Steve

The first half is a little tropey, but does at least play around with The Chosen One trope by making them an asshole. Things pick up considerably when the story escapes the confines of the "school", and there is a very good, hard-left turn when the twist kicks in. Afterwards, it plays around with things in an interesting way, but does somewhat fall back into its credulity-stretching, tropey ways towards the end. Good in a lot of places; just OK in others.

A solid entry in the series.

So, 4 stars 'cos it's Scalzi and, if you like Scalzi, you won't be disappointed (although personally I find, particularly in more recent books, the witty patter is getting to be a little tiresome; this predates that however). On the other hand, the ending of this does feel a little rushed and it does require a literal deus ex machina to provide a solution (of sorts; it does feel like Scalzi reached a point with the whole Flows Collapsing thread and just threw his hands up in the air and said 'Fuck it!'). So, good but not great.

If the first book was "let's see if I can write a stirring, nautical story" and the second book was "maybe I should pad out the world so I can write a series", this one is "let's bring it all together and really pull the stops out!".

HMS Surprise has the perfect combination of nautical, martial and personal, with a globe roaming narrative and just enough personal drama to full the gaps. As with the previous books, I am enjoying that the stories are largely focused on Stephen Maturin, who is by the far the more interesting character. Jack Aubrey has his place, but outside of the battles he does give off a "boys messing about in boats" vibe.

So, onwards to the next book...

A popcorny, sci-fi thriller. On the plus side, it is fast moving and manages to tie up its time-travel threads well. On the negative side, if you think about the virtually any of the key plot-drivers in any depth, it makes no sense whatsoever. So, your mileage will depend on how willing you are to suspend disbelief. Personally I made it to the end, but it was a close run thing.

If you're looking for a fast-paced time-travel story with a bunch of dinosaurs and a neatly tied up plot, you could do worse than this.

In which Patrick O'Brian starts with a hard swerve into Jane Austen territory, which took some getting used to. It does finally get back into the more familiar Life On The High Seas, but it had me concerned for a while. It appears O'Brian decided that he needed to expand his world-building to setup the ongoing series, so I'm going with it. As the series progresses, this is beginning to feel more like the story of Stephen Maturin, which I am perfectly happy about because frankly he has the far more interesting character development and storyline. Jack Aubrey, on the other hand, feels more like a big kid who just loves messing about on boats. Looking forward to the next one...