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Title: Master and Commander

Subtitle: Aubrey-Maturin, Book 1

Author: Patrick O'Brian

Narrator: Robert Hardy

Format: Abridged

Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-06-05

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 23 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

It establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship's surgeon and an intelligence agent. It contains all the action and excitement which could possibly be hoped for in a historical novel, but it also displays the qualities which have put O'Brian far ahead of any of his competitors: his depiction of the detail of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war, of weapons, food, conversation, and ambience, of the landscape, and of the sea. O'Brian's portrayal of each of these is faultless and the sense of period throughout is acute. His power of characterisation is above all masterly.

This brilliant historical novel marked the debut of a writer who grew into one of our greatest novelists ever.

Members Reviews:

abridged too far

Highly enjoyable, ripping yarn. I read the first 8 books of the Aubrey/Maturin series a few years ago and was looking forward to the audio version. Mostly I was not disappointed. Robert Hardy does an excellent job on the narration, with good salty accents and believable characterization.

My quibble is with the abridging, which left out some important (to my mind) stuff, eg the trapanning scene where Maturin cuts open the guy's head in front of the ship's company, a suspenseful and interesting scene in the original. There were also some abrupt scene changes, esp between the capture of the Surprise and the board of inquiry.

This was pretty good, but I wish it and the rest of the series were available unabridged.

Abridged

I would not have bought this book, had I realized it was abridged. Thus the story lost a lot of it's sense and continuity. However it was well read.

Absolutely first-rate!

I have long been a fan of this brilliant series and jumped at the chance to hear it read by the redoubtable Robert Hardy. Hardy brings the characters to life in a way that enhances my memories of the printed page and the only bittersweet disappointment involved was that he was reading from an abridged version. No, no, no! Read the whole thing! We are missing all the asides and digressive bits that admittedly add nothing to the plot but which constitute so much of the period charm of this fascinating ongoing tale. It is primarily the story of a deep and enduring friendship between two very unlike men, one the bluff and hearty Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy, lucky at sea but prone to every disaster on land, and the other the sardonic and secretive surgeon and natural philosopher Stephen Maturin with his mixed Catalan and Irish loyalties. They clash, they reconcile, they play music together, they watch out for one another's interests ... and then they clash again. The background to all this is the war at sea against the Empire of Napoleon and the action ranges from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and from there to the furthest oceans of the world. This is rivetting stuff and is punctuated by periods ashore where the sharp-witted Stephen proves himself more adroit than his naive and trusting companion.

Oh dear! Nothing to be done. With a sidelong glance at my perilous bank account I went out and bought the whole series and spent a week or so rather blissfully submerged in a bygone world so well recreated that you can actually feel yourself within it.