SOURCE: “Regressive Pleasures,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 2, 1994, pp. 4, 11.

In the following review, Balzar offers a positive assessment of The Wine-Dark Sea and the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Ned Ludd is said to have been an apprentice stocking maker in England 175 years ago. In a fit one day he grabbed a hammer and smashed his newly invented knitting frame to pieces. They called him a half-wit, though you can decide for yourself if this is a fair characterization of the man whose name came to symbolize the idea that technological advancement is not necessarily or always for the good.

Encyclopedia references suggest the Luddite movement was quickly wiped out by the British Army—an example to the billions of us born since that progress is a one-way street and you'll be trampled if you go against traffic.

But Luddite sympathizers have stubbornly hung on all these years...