Corsair

Hector Lynch #1

by Tim Severin

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 . .

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Adventure, Fiction, Pirates, 17th Century, Northern Africa

361 pages, Paperback

First published May 22, 2007

About the author

Tim Severin was a British explorer, historian and writer. Severin is noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. Severin was awarded both the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his 1982 book The Sindbad Voyage.

He was born Timothy Severin in Assam, India in 1940. Severin attended Tonbridge School and studied geography and history at Keble College, Oxford.

Severin has also written historical fiction along with non fiction. The Viking Series, first published in 2005, concerns a young Viking adventurer who travels the world. In 2007 he published The Adventures of Hector Lynch series set in the late 17th century about a 17-year-old Corsair.

Reviews

[Clemens Schoonderwoert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book in 2007, and its the 1st volume of the delightful "Pirate" series, by the author, the late, Tim Severin.

The year is AD 1677, and in the southwest of Ireland, seventeen-year-old Hector Lynch and his Elizabeth are captured during a raid by Barbary corsairs from North Africa.

Once arriving in North Africa hector and Elizabeth are separated, with Hector sold as a slave in Algiers, where he will find a new friend in the form of a Miskito Indian from the Caribbean, called Dan.

Converting to Islam to escape the slave pens, they will end up on a Turkish corsair ship in full war within the Mediterranean, but their corsair ship will be beaten and is sunk at sea, and the two, Hector and Dan, now condemned as galley slaves to France.

The only thing Hector wants is to find his sister Elizabeth, and fate will bring them together somehow when their ship gets shipwrecked on the coast of Morocco, and from then on Hector's life will change forever.

What is to follow is a very entertaining and exciting tale about Hector, Elizabeth and Dan, who lives from freedom to slavery are beautifully pictured and brought to us by the author in his own remarkable fashion.

Very much recommended, for this is a very exciting start to this excellent series, and that's why I like to call this first episode: "A Very Likeable Corsair"!

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corsair by Tim Severin, good honest fun excursion into romping around in the oceans. It has slavery, sword fights, pirating, kidnapping, treasure and if that's you, it's a giggle factor for you. all in all honest good BS well told.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was rich with the dark and somewhat unknown history of the Barbary Coast and the Mediterranean . It gave a vivid look at the life, culture, religious practices and politics that where apart of the seventeen century. The story was good without been great but well written and researched. Need a bit more character development but all in all a solid 4 stars.

[Paul Holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a breath of fresh air. Hector, a half Spaniard half Irish boy is abducted from the coastal region of Ireland and taken to the Mediterranean. First he’s a slave and then an oarsman, all the while trying to find his sister Elizabeth who was also abducted. It was interesting to read about Mediterranean politics in the 1600’s. I feel like I’ve been looking for a good pirate story for a while, and I think we’ll really get into that in the next instalment of this series, when Hector reaches the Caribbean.

[Nick Brett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Other reviewers have pointed this out, but Corsair is an unusual historical novel. The norm is to have a story set in a historical period which provides an engaging backdrop to the narrative. Here the narrative seems to take second place to excessive information about the era. The balance just doesn’t work.

The hero of the story is Hector Lynch, an Irishman taken as a teen by slavers. He is both too clever and too lucky, each time he gets himself into a situation there is an easy out, and he also lacks depth as a character so it becomes hard to care anyway. His sister was also taken and there is a theme about him trying to track her down, but this is resolved in about three dull pages and then Hector rolls onto his next unlikely escapade. Hector is also the focal point for us to be educated about the era, “What is that?” he might ask and of course the response is used to tell us all sorts of in depth detail. Too much in-depth detail.

This does really read as if a historian has wrapped a story around a historical period, but without the art and craft of story-telling. This is just flat and horrible. I had been looking forward to this and thought the author might be my kind of writer, but I think I’ll give him a miss from now on.

[H.E. Bulstrode · Rating 2 out of 5]

Taken captive by Barbary pirates? Don't worry, Tim Severin seems to think it's a blessing in disguise.

Tim Severin is an explorer, historian, and author of historical fiction: a man of many accomplishments. His knowledge of seafaring is both extensive and first-hand, with him having undertaken a number of remarkable voyages in reconstructions of historical craft. These include replicating the alleged voyage of sixth-century Irish Saint Brendan across the Atlantic in a wood and leather currach; travelling from Oman to India and China in a replica of a ninth-century Arab dhow, and undertaking two voyages in a replica Greek Bronze Age galley in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. That he should thus turn his attention to matters maritime in his fiction should come as no surprise.

