It was good to see that the author was still working on continuing the outstanding Aubrey - Maturin series. We're all disappointed that the series has ended. 21 was interesting both from the story and procedure viewpoints.

It took me a year, but I couldn't put down a single copy of the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. This literary masterpiece tells a wonderful story, with every character brought to life. The writing is so visual, one actually feels that they have been on the very ship he writes about. I do recommend that readers obtain "A Sea of Words", which is basically a glossary of all the nautical terms used in the novels. Universities should devote a literature course to these novels, since they are so well written. O'Brian's mastery of the writing craft is unsurpassed, in my opinion.

As others have noted, the book goes only three chapters into the story. I want to add that these chapters are far from complete. It jumps so quickly from one scene to the next, something like those half-hour television westerns from the sixties. Stephen advises Jack to have a look from the top, and in the very next sentence, there he is, in the top. The Ringle crosses the Atlantic twice, but leaves little sense of time passage.

Do not expect any closure here. The value is seeing how the author developed a story. Presumably he would have gone over these pages again many times, enriching them with detailed descriptions and dialog. Those who have been through the series will appreciate the chance to have one more look. It would not likely interest anyone else.

Here is one more thing that interests me. The jacket artwork is by Geoff Hunt, who also did illustrations for the entire series. This one has considerably less detail than the others. Could that be an allusion to the unfinished state of the book?

A great book! Left me wanting to know what happened next. Sad that it was not finished. Alas, very hard to read O'Brian's written pages.

Boy, talk about resting on your laurels! Three chapters and some after-dinner scraps of writing and that's it? O'Brian's got a lot of explaining to do if you ask me.

As far as I can tell Aubrey makes admiral but still has to put up with the blow-hard antics of an even higher officer and Maturin, getting soft in his old age, DOESN'T kill some impetuous officer in a duel. And what's with Maturin's homicidal fascination with honor and dueling? Small manly parts, methinks.

"Captain, the surgeon and doctor of our ship is about to engage in a duel over some mispronunciation of a word and if he loses, your ship will be without its medical staff, resulting in disease and death during its voyage."

"Duel? Maturin? Well, let him go ahead and fight to the death. Better that than the welfare of my sailors. Ha Ha Ha."

I hope that O'Brian can pull himself away from whatever he's doing to write a longer 22nd novel. Maybe he'll even take the time to give it a real title.

The book is a must have for this series fans, it gives you the chance to finally see Jack with his flag.

Difficult to read the author's handwriting at the end, a pitty not having the complete text, I will keep trying.

Also a good hard cover finish.

After spending countless hours with Aubrey and Maturin, this book provides the little bit of closure necessary to walk away without total sadness and frustration. The untimely, but inevitable death of Patrick O'Brian leaves us with longing and wonder about Aubrey and Maturin's ultimate fate. However, viewing the author's actual hand written manuscript somehow leaves one with a connection to the characters and the author. Get this book, read what there is left of these two unforgettable characters, and realize in life there is "not a moment to lose."

The book only gets started and part of it is reproduced script from O'brians hand. It is quite hard to read. This book is a must have for died in the wool Aubrey/Maturin fans, but casural readers would enjoy other of the series more.

Truely Patrick O'Brian's final voyage. After reading the 20 book set I went into mourning while reading the 21st. I have never been so attached to a group of characters as Aubery and Company and of course to their creator. The 21st book, O'Brian's hand written draft was very personal... and very sad. It is one of my most treasured books.

Having recently read all of the Aubrey/Maturin Series, I was glad to have the opportunity to read the unfinished draft. Like many others, I wished that the last number of pages were typed. It was obvious that Mr. O'Brian had plans for many more episodes and I regret that his fans will not see more of Aubrey/Maturin. I will miss Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. I have on occasioned thought that I would not want to die before finishing an exceptionally good book. Now I know what that might be like!

I wasn't sure I wanted to read the last book knowing that it was unfinished, but I'm glad I did. I found Patrick O'Brian's hand writing very hard to read to I didn't read those very far. I do feel the sadness of not knowing how Captain Jack and Dr. Maturin turnout, maybe it's the best. It is a peaceful thought to think that they are still sailing out there some where and maybe I'll see the HMS Surprise on the horizon from my boat some day. I still suggest stopping at book 20 and the good news that it ends with.

I was not able to find this book after shopping every book store I could find. I ordered it online while I was still working my way through the other 20 titles. When it first arrived, I felt a little disappointed - after all, its an unfinished book. Once I finished Blue at the Mizzen (book 20) I was absolutely delighted that I had bought this. If you have made it through the other books, then this is a must-own. However, it may not seem worth the price if you are first getting started in the Aubrey/Maturin series.

This is sometimes difficult to read... The penmanship is every bit as bad as my own! A good look at the author as a creator of his fantastic works.

This is sometimes difficult to read... The penmanship is every bit as bad as my own! A good look at the author as a creator of his fantastic works.

Got the book to complete my son's set of the books in this series. He has enjoyed them all.

