One of those books where I'm not sure sure what to think. I enjoyed it overall (and Hornblower is adoreable :P) but I got a bit bored by the format (more lots of only vaguely connected short-stories than one coherent novel) as it felt like Forester was telling a very similar story over and over again, about Hornblower being very stupid brave, lots of (good) battle-descriptions and lots of rather confusing nautical terms (I will read up on that).Three stars with tendency towards four but I want to leave room for more books of the series ;)