One of the best of C.S. Forester's series of seafaring tales of the Napoleonic era, COMMODORE HORNBLOWER follows the newly-knighted Horatio Hornblower into the Baltic Sea where he attempts to help stave off the siege of the port of Riga. While fully up to the level of excitement and flavorsome detail of the previous Hornblower novels, this one contains some of Forester's best writing. The last five or six pages are simply wonderful. The whole book is a joy and a thrill to read. ( )

Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower#Bibliography

Summary: Another great Hornblower book

Things I liked:

Historical setting made more interested in Napoleonic history.
Hornblowers reflections and horror of war while at the same time engaging in it.
Hornblower goodness.

Things I thought could be improved:

Ended too abruptly. Quite a few loose ends.

Highlight:

when hornblower foils the assination plot by slicing the guys hand. ( )

Adult fiction. Nautical adventure. I started reading this just to get a feel for the Hornblower books but decided not to finish it. I am sure it is all the things people say it is, at least to those people who are inclined to read such things. Lots of nautical details, some political intrigue, a complex hero, negligible female characters. ( )

This installment of the saga shows our hero turning from the dull life of a country squire and back into the fight against Napoleon, this time in the far reaches of the Baltic, and there isn't a dull moment. With an increase in rank he finds himself adjusting to the pomp his new title bestows, something new to this man inclined to action rather than appearance, and still he gets in the thick of battle dep enough to have done himself a bad turn by the very end. His hallmark navel ingenuity comes through on more than one occasion, along with the glimpses into his humane and decent spirit in the manner we have come to cherish. The renegade Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz puts in an appearance working for the imperial Russian army, as does the Tsar, briefly, along with a number of well-drawn junior officers and military enlistees. Forester manages to spring a number of surprises for us along the way to keep things interesting and ends the whole thing on quite a cliffhanger.
The audio book narration by Christian Rodska adds something to the tale though a couple of the accents were a little tough to make out the first time. This is the kind of adventure story that makes the hours fly especially if one is fond of the details of the way square-rigged warships worked. ( )