CORSAIR by Chris Bunch
Orbit (Little, Brown) - 2001
ISBN 1841490342 - TPB
 

Reviewed by Rachel Hyde, MyShelf.com
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Bunch is back with a standalone novel that doesn’t let up its pace until the final page.  If you love those old swashbuckling films about pirates on the high seas then you will enjoy this one as it has all the appeal of an Errol Flynn film plus the added dimension of a fantasy setting.  Gareth Radnor thinks that his life as a fisherman is intolerably boring but when slavers raze his village to the ground and his parents are killed he swears vengeance.  Apprenticed to his rich merchant uncle as a clerk he finds an outlet to his youthful high spirits with a gang of equally lively friends until disaster strikes again and he finds that unexpectedly his dearest wish has come true and he is aboard a ship.  This is just the beginning of a thrilling career as a corsair!

If like me you love fantasy but get a little tired of thousand page tomes that always come in trilogies then Bunch’s fast-paced and fresh approach will ensure that you come back for more and more.  His military background ensures that the battles will always be the highlight of any of his books and is perhaps the Bernard Cornwell of fantasy.  There is less character development here than in his Seer King trilogy but there is so much else going on that this doesn’t really matter.  I’ve yet to read one of his books that isn’t a treat and this one comes highly recommended.

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