In Corsair, Severin focuses upon a different period again: the seventeenth century, with his theme being Barbary piracy. As you would expect, this proves to be a thoroughly well researched book, a fact that shines through in its wealth of historical detail and convincing descriptions of life aboard ship. If the reader should be inquisitive to learn about the conditions in the bagnios (the slave pens of contemporary Algiers), different gradations and uses of gunpowder, or the routines aboard one of Louis XIV’s war galleys, then their curiosity should be satisfied. If, on the other hand, the reader hopes to find engaging characters with whom they can in some way identify, or feel any sympathy for, then I am afraid that they are likely to be grievously disappointed, for it is in his characterisation and passages of stilted dialogue that Severin is at his weakest. Moreover, it does not help that his protagonist – Hector Lynch – an Irish teenager with limited life experience who is taken into slavery from an insignificant Irish village, seems to effortlessly insinuate his way into the charmed circle of each influential personage with whom he comes into contact.

There is a certain lack of emotional charge to the language employed by the characters which renders the dialogue flat. It also results in the characters themselves – with the exception of the tongueless, noseless, and earless Karp – being poorly differentiated. Hector Lynch speaks in a fashion not overly dissimilar to that of the Maybot, just ‘getting on with the job’ of moving the reader from one expository scene to the next, where you can learn how to row, blast rock with different grades of power, or slaughter and disembowel a camel before drying its flesh for consumption on your journey across the desert. What you will not learn about are the inner psychological workings of the individuals named on the page, for there does not appear to be a great deal going on inside their heads. Perhaps I am being a little harsh in saying this, but I get the feeling that this is so because it appears that the book is aimed at a young adult market, and thus does not require a great deal of psychological or emotional sophistication. That it is such a book is purely a guess on my part, but if it’s piratical derring-do on the high seas that the reader is looking for, I’d recommend Sabatini’s Captain Blood over this any day, for it is a work that possesses both wit and verve, both of which Corsair, sadly, lacks. Although I’ve not read any of Severin’s other works, I suspect that his history books are far more engaging than his works of fiction, because I did find the historical detail in this novel fascinating at times, it was just the story that let it down.

[Martin Belcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the late 1670's and early 1680's, Corsair is real adventure tale set on the high seas, the Mediterranean, North Africa, deserts and coast. Wonderfully descriptive, full of adventure, intrigue, history, pain, suffering and joy. Hector Lynch the hero and main protagonist of the the story lives in a small isolated Irish village and his life is quite uneventful until one fearful night the village is raided by Barbary corsairs and Hector and his sister and a group of young men and women from the village are kidnapped and taken away to Algiers in North Africa where they are sold as slaves. Hector's tale becomes ever more interesting and exciting and he manages to negotiate and duck and dive his way out of several very dangerous situations. Along with his fellow captive, Dan, a Miskito Indian from the Caribbean and Jacques Bourdon a slave from. French naval galley they make a fine team driven on together by Hectors desperate attempts to discover what has happened to his sister and hopefully to free themselves from their desperate situation. I absolutely loved this book and it is clear that author Tim Severin knows his facts as there is a lot of historical accuracy in this novel. Wonderful and I have bought the next book in the series to find out what happens next to Hector Lynch and his companions.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ireland, 1677. Hector Lynch and his sister Elizabeth are kidnapped by corsairs. Hector is separated from his sister and sold into slavery. Corsair is the story of his adventures and his quest to discover what happened to his sister.

I listened to the audio version of this book, read by Rupert Farley, who is easily the best narrator I have had the pleasure of listening to. This book had so many character accents: Irish, English, French, Turkish, Spanish, and he did them flawlessly. While I enjoyed the narration, the story itself didn't hold my interest. Developments in the plot which should have been terrifying (kidnapping, near-rape, slavery, near-drowning, etc.) produced almost no emotional reaction from the main character. He was a passive character who seemed far too accepting of his circumstances. The search for his sister could have been a great source of tension in the story, but it's never given any weight, and because we never learn more about Elizabeth, it's hard to care about her as a character.

[Terri · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a miserable disappointment.
I want to leave a review of this book, but I am afraid that what I have to say is 100% negative and who wants to give or receive so many negatives in their life? Not me, and probably not you.
All I'll say is that this book didn't appeal to me and I gave up on it with only 100 pages to go. I rarely give up with so little to go.
And in with one comment, I say a thousand words.

[Mathias · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews here but since this book has gotten such abysmal ratings and scathing reviews here, both of which are undeserved in my opinion, I felt compelled to speak up for it.

I came to Tim Severin's fiction through his nonfiction writing. Having come across The Brendan Voyage -- his account of an experimental voyage to America on a leather currach -- in an Irish museum shop by complete chance I was fascinated by his feats of experimental seamanship and eagerly read all the other accounts of his maritime and land-based expeditions. Severin is a great chronicler of his voyages, their preparation and of the evolving relationships in his various crews.

