Book Review: Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

This is the first novel in a 20-volume series that explores the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey and ship surgeon/intelligence agent Stephen Maturin during the Napoleonic wars. The New Yorker wrote of O’Brian’s books, “They’re funny, they’re exciting, they’re informative. There are legions of us who gladly ship out time and time again under Captain Aubrey.” Dave Kibbe reviews this novel for the Friends of APL.