Been watching a couple of TV movies of Hornblower. Much better than
Master and Commander. Even if the bad guys were all Irish.

As for O'Brain's novels, they are not better than CS Forester's
Hornblower series but different. In a way, more real-life. Aubrey is a
much more flawed human being than is Hornblower and thus a much more real
character. But I do feel that O'Brian ran badly out f steam on the last
tyhree or so in the series. Indeed, I read somewhere that he was having
them ghost-written by that time. They had certainlky become formulaic.