Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950)

This books was incredibly frustrating as the protagonist, Andre-Louis Moreau, is the definition of a Marty Stu. He's good at everything. He's super charming, so when he makes a bunch of very wrong assumptions, he's immediately forgiven. Everyone loves him, and every woman fell in love with him. On top of this, he refuses to help his friends save their friends from getting massacred in duels until he personally benefits from these encounters, even though he's the best fencer in the city. He show more is the definition of male privilege! Sabatini's novels are typically like this, but he usually offsets his perfect characters with descriptive prose regarding battles and genuinely clever plots to cheat the enemy that it becomes more amusing. Also, usually his male characters have at least one fault. AL's only fault was revealed at the end, and it was that he was a coward (which he is): he runs away from everything, but he's still celebrated as some sort of hero.

AL gets his cake and eats it too. He goes around as a republican, touting how people born into privilege shouldn't run the country or be considered great just because of their birth. While we agree with these sentiments now, that wasn't the case back then. Back then, these republicans were stealing the aristocrats of their land, homes, and their way of life. Not only that but what followed was the French Revolution, and we know how much of a mess that was. To the old-timers, the republicans had brought hellfire down on everyone. YET, at the end of the novel, AL gets the girl of his dreams and lives with his RICH AF family, completely forgiven! Seriously?!

Not only that, but the aristocrats were more likable in general. Yes, they were overpowered, but they had more heart. They looked out for each other. Granted, their friends and family have more resources than servants, but they seem to genuinely care about each other, even when they've hurt each other. AL always assumed he was right and would break his own principles for personal gain and never had an existential crisis about it. In contrast, Azyr was a terrible person, but he tried to atone for his mistakes, and he fought for what was his, while AL let himself get chased out of multiple towns. Azyr's behavior makes sense based on the ideologies he grew up with while AL is just an entitled jerk. The former is sympathetic while the latter is not.

In the end, AL changed society enough that he always ended on top, even though everyone else lost their homes, friends, and everything they owned. He might've lost some things in the process, but his mentality and heartlessness prevented him from caring. As a result, I didn't care about him or for this book. show less

OMG! This swashbuckling tale of a British nobleman who reinvents himself as notorious Algerian corsair (pirate) Sakr-el-Bahr is rousing, romantic, and totally terrific!

Cornish nobleman Oliver Tressillian has everything a man could want: a fortune, a good name, and the love of fiery-haired Rosamund. At least until his trusting nature is exploited by an ungrateful stepbrother who sets Oliver up to take the blame for a crime that he committed and then, to ensure the ploy isn’t discovered, show more arranges to have Oliver kidnapped by a shady sea captain and sold into slavery. But Oliver’s physical strength, ferocious fighting skills, and leadership qualities soon see him promoted from the galley slave to command as Sakr-el-Bahr, the ferocious Sea Hawk, terror of the Spanish Main.

The rest of the book tells the tale of how Sakr-el-Bahr navigates jealous rivals, treacherous enemies, court politics, and rousing sea battles in order to gain revenge on the man who wronged him and win back the woman he has never stopped loving, despite her determination to believe the worst of him.

Sabatini's prose may hit today’s readers as a bit courtly and formal, but his period research is spot-on, his storytelling vivid, and his pacing breathless. And before you ding the plot for being predictable, consider that this was written in 1915 – making this the ur-text of pretty much all the pirate stories that have come since. Seriously, one wonders if Errol Flynn would have had a Hollywood career if it weren’t for Sabatini’s swashbuckling oeuvre.

So make yourself comfortable, maybe grab a grog, and let Sabatini whisk you away on a journey of exotic adventure, romance, revenge, and redemption! show less

Written in 1922, Captain Blood is truly a classic adventure story. We meet Dr. Peter Blood as he is tending to his garden on the very morning of the Battle of Sedgemoor. Wanting no part in the rebellion taking place, he nonetheless tends to the wounded, and is promptly arrested. During his trial, h is convicted of treason on the grounds that "if any person be in actual rebellion against the King, and another person—who really and actually was not in rebellion—does knowingly receive, show more harbour, comfort, or succour him, such a person is as much a traitor as he who indeed bore arms."

However, instead of being hanged to death, he, along with other convicts is sent to Caribbean to be sold into slavery. Upon his arrival in Barbados, he is bought by Colonel Bishop, who initially hires him to work in the plantation, but 'promotes' him as his personal physician, seeing the complete incompetence of the local doctors. Bishop immediately becomes Blood's enemy, and remains as such throughout the book. Complicating matters is the presence of Bishop's niece, Arabella. Given their respective social status, and the changing situations they find themselves in, their mutual attraction never really goes further than that.

Blood and a few others eventually find freedom, but at a price. Since they are slaves, they have no other choice but to adopt the pirate life, which is by no means easy. And that's when the real adventure starts.

The book really is a fun swashbuckling adventure, fast-paced swashbuckling with a hint of romance without being too cheesy. Some events may fly by too quickly, and some more might be qualified as fortuitous coincidences, but as a whole Sabitini succeeds in writing a good story.

Blood himself is a chivalrous man, true to himself, even when he does become an outlaw in the middle of the Caribbean. He draws his own line between right and wrong, and remains a true gentleman throughout the whole novel.

While some characters could have been more fleshed out and some scenes could have been written in more detail, the fun factor alone is enough to compensate for the few shortcomings in this novel.

Besides, I devoured the thing in a matter of days.

4.5/5 show less

The archetypal pirate story. Treasure Island might have given us all of the iconic images we know and love in popular culture – the parrots and peglegs and pieces-of-eight – but Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood is the sort of rich, all-encompassing pirate adventure you lived for when you were a kid. There are sea battles and broadsides, cutthroats and 'repel all boarders', pirate ports like Tortuga and intimidating forts like Port Royal and Hispaniola, feckless governors and bosom-heaving show more governors' daughters, villainous Spaniards and disdainful Frenchmen, piratical tricks and roguery, victory from the jaws of defeat, rapier-like dialogue and verbal jousting, cutlasses and gunsmoke and plunder.

Even more importantly, Captain Blood is the book which presented most convincingly the image of the romantic, noble pirate (in Treasure Island, the pirates – led by Long John Silver – are definitely the bad guys). Blood himself is a gentleman, an escaped slave imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, who still has "some rags of honour… remaining me from better days" (pg. 105). Furthermore, in Blood, the sea is "free to all, and particularly alluring to those who feel themselves at war with humanity" (pg. 87). The influence on the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean is strong, almost overpowering (as a small criticism, some of the flavour of the story can be lost in how familiar it has become). Young boys with their rubber eyepatches and cardboard cutlasses are, in their adventures, more likely imitating noble Blood than the ruffian Long John Silver, even if they do not know it.

I was also fascinated to note the book's influence on my favourite writer, George MacDonald Fraser, author of Flashman. GMF swore by it – and by Sabatini – and if the only dedicated pirate stories he wrote were the comical fluff The Pyrates and the posthumous manuscript Captain in Calico, then Captain Blood's style is nevertheless clearly felt in all his prose. For Sabatini's prose is rich and colourful, that rare sort of book where you gorge yourself on the words without becoming bogged down in them. Captain Blood has those two ingredients essential for a crowd-pleasing cracker – pace and spicy dialogue – in spades, and plenty more besides. Character, plot and setting are all top-drawer. If you "would like to see an action fought at sea as an action should be fought, this is your opportunity" (pg. 206). show less