Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
The 18th volume in the Aubrey/Maturin historical adventure series "is splendid storytelling from a true master," said PW in a starred review.
Library Journal
In this sequel to The Commodore, Jack Aubrey gratefully leaves behind his messy life ashore to pursue Napoleon, who has escaped from Gibraltar.
William J. Crowe
"The Yellow Admiral is a worth addition to the saga....You will emerge from this series...fully accostomed to a prose style of such stant elegance and precision that most others will seem overwritten."
— Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Wall Street Journal
New Republic - James Hamilton-Paterson
"Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars."
A. S. Byatt
"Gripping and vivid… a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit."
Ken Ringle
"The Aubrey-Maturin series… far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart."
Detroit Free Press
"Aubrey and Maturin are the most enjoyable literary companions since Holmes and Watson."
George Will
"O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin volumes actually constitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century."
New York Times Book Review
"Taken as a whole, the Aubrey/Maturin novels are by a long shot the best things of their kind, so much better than the competition that comparisons long ago ceased to be relevant: they are uniquely excellent."
New York Times - Tamar Lewin
"It has been something of a shock to find myself—an inveterate reader of girl books—obsessed with Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic-era historical novels… What keeps me hooked are the evolving relationships between Jack and Stephen and the women they love."
Chicago Sun-Times - Stephen Becker
"There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his."
Wall Street Journal - Donald Graham
"If there were 17 more novels, I'd start today."
Slate - Christopher Hitchens
"I devoured Patrick O’Brian’s 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog."
New York Times - David Mamet
"[O’Brian’s] Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 novels of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, is a masterpiece. It will outlive most of today’s putative literary gems as Sherlock Holmes has outlived Bulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has outlived Charles Reade."
Commonweal
"The experience of reading O'Brian is that of gracious acceptance at one of the banquets of life's feast…It's hard not to find him irresistible."
Boston Globe - Edward O. Wilson
"I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop."
New York Times Book Review - Richard Snow
"The best historical novels ever written… On every page Mr. O’Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don’t, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives."
Keith Richards
"I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first with Master and Commander. It wasn’t primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships. …And of course having characters isolated in the middle of the goddamn sea gives more scope. …It’s about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me."
