Master and Commander
Patrick O'Brian
350 pages
published in 1970

The year is 1800, the place is the Governor's House at Port Mahon, an important British naval base in the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Jack Aubrey is enjoying a concerto when surgeon Stephen Maturin speaks sharply to him about how if he must beat the measure, he should at least do it in time with the music. Unlikely as it sounds, this is the start of a beautiful friendship, as well as a twenty book series of adventures.

Directly after his fateful meeting with Maturin, Jack gets promoted to captain, becoming master and commander of the sloop Sophie and is sent on convoy escort duty. Since he needs a ship doctor, Stephen is a gift from heaven. Normally, surgeons are only found on admirals' ships, so this is quite a coup. There's also his new lieutenant, James Dillon, like Stephen from Ireland and who shares a history with Stephen. (Stephen being a newcomer to the navy comes in handy for O'Brian to explain the various aspects of sailing ships to the reader.)

The rest of the novel consists of the adventures of the Sophie first on convoy duty, later while raiding Spanish and French shipping in the western Mediterranean. The fortunes of the ship wax and wane, some clever ruses are employed and some pitched battles are fought. So far, it's not all that different from C. S. Forester's Hornblower series.

I mentioned this series on purpose, as Hornblower is the standard all other Napoleonic era naval adventure stories will have to measure up to. Master and Commander does so. The Hornblower books are good adventure books, gripping, exciting, but somewhat deficient in character building, I've always found. Hornblower never convinced me as a real human being. This is where Master and Commander is better, as Stephen and Jack are far more human then old Hornblower ever was. Correspondently there is a greater focus on the characters then there is with Forester. The book is also slightly more realistic in its depiction of naval life, as O'Brian is less hesitant then Forester to actually mention sodomy as well as rum and the lash.

A good read and I hope I can quickly find the next book in the series over here. I do have 2 of the other sequels to this, but both are quite a lot later in the series.