This is pale shadow of the previous books. About 56 unedited pages plus 20 or more illegible script pages. Disjointed narrative. Badly needs editing and put totally in typescript. Only for the most serious followers of Aubrey and Maturin. David Herring

Beautifully produced and gives an insight into how O'Brien proceded with his planning.I felt I was saying good-bye to close friends.

just a beautiful unfinished torso of a novel that could have opened a new chapter in the Aubrey-Maturineid.
I quite resented the editors' choice of leaving the final handwritten notes in fac simile, instead of typing them the way one would take for granted six centuries after Gutemberg.
O'Brian's prose reads smoothly as ever , but his handwriting is above me.
Oliviero Fuzzi

Just enough character sketching, tantalizing plot line, a duel presaged, scrawling, handwritten pages by O'brien...surely the last bit of fine wine has been squeezed from this series. While enjoyable, it does not equal a book.

This work is only for the most dedicated of O'Brian fans. Substantial portion of conclusion not type set. Reader must rely upon deciphering O'Brian's handwritten hieroglyphs (no easy task) which requires a great deal of time and dogged perseverance.

However, the artistic rendition of Surprise in mourning, with yardarms, "all ahoo," may more than compensate for the price of the book.

This is a book for the devoted O'Brian reader. It would seem really odd to a newcomer. For those of us who read and re-read the adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin it is an incomplete coda, but promised a deeper insight into their characters. I am just one in the legion who will always mourn that there will be no more adventures for Surprise.

What a great set-up for another spellbinding page-turner. O'Brian brings nearly all of his surviving characters together in a setting that could move the plot of his latest novel almost anywhere. Why only four stars? I WANT MORE!! If you have enjoyed the other 20 adventures of Lucky Jack and the good doctor Maturin, you will certainly enjoy 21 - especially since it was so unexpected.

Here's an idea for the publisher.... Find a group of known authors who are familiar with the saga, and have them write a series of conclusions. Keep them short and then publish then as one volume. Could be fun. Could sell a lot of books.

Books like this are why some authors put clauses in their wills to have their unfinished manuscripts destroyed. Patrick O'Brian brought great joy to millions of readers with his nautical adventures, and it is a thousand pities that there won't be any more from him. But I can't help but view this book from the POV of the writer. If I were him, I'd no more want someone poking through my in-progress works than I'd want my fans surprising me in my bath. I don't doubt that O'Brian fans have been baying the publisher deaf for unreleased works, but this book is nothing but a cash-in, and should never have been published.

This is just an unfinished novel that Patrick O'Brian was working on when he died. It is just the start of a novel and no where near completed. Fortunately he didn't get enough into this one to leave us hanging. Its sad to me that there are no more of these wonderful novels to come. I have loved them greatly. But with this tiny bit I have a bit more closure on the story. Jack Aubrey was finally able to "hoist his flag". It would have been good to have this one more novel with Jack Aubrey as an admiral but oh well we at least got to his goal of the flag.

It may have been better if this very imperfect first portion of the next A-M novel had never seen the light of day; as other reviewers have noted, it is rough and clearly has not seen the refinement and backfilling that is so evident in the rest of the series (for example, poor Wantage, sewed into his hammock and sent over the side in Blue at the Mizzen, is resurrected to help out with the same fluency in Portugese that cost him so dearly in the past). Yet all of us who have lost ourselves in O'Brian's world can't help but love even this limited glimpse of what happens next. It's like unexpectedly running into dear friends at an airport and getting only the sketchiest update of their lives before losing touch with them forever -- far from satisfying but oh so much better than not seeing them at all. Despite the joy of even these two chapters, it seems like the publishers could have given us the benefit of putting into type the final manuscript pages for ease of reading. But that's nit-picking. I am happy to have had the chance to view this final work in progress of a gifted, dedicated writer who has enriched my life.

I have conflicting emotions about "21". While I am delighted to read these few opening fragments of what a 21st novel in the superb Aubrey/Maturin saga would have been like, with Jack Aubrey now finally a rear-admiral, and Stephen Maturin, his always erudite political, medical and natural history advisor, I do feel a little cheated reading this unfinished segment (Here we see Jack take command of a small squadron destined for an African adventure somewhere along the continent's west coast, probably in pursuit of slavers.). It would have been better for the publisher to have found someone who could have written a credible novel from O'Brian's opening chapters and possible fragments elsewhere, much in the same manner in which the late British musicologist Deryck Cooke successfully "completed" Gustav Mahler's 10th Symphony, than to publish "21" replete with Patrick O'Brian's beautiful - yet difficult to read - scripted prose. At best, this tiny coda offers an intriguing insight into O'Brian's ability to write well first drafts, but nonetheless, this was undoubtedly a draft he would have corrected substantially later had he lived. And yet fans of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin will undoubtedly be pleased to see one final glimpse of them as envisioned in the fertile mind and imagination and gifted prose of the late Patrick O'Brian.

I am a great lover of the Aubrey/Maturin tales and yet this project simply smells to high heaven of a publisher trying to squeeze yet another dime out of the dead author's estate. As noted by other reviewers, a significant fraction of the "book" is quite simply illegible. The story line, surely to have been improved, is near-incomprehensible. I was more than satisfied to know that Jack had finally and at last been awarded his Admiral's flag at the end of the 20th installment of this wonderful multi-volume novel. In fact, at the time of O'Brian's death I noted to friends that the series could not have ended on of finer note. Now we have this. It offends the memory of O'Brian and all those who love his work. Note: my one star is simply to acknowledge an adequate afterword by Richard Snow; although I suppose if he'd been someone of real character he would not have associated himself with this project. A waste of money and time. We would be better off re-reading the first 20.