SOURCE: “Those in Peril on the Sea,” in Spectator, Vol. 281, No. 8872, August 22, 1998, p. 32.

In the following review, Judd offers a positive assessment of The Hundred Days, praising the novel's characterization, action, and credibility.

The creation of a convincing imaginary world, one whose power to convince rests not only on the truth of history but the truth of experience, compelling assent—yes, this is what it is like to doubt, fear, love, thirst, hope and despair—is itself a significant literary achievement. To sustain that world over 19 sequential novels, as Patrick O'Brian has now done with The Hundred Days, goes beyond significance. These novels, set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars and featuring his two complementary heroes, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, are as remarkable a literary endeavour as were the historical endeavours that gave them rise. Part of that remarkableness is that the novels transcend their...