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Sailor’s sweetheart Sophie the secret sapphic stolen by surgeon’s spouse would’ve been an interesting twist. 
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Dec 17, 2023 16:11
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I'm just going to say it, if no one else will. Wearing that hat athwart ship makes that dumb hat look even worse and fore and aft looks objectively better, and even a little dashing. I don't care what Nelson did. One of the few consistent blunders Aubrey insisted on making at sea.
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Dec 24, 2023 16:41
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Lockback posted:I'm just going to say it, if no one else will. *Gasps and drops sherry glass directly into the pudding plate*
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Dec 24, 2023 18:28
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Tbh the Tyrant himself famously wore his bicorn athwartships, very sus behaviour if you ask me
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Dec 24, 2023 18:38
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Lockback posted:I'm just going to say it, if no one else will. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt. SimonSays posted:Tbh the Tyrant himself famously wore his bicorn athwartships, very sus behaviour if you ask me Jack's solitary point in common with the Corsican upstart, if you ask me.
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Dec 24, 2023 18:50
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Lockback posted:I'm just going to say it, if no one else will. 
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Dec 24, 2023 23:27
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Genghis Cohen posted:Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.
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Dec 24, 2023 23:59
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Next you’ll be criticizing his very becoming buttercup-yellow braid.
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Dec 27, 2023 16:51
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Drunkboxer posted:Next you’ll be criticizing his very becoming buttercup-yellow braid. Nah, that's dope. Hat is stupid.
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Dec 28, 2023 15:18
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I always liked the little arc of Jack's thoughts on Nelson. He starts trying to copy him a lot, and then as the books go on he has these little thoughts of "Well perhaps Nelson wasn't right in all things." as he tries new things to make his ship run better. Particularly in Aubrey's love of long-range fire vs Nelson just getting right up close.
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Dec 28, 2023 16:07
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I've just finished reading Fortune of War (American war of 1812) and there's a great bit where the Java's captain is all "imma gonna go at em like Nelson" and Jack's suffering cognitive dissonance going "well Nelson is of course correct but on the other hand maybe only where Frenchmen are involved???" Then by the next book he's hating on Nelson but that's for other reasons 
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Dec 29, 2023 13:46
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People in this thread might appreciate a Christmas gift I received from my dear wife: prints of the rigging and sail plans for HMS Surprise. Their late arrival was no doubt due to the packet being delayed by the perfidious French.
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Dec 29, 2023 21:44
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TerminalSaint posted:People in this thread might appreciate a Christmas gift I received from my dear wife: 
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Dec 29, 2023 23:01
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That's why the packages are numbered, vagaries of mail being what they are.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:04
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Benagain posted:That's why the packages are numbered, vagaries of mail being what they are. Is Patrick O'Brian why "vagaries" entered my vocab? I found myself using it in a work e-mail and wondered where I pulled it from.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:41
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So I just finished The Yellow Admiral and I have a question about Stranraer, did Stephen kill him? Either by the digitalis itself or knowing that his own surgeon, Sherman, would be unable to get Stranraer to reduce his dosage?
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Dec 30, 2023 08:55
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screaden posted:So I just finished The Yellow Admiral and I have a question about Stranraer, did Stephen kill him? Either by the digitalis itself or knowing that his own surgeon, Sherman, would be unable to get Stranraer to reduce his dosage? That was a very neat medically accurate sequence, the admiral had atrial fibrillation and digitalis can be a treatment for it, but it's also a dangerous drug and easy to fatally overdose on. I don't think Stephen deliberately killed the admiral by anticipating he would overdose himself, he gave very explicit instructions to keep him from overdosing, but the admiral ignored them.
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Dec 30, 2023 12:59
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a big dose is better than a small dose, stands to reason
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Dec 30, 2023 13:02
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ChubbyChecker posted:a big dose is better than a small dose, stands to reason
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Dec 30, 2023 14:04
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screaden posted:So I just finished The Yellow Admiral and I have a question about Stranraer, did Stephen kill him? Either by the digitalis itself or knowing that his own surgeon, Sherman, would be unable to get Stranraer to reduce his dosage? Also I can't help but laugh every time Stephen gives anyone medication, because when it isn't some opioid or coca, it's a laxative or emetic. Even when he is giving them a placebo, he fills it with some kind of purgative so the sailors "know they have been truly physicked". So him having a working medical treatment was pretty neat to see!
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Dec 30, 2023 15:20
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His other period cure-all of bark and steel is actual useful medicine as well. Willow bark and iron supplements aren't great but they will ease pain and fever and ward off anemia.
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Dec 30, 2023 15:42
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"Steel" refers to bloodletting, so it's not exactly warding off anemia 
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Dec 30, 2023 16:47
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TerminalSaint posted:People in this thread might appreciate a Christmas gift I received from my dear wife: very cool!
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Dec 30, 2023 17:37
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Kylaer posted:"Steel" refers to bloodletting, so it's not exactly warding off anemia Wow, I had this image of them administering literal iron filings. Maybe that's never supported in the text!
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Dec 30, 2023 18:46
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To be honest I also thought 'bark' was quinine, known then as Jesuit's Bark.
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Dec 30, 2023 23:10
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Oh I can see how the two would be related because w major side effect of quinine is hearing blood pounding in your ears. You could see how physicians would decide to let blood.
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Dec 31, 2023 00:19
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Arglebargle III posted:Wow, I had this image of them administering literal iron filings. Maybe that's never supported in the text! Yeah count me in for also not realizing steel meant blood-letting
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Jan 1, 2024 16:48
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Did I miss something in The Hundred Days or is Geoghegan somehow alive again?
