Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114217 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Huddersfield Daily Examiner
'Deals with the fascinating and seldom explored area of white slavery...'

Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews
'...interesting story and a captivating adventure. Throughout the pages of the novel you can see the author's love for history.'

Synopsis
In 1677, on a late summer's evening two ships lurk off the coast of southwest Ireland. They are Barbary corsairs from North Africa, slave catchers. As soon as it is dark, their landing parties row ashore to raid a small fishing village - on the hunt for fresh prey ...In the village, seventeen-year-old Hector Lynch wakes to the sound of a pistol shot. Moments later he and his sister Elizabeth are taken prisoner. From then on Hector's life plunges into a turbulent and lawless world that is full of surprises. Separated from Elizabeth, he is sold to the slave market of Algiers, where he survives with the help of his newfound friend Dan, a Miskito Indian from the Caribbean. The two men convert to Islam to escape the horrors of the slave pens, only to become victims of the deadly warfare of the Mediterranean. Serving aboard a Turkish corsair ship, their vessel is sunk at sea and they find themselves condemned to the oar as galley slaves for France. Driven by his quest to find his sister, Hector finally stumbles on the chilling truth of her fate when he and Dan are shipwrecked on the coast of Morocco...

Customer Reviews

I'll never touch Severin again
Easily, this book ranks highly among the worst ever read by me. The author has clearly researched the time period the book is set in deeply, but has not put his knowledge to good use. The book mainly lacks real characters and a development of their personalities. Any person appearing in the book could have been exchanged by another soulless character. The storyline seems to be set in a way to peak at the meeting of Hector and his sister Elizabeth, but completely failed to cause any emotion or satisfaction in me on those 1.5 pages, when it finally happens. And with the red line of his book out of the way, Severin abandones his book in 2 chapters, with his characters fleeing across the desert, hobbling from one wildly unlikely event to another.
To make it short. Don't buy this book, unless you have run out of other options - which you should never. As for me, I will never touch another Tim Severin again.

Story in search of characters
I picked up this book based on my pleasant experiences reading Severin's travel writing. It is often relevant to maritime history and attempts to recreate the experience. Aside from this unique approach, he usually becomes sufficiently knowledgeable of the subject that these books are informative.

Corsair unfortunalty is a pastiche of episodes strung togeather in which Severin only relies on his historical knowledge. The story line is almost devoid of character depth and close to caricature - three amigos; handsome intelligent Irish youth, grizzled savvy, street smart French criminal, native amerindian noble savage. The story line was so predictable that while reading I took to predicting which happenstance would resole their plight. Slavery is central to the book which Severin describes but he makes no effort to illustrate its impact on European and Islamic culture. Severin doesn't deviate from simple story telling.

So what was worthwhile? Well, new historical knowledge easily assimilated about a period I was not that familiar with. Would I recommend it - only if you are a dyed in the wool fan of the period or the maritime world

poor
Took this book on holiday to Antigua but did`nt bring it home. only read 50-60 pages & not impressed enough to keep going. Sorry but very hard to enjoy anything about this book.