Reviewers viewed the novel as it stood and in contrast to the author's later level of accomplishments in that series. Publishers Weekly, writing in 1994, says this first sea novel by O'Brian "can stand on its own as an entertaining and psychologically astute narrative". They see in this 1956 novel "practically all the naval lore and sense of place that grace the Aubrey/Maturin books". Specifically, "Shipboard life rings true, the story never flags and humor abounds: "Well, he is a wonderful poacher for a Protestant," observes one Anglo-Irishman. Kirkus Reviews finds this novel "Not a mature piece of work, but appealing enough to satisfy fans of O'Brian's naval sagas." Tom Clark writing in the Los Angeles Times says that "evidently in keeping with an aim of appealing to a younger audience, the darker aspects of the crew's experience are played down in favor of a robust and exhilarating rendering of the great adventure of it all." It is a first sea novel with a young boy as the main character, but "if there's any character in The Golden Ocean with heavyweight potential, it's the sea itself, whose power as a kind of fate is rendered with the Conradian force that shows where O'Brian was headed as a narrative writer." Clark notes that "At least two of those accounts, those of Anson's chaplain, Richard Walter, and of a young Irish midshipman, John Philips, appear to have supplied O'Brian much of what he needed to paint with charming pictorial realism the life both above and below decks on Anson's flagship Centurion." Library Journal noted that this book by O'Brian "set the course they [Aubrey-Maturin series] later followed." It is recommended for all ages: "A humorous adventure for all collections." Scott Veale writing in The New York Times was upbeat about this novel, saying that "As always, the author's erudition and humor are on display, whether he's describing the singing of the masts in the wind, the harrowing seas of Cape Horn or 18th-century superstitions." Veale found the period detail to be "uncompromising", and expected that readers "will be swept up by the richness of O'Brian's prodigious imagination." Related novels by O'Brian and contrasts to them The same expedition is described from the perspective of two on one of the ships in the squadron that did not make it around the globe in O'Brian's The Unknown Shore. It focusses on the ship HMS