Posted by Adam Quinan on November 05, 2007 at 14:09:26 from 99.226.247.88 user Adam.
In Reply to: On being on or off topic and a blatanlty off-topic stir posted by andyb on November 05, 2007 at 13:39:56:
I am curious, have you actually read any Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin books or are you assuming that all novels in the same genre must be derivative of the best known original. You might equally suggest that Hornblower is a mere derivative of Captain Marryat's sea-going novels.
I first came to the field by reading Forester but I find very much less enjoyment when I re-read those books having read O'Brian. O'Brian's style is very different from Forester's and the Aubrey-Maturin books are, to my taste, far better than the Hornblower stories. The characters are more appealing, the stories are far more extensive and full of quirky insights into history and also have a wonderfully humourous side which is completely missing from the dour introspective Hornblower.