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Jan 3, 2024 04:34
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screaden posted:Did I miss something in The Hundred Days or is Geoghegan somehow alive again? Could be a slight continuity error, there are one or two such things across the series, typically with minor characters reappearing after they've left the ship in one way or another. Can you quote the passage in question?
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Jan 3, 2024 17:43
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Genghis Cohen posted:Could be a slight continuity error, there are one or two such things across the series, typically with minor characters reappearing after they've left the ship in one way or another. Can you quote the passage in question? Reddit seems to think that this was just after his wife died who was his proof reader and would type up his handwritten manuscripts and so slipped through. The Yellow Admiral posted:Stephen had been walking aft to meet Jack as he came from talking to the master by the wheel. At the general cry he turned, and calling out ‘Do not move him’ he ran to Geoghegan hoping that there might not be too much damage – that taken below with great care he might be recovered. After a moment’s examination he could only report instant death. The Hundred Days posted:Stephen bowed to the inevitable and said, ‘Killick, please do me another kindness and take these children to Poll with my compliments – beg her to wash, brush and rig them in a suitable manner, feed them on whatever is appropriate, and above all be very kind and gentle with them. They do not speak any English yet, but Geoghegan will interpret.’
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Jan 3, 2024 20:22
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screaden posted:Reddit seems to think that this was just after his wife died who was his proof reader and would type up his handwritten manuscripts and so slipped through. I think that's quite likely, alternatively, he might just have picked an Irish name, meaning to refer to some Irish-speaking member of the crew. Which I think is a trick he pulls with Jack and other officers' lines sometimes? "Smith will accompany you to the boat" where Smith is not really a character who ever crops up again, and that's fairly realistic to how a ship's company would work, not everything is done by our old friends.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:45
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Second Geoghan
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Jan 4, 2024 17:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Second Geoghan
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Jan 4, 2024 18:54
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Genghis Cohen posted:I think that's quite likely, alternatively, he might just have picked an Irish name, meaning to refer to some Irish-speaking member of the crew. Which I think is a trick he pulls with Jack and other officers' lines sometimes? "Smith will accompany you to the boat" where Smith is not really a character who ever crops up again, and that's fairly realistic to how a ship's company would work, not everything is done by our old friends. I've definitely noticed this and is how I just hand waved it away, but he gets referenced a few pages later again as being in the tops and looking out for tunny-boats. It felt like he was referring to the same Geoghegan, but whatever, a minor quibble. Anyway Hundred Days was really good, and really fast paced compared to the previous books, I burned through it so quickly. The death of Diana felt oddly tossed aside though, I know he generally likes to let those things happen "off screen" but for such a major character it felt strangely detached. Even Bonden got more of a reflexion from the characters than she did. Also  about Bonden I'm through the first chapter of Blue at the Mizzen and I'm starting to get sad, I'm not ready to read the 21st book yet, and I'm going to force myself to read something else instead of just immediately restarting the entire series again, I'm keen to read the first three with more experienced eyes and thoughts than my first time through
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Jan 5, 2024 00:59
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screaden posted:I've definitely noticed this and is how I just hand waved it away, but he gets referenced a few pages later again as being in the tops and looking out for tunny-boats. It felt like he was referring to the same Geoghegan, but whatever, a minor quibble. I've read that criticism of an important death before, but I don't think it is treated lightly; although it is never dwelt on at length it's made clear that Stephen is utterly bereft and it is picked up how everyone around him treats him with care, and how he throws himself into the war to avoid his grief. I think, although it may have been more personal to the author (I don't know when his own wife died in relation to writing the book) this is a pretty effective way of communicating the social restraint of the times, which is such a big part of how he portrays relationships in the books. It's not as if we would ever be treated to a modern-style scene where Stephen sobs on Jack's shoulder about how much he misses her because those weren't the rules back then, Stephen is intensely private about his grief as he is about most things.
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Jan 5, 2024 01:16
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Just finished my third re-read of the series, what a perfect ending. I don't think I'm ever going to read 21, I feel it would just tarnish things.
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Jan 5, 2024 23:00
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Jack may have fought at the Nile but Stephen lives there every day.
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Jan 6, 2024 00:32
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evilfunkyogi posted:Just finished my third re-read of the series, what a perfect ending. 21 doesn't tarnish anything, but it also doesn't really make things better. It's really just the table setting for the next group of books and it doesn't even get that far into table setting. It's definitely unfinished, definitely a draft, but also there just isn't enough there to mean or impact much.
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Jan 10, 2024 18:26
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Lockback posted:21 doesn't tarnish anything, but it also doesn't really make things better. It's really just the table setting for the next group of books and it doesn't even get that far into table setting. It's definitely unfinished, definitely a draft, but also there just isn't enough there to mean or impact much. Yeah, there's really not much finished text and what's there is unpolished, and the rest of it is just notes and stuff. It's more of a curiosity than a real book. I'm still glad I got it, if only as a glimpse into O'Brian's process and as a capstone for the bookshelf. 
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Jan 10, 2024 20:48
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evilfunkyogi posted:Just finished my third re-read of the series, what a perfect ending. I finished it for the first time a couple of days ago, it's taking a lot of my willpower to try reading something else instead of starting again straight away. It took me a bit over a year to read the full series. I loved every second of it, it rekindled my love of reading.
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Jan 11, 2024 06:20
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