The fact that Steven was a spy was well-known to Jack, but was left out of the story except for one glancing reference to spies. I also agree that the jonah subplot where the guy who couldn't command respect jumped overboard could easily have been dropped.
Other books in the series go into the practice of medicine at the time in much greater detail. Many of Steven's remedies were just plain wrong, but typical of the time. If you get into the series, there are two books by Dean King that were written to go with the series and give much more detail about geography, medicine, food, etc: "A Sea Of Words", a lexicon, and "Harbors and High Seas", an atlas and geographical guide. I bought them right away.
The plot (while a bit compressed - ie, more action in one movie than was usual in one book) was a much better rendering of O'Brian's work than I expected. The flavor was there, and given how much has to be cut away to make a movie plot, it wasn't bad at all. In the books, Steven is shown to be a total lubber, so his ignorance served as a way to talk about sailing, rigging, and the like. I missed that in the movie. But then, in a book you can linger over interesting details that just make a movie too long.
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Date: 2003-11-29 11:37 pm (UTC)Other books in the series go into the practice of medicine at the time in much greater detail. Many of Steven's remedies were just plain wrong, but typical of the time. If you get into the series, there are two books by Dean King that were written to go with the series and give much more detail about geography, medicine, food, etc: "A Sea Of Words", a lexicon, and "Harbors and High Seas", an atlas and geographical guide. I bought them right away.
The plot (while a bit compressed - ie, more action in one movie than was usual in one book) was a much better rendering of O'Brian's work than I expected. The flavor was there, and given how much has to be cut away to make a movie plot, it wasn't bad at all. In the books, Steven is shown to be a total lubber, so his ignorance served as a way to talk about sailing, rigging, and the like. I missed that in the movie. But then, in a book you can linger over interesting details that just make a movie too long.