One reviewer in 2007 writes about the novel: "Six decades later, O'Brian's richly told adventure saga, with its muscular prose, supple dialogue and engaging characters, packs a nice old-school punch.
"[1] The Road to Samarcand precedes by 15 years the first novel of the Aubrey-Maturin series, the canon which brought O'Brian fame, and bears a relationship to its development.
Derrick is unhappy with the prospect of leaving the ship, and Professor Ayrton proposes "to gild the pill of education"[3]: 42 by taking the youth back to England via the famous road to Samarcand.
Other adventures involve dangers crossing a glacier where the party must face both blizzard conditions and inimical monks masquerading as yeti, and the loss and eventual rediscovery of party-members Ross, Li Han and Olaf.
While structured with plot and subplots, and created with a cast of interesting characters, the novel draws its major appeal from O'Brian's great story-telling ability.
[4] The product of this ability can be seen as a series of adventures in exotic locales, the type of material designed to resonate in the imagination of a typical teenaged boy.
Publishers Weekly remarks that "Earthy, sly humor keeps the action set pieces perking along: frigid temperatures, militaristic Tibetan monks and even the Abominable Snowman await.
Six decades later, O'Brian's richly told adventure saga, with its muscular prose, supple dialogue and engaging characters, packs a nice old-school punch.
"[1] Writing under his birth name, P. R. Russ, Patrick O'Brian published three stories in the Oxford Annual for Boys which involve Sullivan and Ross.
O'Brian would continue writing in the style of the prequel and would maintain his target of adolescent males when he expanded his format to novel form in The Road to Samarcand.
The significance of this similarity, the bond between the pairs of men, its development and role in the story line, is emphasised in the words of Patrick O'Brian: "The essence of my books is about human relationships and how people treat one another.
In the same incompetent manner, Professor Ayrton accidentally discharges his rifle as his small group stealthily prepares to spring an ambush, stating lamely, "It went off," though the character Maturin is an accurate shot in duels and knows his weapons.
[3]: 209 Continuing the aforementioned incident from The Far Side of the World, Maturin's use of the South Pacific term,"taboo," nearly the extent of his linguistic knowledge of any Polynesian language, preserves Aubrey from castration at the hands of a crew of solely female mariners aboard their craft.
This powerful incident is the remolding of an earlier passage in The Road to Samarcand, when Professor Ayrton is forced to extend himself in an unfamiliar language to mislead a company of dominant Tibetan females.
They have chosen Olaf from Captain Sullivan's company as a bridegoom, but Professor Ayrton is able to convince them the Swede is not only mad, but subject to supernatural influences.
In a singular instance, Captain Sullivan refers to "a very strong-minded woman, not at all unlike a Mrs. Williams..."[3]: 219 This is an amazingly apt description of Jack Aubrey's mother-in-law.
When the reader meets Jagiello, a Lithuanian in the Swedish army, in the seventh book of the Aubrey-Maturin series, O'Brian's "subtle and light touch with dialect"[10] was well developed.