Posted by Owen Roberts on September 26, 2008 at 19:08:02 user OwenRoberts.
In Reply to: Re: Aubrey-Maturin novels posted by Peter Ceresole on September 26, 2008 at 17:26:35:
I do find O'Brian's novels hard going at times. Plenty of exhaustive details but not much plot.
Forester, to my mind, achieves a better balance in his books. He also had three major novels to his credit (Payment Deferred, Brown on Resolution and of course The African Queen) before he started on his Hornblower series.
Both O'Brian and Forester tended to become formuliac towatrds the end of their series, but Forester did move on with books like The Last Days of the Bismark.
Possibly a guide to how others see the plots in their books is that more films were made from Forester's books than there have been from O'Brian's to date.
We know AR was afraid of being tied in to the S&A series and was trying to move away but regrettably left too late in his life.
We all read and look for different things in our books. I do use novels as relaxation rather than education and find the plot movement better with Forester. However for those want action seafaring tales Douglas Reeman writing as Alexander Kent will provide plenty of light fare to fill this need.