My interest in this book's subject matter is less easily traced to a single source but I have always been fascinated with the baroque period (barring a short period of teenage disdain for baroque art when all I saw it for was a later destruction of medieval ecclesiastical architecture. This is what all teenagers think about, right?) and this fascination was solidified by Neal Stephenson's excellent Baroque Cycle. Obviously Stephenson's tour de force is more clockpunk than historical account but he managed to combine an engaging epic narrative with a rough outline of the factors that influenced scientific, commercial, military and political life in the 17th century. His three novels also establish a picaresque convention one can find in much literature of the period as well as in real people's biographies of this era: a life spent uprooted from one's place of birth and travelling from place to place, making and losing one's fortune multiple times. In literature the -- admittedly much later -- Candide comes to mind as well as Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus. The baroque period was a time of great upheaval and many people who would have never left their place of birth and its immediate surroundings in earlier times experienced such lives. Among them was a person whose short autobiography I have read before: the Reverend Ólafur Egilsson. He was abducted from the Icelandic Vestman Islands by the infamous Murat Reis (duly name checked in Severin's novel) and made his way back from Algiers via Marseille in order to negotiate a ransom with the King of Denmark. Ólafur's account of his hardships is written in a terse style, nothing more than a description of the wonders he had seen and the journey he had taken.

Which, finally, brings me back to Severin's book. The tenor of the criticism of the negative reviews is that Corsair is not engaging, that rather than a gripping story it is a series of vignettes of things happening to Hector, the main protagonist and of descriptions of the world around him. I do agree with that asessment but as you have probably guessed by this point I do not consider this a flaw of the book. In a historical novel I much prefer well researched background information to a gipping story set sloppily in an unrealistic past.

Severin has obviously done a lot of research on the time period and his writing is very much influenced by primary sources like the aforementioned Ólafur's account and those of Irish abductees, as well as his own considerable experience as the builder and skipper of historical vessels. It is true that this novel doesn't necessarily follow a traditional pattern; our hero rarely stays in one place for longer than a month or two and most of the times things happen to him rather than the plot being driven by his actions. He is both much smarter and well educated than coud be expected from the son of impoverished minor Irish aristocracy and incredibly stupid and reckless (such as when he confronts Emperor Moulay Ismail despite having been warned of his murderous temper or when he inexplicably decides that it's a good idea to cross the Atlantic on an understaffed and underprovisioned ship with not a single seaman onboard). These decisions weren't earned by his character and that they work out great for him every time is unrealistic. But this dreamlike state with which Hector wanders from scene to scene, from incredible stroke of luck to deep calamity works perfectly for a book set in the baroque period. This is what literature of the time was like and a certain sense of apathy and fatalism might even be how people at the time related to the world. (If I have one quibble with the book it is that Hector completely lacks the main coping mechanism through which his contemporaries would have related to the world: a deeply engrained religious identity. He converts to Islam without giving a thought to the salvation of his soul and equally abandons that religion as soon as it is inconvenient. Of course such considerations look quaint to most of us today anyway but there is no doubt that they would have weighed heavily on a person from the period and Hector's modern attitude seems unrealistic)

I also enjoy that Severin defies tropes by being willing to unceremoniously kill or leave behind characters which were set up to be long-term mentors but most importantly that the reader can feel the author's own considerable experience in the descriptions of the minutiae of travel. Only someone who has commanded a galley themselves (albeit a much older one) (and there are precious few people alive who have) could describe the sinking of a damaged galley in a storm as realistically as Severin and someone who has ridden on horseback from France to Jerusalem and across Mongolia makes the account of a journey from the Barbary Coast across the Sahara desert more believable.

I think what I am trying to say with this rambling review is that as someone who came from the perspective of admiration for Severin's non-fiction books and exploits, and from the point of view of a fascination with the time period Corsair delivered exactly what I had hoped it would. I am not generally a reader of historical novels so my expectations may have been different than those of others but if any of the above appeals to you you will find Corsair an enjoyable fictionalised glimpse into the world of the Western Mediterranean in the second half of the seventeenth century. If it doesn't you should probably read the Baroque Cycle instead.


PS: If, like me, you are constantly on the lookout for the perfect musical accompaniement for your reading may I suggest the soundtrack to the film Le Roi Danse? I have never watched the movie but the accompanying album features courtly baroque music from exactly the right time period and, some, with themes very much connected to the subject of the book, such as slavery (Air pour les esclaves dansants and the Ottoman empire (Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs).

