Oh my goodness, I hardly know where to begin. This book was so much fun to read! The basic premise is, it’s an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars — with dragons! Yes, that’s right. There was an aerial combat corps (dragons) at the Nile, at Trafalgar, and so forth. Hoo boy!
Category Archives: Patrick O'Brian
His Majesty’s Dragon
Sunday Salon: Thriller!
Last night Steve and I found ourselves in the Mystery / Suspense / Thriller section of a bookstore. My intent was to pick up a copy of American Pastoral, next month’s book club pick. (This should be interesting, by the way. For me Philip Roth’s record is 1 and 1: I loved The Human Stain but could not even finish The Plot Against America. It will be interesting to see my third try turns out.)
Trying to be virtuous
. . . but it ain’t easy.
In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and get some much-needed exercise at the same time, I’ve been trying to bike more and drive less. This summer I’ve been biking around town quite a bit, and learning a lot in the process.
Another post about Patrick O’Brian
Thought I might as well warn you right in the title. If you’re not of the Patrick O’Brian, uh, persuasion, you might want to skip this post. ;)
So, I finally got around to joining The Gunroom — the Patrick O’Brian fan mailing list that’s been going on for a decade or so. Holy cow! These people are amazing! I thought css-discuss was a high-volume mailing list with its 50 or so messages a day, but The Gunroom easily gets over a hundred. And except when they’re punning and teasing each other (occupations which are also true to the POB spirit, by the way; if you don’t believe me, ask me why the short watches on a ship are called the dog watches, heh heh) — as I say, except when they are joking around, these hundred or so messages a day comprise detailed and deep discussions of every aspect of these books you could possibly think of. Everything from in-depth character analyses with plenty of supporting quotes from the texts, to historical research on how many lieutenants would actually have been allowed aboard a ship of the Surprise’s size. And the discussion is liberally peppered with POBisms, e.g. beginning sentences with “Which” or “Not as who should say” or ending them with “for all love” or “the creature.” Which I am mostly just lurking in awe over there, and loving every minute.
Does my idol have feet of clay???
Sigh. I think I might have discovered an anachronism in a Patrick O’Brian novel. From The Surgeon’s Mate, page 195:
‘Mr Rowbotham,’ he called to a midshipman on the leeward side, ‘jump up to the foretopmast crosstrees and tell Mr Jagiello, with my compliments, that I would like to speak to him, when he is at leisure. And harkee, Mr Rowbotham, he is to come down through the lubber’s hole, d’ye hear me? There is to be no skylarking, no sliding down the backstays.’
Mishmash
Boy, if anyone actually reads this I will be shocked. I haven’t managed to visit one single other blog since we returned from camp. My blogroll is positively dusty. I am sorry about that. It’s not from lack of interest.
Enough, already!
**WARNING: Once again I go on and on about Patrick O’Brian. If you’re sick of reading about my teeny-bopper adulation please feel free to skip this post.
One of the things that continues to amaze me about Patrick O’Brian is that he managed to churn out no less than twenty books with the same characters and the same adventures, and somehow these books never feel stale or repetitive. I mean, let’s face it. A naval battle is a naval battle. How much variation can there be?
