skzb wrote: > For the record, I've read Forrester stuff twice, and the O'Brian stuff > probably ten times. I intend to read O'Brian again. > > But there is another side. I was once raving about O'Brian to a > fellow who said, "O'Brian is more realistic and better with language, > but Forrestor tells a better story." The fellow who said that was > Gene Wolfe. Could have knocked me on my ass with a feather. > I've heard that people who like Dr. Who tend to think whoever was playing the good Doctor when they first saw the program was the best of all the doctors. I suspect something analogous happens with Forester/O'Brian: whichever you read first, you tend to prefer. Realism, of course, is a loaded die; as a sailor, I can follow Forrester's description of working a ship much more readily than I can O'Brian. But O'Brian's characterizations might be thought more *plausible*, which is realism under another cover. (And then there is Maturin, who is fine as a ship's doctor, but what idiot in the Admiralty would ever think that you could get much use out of a spy in such a position? I can't swallow any of that, realistically. OTOH, Hornblower is admittedly a century ahead of his time in the way he thinks. I'm sure that irritates the hell out of some folk.) > > Steve > > P.S.: I think my email is back, at least for now. Fingers crossed. On both hands, no less! Snarkhunter