I own that big compellation of all the O'Brian books. It is possible to get a good deal at $100 sometimes for it, not always $150.
Here are some reasons why it is better to get the compellation:
1) Compared in price to all the books independently in paperback, the compellation is cheaper.
2) Don't have to be constantly running to the library to rent them, where it might be already checked out.
3) NO LATE FEES, sometimes I don't have time to read, or forget to return (especially bad when you are using a smaller library that has to order from other libraries, which can take a long time). In this situation, you can stop and pick up later without a worry.
4 Includes the incomplete book 21
5) Compellation books are nice in quality, almost like hardcover bibles with the type of paper and ribbon bookmark in the book.
The books have paid for themselves (to me) already, and will again when I get done with the last 2 complete books and the final one. That will be the complete first time I read through them. It will have been a year in late August since I began reading.
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It is sort of special when someone reads through this series the first time. By this point, most people who have been reading this series have made a spot in their heart for the characters, and know them like real people. When you are done with the series, you have spent around 16 years in their lives (Probably more, due to after Fortune of War, which ends in about 1813, that each book up to Yellow Admiral is about a year in length fo that book, but takes place between 1813 and 1814. I get this from the dictionary I listed in my last book that I own.) There is sort of sadness when you finish the series, due to the series is over, the war is over, the Age of Fighting Sail is over. The characters are finally in a content and happy place, with all goals reached. We know that Jack would not fit into the future navy and live out his life with his family (finally), and that Stephen will probably live out his life studying science and nature, probably never to return to being a ship's surgeon, but never have the adventures he had again with Jack.
No more adventures....makes you sad inside....you have to go back to normal, boring life.....
Until you start the book series again where you can go 'round the series again, find things you missed, laugh at jokes again, and probably understand a lot more things that the first time through due to you have probably learned a lot about the sailing world and scientific world. But nothing is a good as that first time you read the series, when you actually don't know what is going to happen. Even knowing that there is another book next can spoil some points in the books. The ultimate way to have read this series was from when it was released in the 70s, and reading each book as it came out.
O'Brian left us at the right time, due to that after this point, O'Brian would have probably had to go through the painful process of having to retire our characters due to age and all the damage that these characters have gone through (there almost like those western TV characters that have lived through being shot so many times, you would think they would have died of heart failure by now). But we all wonder what book 21 would have been like if he had completed it.
We will miss you O'Brian, and we will always love your characters you introduced into this world. Now, they say that you (O'Brian) are among the legendary writers like Dickens, Twain, and even Homer due to your series (reviewers and others and comparing him to these writers, even HOMER of ancient Greece!).
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