The Reverse of the Medal: Aubrey/Maturin Series, Book 11

Just when you thought you’d had enough of this series, around the time the man hating tattooed Polynesian gals who sailed the sea looking to deprive men of their manhood with obsidian knives showed up in The Far Side of the World, and you were positively starved for some heroic naval action, you probably gave a heavy sigh when you read the description of this book. You have also probably read of Thomas Cochrane’s career – the actual Royal Navy Captain who inspired O’Brian’s Jack - and were wincing, knowing what was coming.

Buy this book. Read it, listen to it, find some way to insert it into your brain by any manner you prefer. Despite the pain, the anguish, and the infuriating forces aligned against Aubrey, this book has the most moving scene of the series. As one O’Brian reviewer once put it, “I will not say I cried, but I will not say I did not.”

In fact, the doctor saves the whole book.
The first half of the book is dreadful. I would guess that, collectively, nearly an hour is spent on "our story thus far." There's goings on between Jack and his father, along with Stephen and his intelligence people. I just couldn't get interested, and in fact, set the story aside on two occasions.
Then, near the end of the first part, it gets going, and keeps going. In perhaps the most moving chapter of the entire series, Jack finds out who is friends really are. Outstanding.

This book follows the rest of the series in it's general make up and story line, and for the first time i felt a wee bit of boredom creep into my listening. UNTIL the last 3 hours! Masterful story telling that literally brought me to tears. Stick with this one it has an electric ending that made me instantly buy the next one.

I love the entire series as books. I didn't really get how wonderful audiobooks can be, though, until I heard these readings by Patrick Tull. They are superb -- the variety of voices and accents -- and he captures Jack Aubrey and especially Stephen Maturin to perfection. If you love the series, do yourself a favor and get the version read by Patrick Tull. I tried the Simon Vance version, and in my opinion it doesn't compare.

NO - Simon Vance, PLEASE!!

Narrator is unbearable to listen to as his odd pauses and total lack of voice changes between characters force him to ad the "he said" and "she said" at the end of every spoken word.

I enjoyed the first O'Brian book narrated by Patrick Tull, but in this one his narration is over the top--very hammy with odd pauses. It's distracting.