The Far Side of the World

OCEANS ARE NOW BATTLEFIELDS

The Far Side of the World is the Aubrey/Maturin book that got adopted into a major motion picture. In a better timeline, they get the full Aubrey/Maturin cinematic universe, but we live in hell.

Anyways, this is a classic of seamanship, anchored around four major sequences. The HMS Surprise is dispatched to the Pacific Ocean to chase down the frigate USS Norfolk, which threatens British whalers.

The first major drama concerns a trio of new crewmembers. Mr Horner is a taciturn gunner with a lovely young wife. Mr Hollom is an unfortunate senior midshipman Aubrey brings aboard out of misplaced charity. Hollom and Mrs Horner begin an affair, which spins out of control into a series of murders. The entire ship, except for Mr Horner and then Aubrey, seems to know about the business, but the crew’s code of silence prevents them from telling senior officers.

The second sequence has Maturin clumsily falling off the stern of the ship while observing bioluminescent algae at night. Aubrey follows to rescue his friend, but the boats which were towing behind and which he intended to swim to had been pulled alongside the ship and they wind up adrift in the water. The pair are not missed until morning, and wind up rescued by a Polynesian pahi catamaran crewed entirely by women. These amazons strand the men on an island, where they are rescued.

The last two sequences have the Surprise surviving an incredibly intense typhoon and then encountering the crew of the wrecked Norfolk on another island. The American captain claims the war is over, but lacking real evidence, Aubrey notationally takes the Americans as prisoners of war. When another storm forces the Surprise away, the situation begins to degenerate into a small-scale war, ended only by the last minute return of the ship.

I accidentally skipped book 9, which is apparently also a highlight of the series, but this is one of the purest nautical adventures of the series, marred only by the lack of a ship-to-ship action. The quietness of the guns is more than balanced by the creeping tension of the story, particularly around the Horner/Hollom affair.