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Go, Wolfgang! I've read the entire Aubrey/Maturin series 3 times and
several half a dozen - Desolation Island, The Reverse of the Medal,
The Letter of Marque.

One brilliance is the fact that - unlike Hornblower and Bush who are
much the same - Jack and Stephen are cut from different cloth. It's
something like Kirk and Spock in the original Star Trek series.

Whenever someone asks me which is my favorite Aubrey/Maturin, it's
always the one I'm reading at the moment.

I'm familiar with all the other authors you mention but Showell
Styles. I'm off to Amazon to see if there's anything of his available
there.

Hewitt

On 3/15/10, Wolfgang K�berer  wrote:
> Most of the time I agree with George - as long time list members will
>  remember - but here I beg to differ:
>
>  Forester is quite inferior to O'Brian. O'Brian paints a detailed picture of
>  life in Britain at the beginning of the 19th century; his books are not only
>  based in a naval setting but encompassing British life as a whole -
>  including famous stock swindles of that period (a subject matter dear to me
>  due to my profession). It is not all heroic actions at sea - some novels
>  mostly deal with life on shore. And the female characters (Sophie Aubrey and
>  Diana Villiers) are not just decoration but persons that really matter and
>  that have a life of their own, whereas Forester's female characters just
>  seem to be accesories that he kills off when his story seems to require that
>  (like Hornblower's first wife and other loves). In addition: as far as
>  language is concerned O'Brian is a joy to read.
>
>  I would put Forester in the same category as Marryat; he even copied some
>  material from him. And "Brown on Resolution" reminds me of the infamous
>  painting "Der letzte Mann" by Hans Bohrdt.
>
>  But it seems that the simpler story is easier to be cast into a movie:
>  "Master and Commander" - based on O'Brian's novels - is just awful. Russell
>  Crowe is miscast, the screenplay is a perfect jumble of parts of several
>  books, whereas there is a very nice Hornblower series apparently made for UK
>  TV which perfectly recreates the feeling of the books. Unfortunately the
>  series was discontinued after 6 or 8 episodes, stopping before the story
>  recreated in "Captain Horatio Hornblower RN". Maybe the whole thing became
>  too expensive.
>
>  A few more recommendations:
>
>  Dudley Pope: The "Ramage" series
>  (More in the Hornblower line. Pope also wrote informed non-fiction books on
>  naval history, for instance "At 12 Mr Byng Was Shot" about the unfortunate
>  Admiral Byng who was shot on the quarter deck of his ship for failing to
>  engage the Spanish fleet in the Battle of Minorca which occasioned Voltaire
>  to quip in "Candide": "Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps
>  un amiral pour encourager les autres")
>
>  C. Northcote Parkinson (of "Parkinson's Law"): The "Richard Delancey"
>  series. Parkinson also wrote a reader about Hornblower "The Life and Times
>  of Horatio Hornblower" where he unveiled the mystery of who killed Captain
>  Sawyer.
>
>  My personal favourite - apart from O'Brian - is Showell Styles: "Mr.
>  Fitton's Commission", part of a series which is reprinted at the moment
>  (quite expensive). It is delightful in its stoic hero.
>
>  Oh, and I have to regretfully admit: there is nothing comparable in the
>  German tongue. There were some feeble attempts (Frank Adam for instance) but
>  it just doesn't work if you try to model your heroes from foreign settings
>  and foreign exploits.
>
>
>  Wolfgang
>
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