TheThirteen Gun Salute, by Patrick O'Brian. 5 stars.

I told myself not to go through these (Aubrey-Maturin) books like so much candy. Make them last! Read one, then read a totally unrelated book; you know, to cleanse the palate. One can only read a series for the first time, um, once. Take your time and savor them.

Yet I have reached a point where I simply cannot restrain myself, and now I am reading them one after the other with no control whatsoever. XD I have decided that if I can find the audiobook versions at the library that I will listen to the series the next time through, which will be a new experience in a way, and that makes me feel a little better.

Quotes for everyone:

Jack Aubrey had little notion of his friend's mathematical or astronomical abilities and none whatsoever of his seamanship, while his performance at billiards, tennis or fives, let alone cricket, would have been contemptible if they had not excited such a degree of hopeless compassion; but where physic, a foreign language and political intelligence were concerned, Maturin might have been all the Sibyls rolled into one, together with the Witch of Edmonton, Old Moore, Mother Shipton and even the holy Nautical Almanack... (14)

Once again his mind turned to the question of integrity, a virtue that he prized very highly in others, although there were times when he had painful doubts about his own; but on this occasion he was thinking about it less as a virtue than as a state, the condition of being whole; and it seemed to him that Jack was a fair example. He was as devoid of self-consciousness as a man could well be; and in all the years Stephen had known him, he had never seen him act a part. (164)

Fox did not seek popularity, though he could be good company when he chose and he liked being liked; what he desired was superiority and the respect due to superiority, and for a man of his intelligence he did set about it with a surprising lack of skill. (164)

"I expressed myself badly. What I meant was that if he could induce others to believe what he said, then for him the statement acquired some degree of truth, a reflection of their belief that it was true; and this reflected truth might grow stronger with time and repetition until it became conviction, indistinguishable from ordinary factual truth, or very nearly so." (165)

[A] pale cobalt dome of sky, darkening imperceptibly as it came down to the sharp horizon and the true azure of the great disk of ocean- two pure ideal forms, and the ship between them, minute, real, and incongruous. (276)

Such descriptions! And, indeed, one found one could substitute "Foot" for "Fox" a fair amount of the time, and the description still apply perfectly.

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The Letter of Marque, by Patrick O'Brien. 5 stars.

"Star light, star bright, starboard is to the right."

Oh, it came in the mail! EARLIER than Amazon predicted, saints preserve us. Would you like some quotes?

"Hold hard, Stephen," he cried, catching Stephen as he fell again, this time from a standing position. "Where are your sea-legs?"

"It is not a question of sea-legs at all," said Stephen. "The ship is moving about in a very wild, unbridled manner. A crocodile would fall, in such circumstances, without it had wings." (73)

[Babbington] "What did [the Doctor, Stephen] do to you, sir?"

[Mr. X ;)] "Well, I am ashamed to say he took a pistol-ball out of the small of my back. It must have been when I turned to hail for more hands- thank God I did not. At the time I thought it was one of those vile [horses] that were capering about abaft the wheel."

"Oh, sir, surely a horse would never have fired off a pistol?"

"Yet fired it was: and the Doctor said it was lodged hard up against the sciatic nerve."

"What is the sciatic nerve?"

"I have no idea. But once it had recovered from being as I take it stunned, and once I had given the ball an unhandy twist, sending it closer still, the whole thing- I shall not attempt to describe how disagreeable it was, until the Doctor took it out." (231)

And a bit of a longer excerpt, in celebration?

[Stephen] walked up the slope to the rocky edge, and there spread before him and on either hand was the immeasurably vast calm sea. He was not very high above it, but high enough fro the busy puffins, hurrying out to sea or back with their catch, to seem quite small below him as he sat there among the sea-pink with his legs dangling over the void. For some time he contemplated the birds: a few razorbills and guillemots as well as the puffins- remarkably few gulls of any kind- the oyster-catchers' parents (he was confident of the chicks' well-being, having seen the neat shells from which they had hatched) - some rock-doves, and a small band of choughs. Then his eye wandered out over the sea and the lanes that showed upon its prodigious surface, apparently following no pattern and leading nowhere, and he felt rising in his heart that happiness he had quite often known as a boy, and even now at long intervals, particularly at dawn: the nacreous blue of the sea was not the source (though he rejoiced in it) nor the thousand other circumstances he could name, but something wholly gratuitous. A corner of his mind urged him to enquire into the nature of this feeling, but he was most unwilling to do so, partly from a dread of blasphemy (the words "state of grace" were worse than grotesque, applied to a man of his condition), but even more from a wish to do nothing to disturb it.

This importunity had hardly arisen before it was gone. A rock-dove, gliding placidly along before him, abruptly swerved, flying very fast northwards; a peregrine, stooping from high above with the sound of a rocket, struck a cloud of feathers from the dove and bore it off to the mainland cliff, beyond the Surprise. As he watched the falcon's heavier but still rapid flight he heard eight bells strike aboard, followed by the remote pipe of all hands to breakfast and the much more emphatic roar of the hungry seamen: a moment later he saw Jack Aubrey, mother-naked, plunge from the taffrail and swim out towards Old Scratch, his long yellow hair streaming behind him. When he was half way across two seals joined him, those intensely curious animals, sometimes diving and coming up ahead to gaze into his face almost within hand's reach.

