The Nutmeg of Consolation
by Patrick O'Brian

Book 14 of the "Aubreyiad" finds Capt. Jack Aubrey, Dr. Stephen Maturin, and 155 of their shipmates just where The Thirteen Gun Salute left them: marooned on an uninhabited South China Sea island after an uncharted shoal and a spectacular storm conspired to wreck their HMS Diane. With the local game population dwindling, the possibility of starvation looms in the not-too-distant future. Their one hope is to build a small boat out of the wreckage of the Diane, and send someone across perilous waters to fetch help for those left behind. But then a band of Malay pirates arrive, as desperate as the Dianes to control the island's water supply and prepared to fight to the last man to seize it. You think you have problems?

If you thus far followed the progress of Patrick O'Brian's twenty-part novel of naval and political warfare in the age of Napoleon, you might have started to grow restless after a long stretch with no fully realized battle scenes. Might have, but probably haven't, because of the captivating characters of Jack and Stephen, the many passions of their lives (from music and botany to gunnery and deep-water sailing), and the people, places, and events surrounding them. Plus you have had courtroom drama, collisions of personalities (not all of them quite healthy), fascinating cultures, terrifying weather, and the intrigues of a highly skilled intelligence agent to absorb your attention. But even so, just suppose you have been hungering for a good, gruesome, shockingly violent battle. Would it thrill you to know that this book practically begins with one? Yes, I dare say it would.

It is a land battle, to be sure. But it's a ferocious one. And naval gunnery is what "floats your boat," fear not. Later in the book, Jack Aubrey outsails, outwits, and finally outfights a French frigate in an evenly matched duel of naval maneuvers.

The Nutmeg of Consolation has all the loud bangs, flying splinters, and acrid smoke you could ask for; but it has so much more. It has a touching reunion with a beloved character we never hoped to see again. It has a duel of swords between a proud ship's surgeon and a boorish army officer. It has a duel of wills between a naval captain in the throes of a mid-life crisis and corrupt and hostile officials on land. It paints a picture of a savage period in the history of Australia that will leave you profoundly shaken. It shows the horrors of plague and the uncertainties of adopting children. It has perilous journeys into the outback, unexpected reflections upon the reading and writing of novels (coming out of the mouths of characters in a novel, mind you), long-delayed reunions, fortunes lost and regained, and an almost-fatal attack by -- ha, ha, I almost told -- but I will say this: I had already written The Magic Quill #126 before I read it (and 10 numbers after it), so don't go around calling me a plagiarist! "Great minds think alike" is my story and I'm sticking to it!

The final and decisive conflict of this story is one that threatens the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin. How this issue can raise more torturous suspense than anything else in the book is beyond my power to explain. Call it a miracle; one might well apply that word to O'Brian's work as a whole. Do, do come and witness this miracle for yourself. When you do, you won't waste time rationalizing it; you will simply believe, and be drawn out of yourself and into a time that now lives so vividly, but in words alone. And when it ends, you may find that "not a moment must be lost" before you set sail in Book 15, The Truelove.

Robbie Fischer
USA

Recommended Age: Age: 14+

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