Writing about this novel, comments include that "the ultimate appeal of the Aubrey/Maturin adventures lies in O'Brian's delicious old-fashioned prose"[2] that is "sketching with apparent accuracy and truth the early 19th-century world.
"[2] Another reviewer finds "There is a recklessness with plot that is intentionally subversive of the genre", while showing "a dazzling receptiveness to language, an understanding of period speech so entire".
[4] As to this novel's plot, "the most charming segment is Maturin's idyllic stay in a remote valley, where he blissfully encounters and studies a variety of tame exotic beasts.
On land after ceasing his use of laudanum, Stephen Maturin finds he has changed; his naturally "ardent" temperament returns and alters his relationship with his wife Diana, who is now pregnant with their child.
As the high level traitor in British intelligence is not yet identified, the time on land raises risks to his friend Jack Aubrey, who agrees to sail immediately.
Upon reaching Lisbon, Sir Joseph Blaine intercepts Maturin with news that he and Aubrey are required to carry a diplomat to the Sultan of Pulo Prabang, a piratical Malay state in the South China Sea.
The voyage south forms the crew, with frequent training on the guns; by the luck of a timely breeze and much hard rowing in the ship's boats, Diane escapes the inshore currents of Inaccessible Island.
Sailing through the high forties (south latitude), she first touches land at Java, meeting Lieutenant Governor Raffles near Batavia, where they hear the first word of bank failures in England.
Arriving in Pulo Prabang, Maturin meets fellow natural philosopher van Buren and helps the arrogant envoy Fox plot against the French mission.
During the leisurely negotiations with the Sultan, Maturin climbs the "Thousand Steps" to Kumai, a protected valley in the crater of a volcano and home to the orangutans he has been longing to see.
The cover art depicts HMS Diane and one of her boats working to escape the tides and the towering cliff of Inaccessible Island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
After seeing Gough in the French privateer, Maturin reflects on his life since the rising in 1798, rereading old diaries that tell when he began his work with intelligence to the purposes of defeating Napoleon, supporting Irish independence and freeing Catalonia, after meeting Aubrey.
"[2] After a nod to the story, they conclude that "the ultimate appeal of the Aubrey/Maturin adventures lies in O'Brian's delicious old-fashioned prose, the wonderfully complex sentences that capture the feel of the sea and the culture of the great warships, all the while sketching with apparent accuracy and truth the early 19th-century world.
[4] They mention that the author's writing style has been compared to that of Jane Austen, and praise the wit of guests at "the dinners (in country house, London, ship's mess, sultan's palace, Buddhist monastery)".
The British critic Peter Wishart has described the neglect of Patrick O'Brian as a literary wonder of the age, "as baffling as the Inca inability to invent the wheel."
"[3] The writing style, structure, and plot are remarked favorably, including many incidents of The Thirteen Gun Salute: "The novels display a dazzling receptiveness to language, an understanding of period speech so entire that it never needs to preen itself -- although here and there it does.
"[1] On the voyage to Java, Jack has with him a chart showing Alexander von Humboldt's maximum and minimum sea-temperatures over a vast stretch of ocean.
The years of his reign began in October, and the story mentions the months of May, June and being in the austral winter after crossing the equator when sailing around Africa on HMS Diane; the author, as promised in the preface to the first book in the series, takes liberties with times of events.
[8][9][non-primary source needed] Lois Montbertrand published an article concerning O'Brian's use of A. E. Housman's poem "Bells in the Tower" in this novel.