"I give you joy of your seals, brother," said Stephen, as Jack waded ashore on the little golden strand, where the skiff now lay high, dry, and immovable. "It is the universal opinion of the good and the wise that there is nothing more fortunate than the company of seals."

"I have always liked them," said Jack, sitting on the gunwale and dripping all over. "If they could speak, I am sure they would say something amiable, but Stephen, have you forgot breakfast?"

"I have not. My mind has been toying with thoughts of coffee, stirabout, white pudding, bacon, toast, marmalade and more coffee, for some considerable time."

"Yet you would never have had it until well after dinner, you know, because your boat is stranded and I doubt you could swim so far."

"The sea has receded!" cried Stephen. "I am amazed."

"They tell me it does so twice a day in these parts," said Jack. "It is technically known as the tide."

"Why, your soul to the devil, Jack Aubrey," said Stephen, who had been brought up on the shores of the Mediterranean, that unebbing sea. He struck his hand to his forehead and exclaimed, "There must be some imbecility, some weakness here. But perhaps I shall grow used to the tide in time. Tell me, Jack, did you notice that the boat was as who should say marooned, and did you then leap into the sea?"

"I believe it was pretty generally observed aboard. Come, clap on to the gunwale and we will run her down. I can almost smell the coffee from here." (184-186)

Oh, and don't forget- Which it's Lobscouse and Figgy-Dowdy and Strasburg Pie!

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Exile's Gate, by C.J. Cherryh. 3.5 stars.

Morgaine and Vanye are back. You know, I like them, but it is not my favorite series of CJC. Always with the torture and being cold, and nobody talking to each other. The horses are a plus, though, of course.

This was more complicated (if possible) than the first three in the series), with surprising revelations and twists. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Again, though, not my favorite series.

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The Reverse of the Medal, by Patrick O'Brian: 5 happy little stars

How I love O'Brian. I thought I had the next book, The Letter of Marque, queued up and ready to go. Finished the last page of this, sprang forth to the shelf to pull out the other, and, God's my life, it wasn't there!

Now I have to wait until Amazon delivers (I can probably reread Cyteen at least in that time). But, but, Stephen! And Sir Joseph Blaine! And we still have to reach the ship before tide!

Gaaaah.


Well, there is always The Aubreyad to keep me until The Letter comes in- and some other lovely things to get me by enjoy!

And Quotes:

"No, sir," said Jack, "I shall speak to them like a sucking dove."
Pig, Aubrey: sucking pig. Doves don't suck." 25

Mr. Williamson brought back the answer that Captain Aubrey's visit would be convenient, and to this, on his own initiative, he added Captain Goole's best compliments. He would have made them respectful too, if a certain sense of the possible had not restrained him at the last moment; for he loved his Captain. 28

He cackled for a short while at his own wit, and in doing so (the exercise being unusual with him) choked on a crumb. 102

"Why do I feel such an intense pleasure, such an intense satisfaction?" asked Stephen. For some time he searched for a convincing reply, but finding none he observed "The fact is that I do." He sat on as the sun's rays came slowly down through the trees, lower and lower, and when the lowest reached a branch no far above him it caught a dewdrop poised upon a leaf. The drop instantly blazed crimson, and a slight movement of his head made it show all the colours of the spectrum with extraordinary purity, from a red almost too deep to be seen through all the others to the ultimate violet and back again. Some minutes later a cock pheasant's explosive call broke the silence and the spell and he stood up. 178- you simply must read the entire passage, starting on 176 through 179.

"This miserable sophistry, which disregards not only epistemology but also the intuitive perception that informs all daily intercourse, is sometimes merely formular, yet I have known men who have so prostituted their intelligence that they believe it." 226

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Forty Thousand in Gehenna, by CJC. 5 stars.

Ah, no, I don't have that copy or that cover.

But who can resist such obviously overdone scifi art? ;)

My copy is actually a two-in-one called Alliance Space. It contains both Merchanter's Luck and Forty Thousand in Gehenna, both of which I give 5 stars.

Forty Thousand in Gehenna is about a colony founded on a world in disputed territory- one of many such Union colonies on the borders of or somewhat within Alliance Space. Consisting primarily of azi workers, these colonies were headed up by "born-men" who relied on scheduled shipments of reinforcements and supplies every three years. Only, Union never sent out a single resupply ship. The colonies fell apart, forced to rely on the most basic of human technologies and skills as they faced permanent exile on planets hardly explored, much less known. The story covers the Gehenna mission from many different personal perspectives over generations of time. When the descendants of the colonists are rediscovered hundreds of years later, nobody quite knows what to make of them or the intricately symbiotic relationship they've developed with the surprisingly sapient native species, but their evolution makes them more valuable than anyone could have known.

Ah, the azi. Brainwashed happy clone slaves.

Quite an exploration of what it means to be human, or intelligent, in this book- from beginning to end.

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Tell Me About Yourself

Here

Picked this up at the library literally as I was checking out. It is about how to sell yourself through stories, in this case to get a job. I primarily was interested because I wondered if it would help me develop more positive self-talk.

Merchanter's Luck, by CJC. 5 stars.

Now, see, here I really *liked* the characters. I liked Sandor, I liked Allison, and I enjoyed the book in a completely different way than Downbelow Station.

BTW, This is not the cover I have; I have an omnibus edition.