Although "Master and Commander" and its immediate sequels had received at first a somewhat muted reception in the US, in Britain and Ireland the voices of praise continued to increase and gradually became dominant. By 2000, O'Brian's reputation was such that his American biographer Dean King was able to place "Master and Commander" at the start of what he called the author's magnum opus, a twenty-novel series that has become perhaps the best-loved "roman fleuve" of the twentieth century: " epic of two heroic yet believably realistic men that would in some ways define a generation".