The Surprise, lying well out in the channel with Gibraltar half a mile away on her starboard quarter, lying at a single anchor with her head to the freshening northwest breeze, piped all hands at four bells in the afternoon watch...It's nearly the last time I'll read a book that eases me into the story like so. Blue at the Mizzen is the twentieth and last complete book in the Aubrey-Maturin series. It is also the first to take place after the end of the Napoleonic Wars that provided the raison d'etre for the story and its characters.
Given this momentous change and the fact that O'Brian planned for Blue at the Mizzen to be the last book, you might expect an elegiac tone and some wrapping up. The first few chapters do indeed address the consequences of the peace -- out of work sailors, few chances from promotion or prizes, an economic recession in England -- but Aubrey and Maturin are off on a new adventure soon enough. They sail for Chile to support the independence movement, pausing along the way for Maturin to propose to the widow of an African governor.
There are times in the later chapters when O'Brian's distinctive prose style seems to falter, where the time jumps feel confused. Other sections are typically lovely and skillful. The action has no sense of finality about it, although (spoiler alert) it does end with Aubrey becoming an admiral. Will we learn the outcome of Stephen's proposal in the final unfinished book?
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