The Far Side of the World
The war of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific: typhoons, castaways, shipwrecks, murder, and criminal insanity.
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1recommend
4mentions
4people
2015–2025years
25% recommend75% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I very much enjoyed the fun that O'Brian had in The Far Side Of The World with the unavoidable problem of plot armor with which authors of book series with continuing characters must deal.
- I'm currently reading through these novels as well, I'm on The Mauritius Command (book four). My progression into this has been:
* Played way too much Sea of Thieves
* Helped plan a company on-site sunset sail on a sailboat in Boston Harbor
* Learned to sail at Community Boating over the last 2 seasons
* Watched Master & Commander: Far Side of the World after seeing too many memes about it
* Listened to the first 3 of the Aubrey-Maturin series on audiobook
* Gifted the entire 21 book series for my birthday
* Reading through them all this year (otherwise known as "The Circumnavigation")
It's truly a deep well of wonderful content that's witty, exciting, and just an amazing example of masculine friendship in literature with Jack and Stephen. Excited to read more and learn about the author!!
- If you ever find yourself in New Bedford, I cannot recommend the whaling museum highly enough.
Fun fact: Clifford Ashley of Ashley's Book of Knots (ABOK) was also a painter. The museum has some of his work in their collection.
Also: if you have any interest in whaling and haven't read Moby Dick, you really ought to. People will complain that it's principally a book about whaling with a bit of story mixed in. That's true, but it turns out whaling is fascinating.
Imagine a world without whales. If JK Rowling had written a book about people sailing to the far side of the world to hunt sea creatures whose heads are full of substance that looks suspiciously like semen, nobody would have published it because it would be too unrealistic.
- Movies that have done the same to appeal to American audiances:
U-571 - "Ayer told BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme that he "did not feel good" about suggesting Americans, rather than the British, captured the naval Enigma cipher:"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_%28film%29#Controversies...
Master And Commander: The Far Side of the World - "...as the producers wished to avoid offending American audiences [...] the fictional opponent was changed from the USS Norfolk to the French privateer frigate Acheron" (Original book was only loosely historical, but my point remains.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_and_Commander:_The_Far_...
