider returning to the series in the future, largely based on assertions that it only gets better.