[Juan Luis · Rating 3 out of 5]

No había leído nada de Tim Severin. Me ha parecido un libro demasiado grande para lo que cuenta y en ocasiones parece encallado en una historia que ya imaginaba cómo terminaría .
Cuando escribo grande me refiero a que le sobran páginas. No dejo de reconocer que el tema de fondo es interesante, de ahí las tres estrellas, pero me ha encadenado al banco.

[Robert Magness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good fun. I found Tim Severin’s “Corsair” at the Dublin Airport back when I was moving back from Ireland to the US. I read it quickly on the flight and wanted more—it’s a fun adventure that takes a single character through the many different elements and intrigues of seafaring life that came to define the “pirate” and “maritime” genre. Severin’s knowledge of seafaring, through painstaking research and experiment, is evident and is the true center piece of the narrative. Hector Lynch and crew are basic archetypes, but that’s fine since the joy of the genre here is the vicarious experience of the character in the situations.

I’m happy to found this again and re-read, since I didn’t remember much of it. I’m now moving on to his sequel, Buccaneer, which from the sample chapter starts immediately.

[Dave Klapwyk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too much historical info and not enough character development. After reading I know almost nothing about the main character's personality, likes or strengths. I know more about his friends, who seem to be a lot more interesting. By the end I really could care less if Hector Lynch dies, as long as maybe one of his friends continued the story.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story felt to be more young adult fiction, which I guess is why some may have scored it more lowely. I did however think it was a good fast paced read, giving you insights to the Barbary life, both sides of the conflict between Muslims and Christians in the Med and nicely lined up to continue the story in yet another location of the 17th century.

[Darlene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Corsair is a series of events without much character development. By the time I got to the end, I didn't care what happened to the hero, or any other character.

[Molly Zibens · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this book but about 1/2 way through I couldn't put it down until it was done. Good book and I'm excited to read the next in the series .

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a huge Wilbur Smith fan, I love this kind of fiction novel. The story is good, the ending is just not so good in my view (although it’s made me get out book 2 which I bought at the same time as I was hoping for an enthralling new series to get my teeth into- to see what’s going to happen to Hector). (Also, anyone else hate it when you think you’ve still about 20 pages of your story left and it’s the first chapter of the next book and the end of your story has just cut off? Yeah, me too.) What frustrated me about this book is the endless names for groups of people within cities/ palaces etc that you lose track of who is who and what hierarchy they have over others. For me, the finding Elizabeth plot was also thin at best- a huge anti-climax. The best part of the book was the last 1/3 I would say where they finally put some distance between them and some questionable characters (don’t want to spoil the story). Put it this way, I’m intrigued enough to try the second one and because I’ve got it I’ll give it a whirl. Would I re-read this first one like I re-read all Wilbur Smiths? No. But I’m off to start number 2 and that’ll help me decide whether to continue or abandon.

[ParisianIrish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story, I've always been intrigued by this mysterious episode in Irish history when an entire village on the south east coast went missing. The author gives us very good historical context on the religious wars in Europe, Corsair piracy, white European slaves held by Sultans and the like in North Africa.
The Corsair / Barbary adventures around the Med are not often told, but they were a force to be reckoned with. Constantly harassing Italian, Venetian, Spanish, French, Greek shipping and trade.
The story follows Hector, a Irishman kidnapped by the Barbary pirates and taken to North Africa. Here he meets many different characters from different parts of Europe, all telling harrowing tales of their capture and subsequent captivity with the Muslim pirates.
A great pirate adventure story, with a superb Irish conext!

[Skuzzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

If it was possible to give a book less than one star, I would give this book less than one star.

If you're a Flagellant looking for an alternative, and more severe way to torture yourself, this is the perfect book for you. Dying of a terminal illness that leaves you bedridden and mired in a bog composed of your own feces is preferable to experiencing this literary travesty. Tim Severin must have made a deal with Satan when he wrote this, and must have nothing but the utmost contempt for humanity.

[Rupert Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable historic adventure yarn. Believable characters, good plot with twists and turns. Clearly written by a historian with much knowledge of the times - and particularly of the more obscure aspects of the interplay between the powers of the Mediterranean. As ever, a few quibbles on how much can possibly happen to one man - but such is the nature of adventure novels. On the whole I really enjoyed this book. gripping

[Val Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given that the book is entitled 'Corsair', I really expected Hector Lynch to spend more time . . . y'know, being a corsair.

The writing style is very straightforward and historically detailed in a way that I tend to enjoy when I'm in the right mood for it (weirdly reminiscent of my 'Little House on the Prairie' phase when I was small) and I was invested in the character’s journey. It's a reasonably good book. I just wanted more piracy.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable enough afternoon read. Lead character is not all that sympathetic and plot a little unlikely in that someone gets him out of every scrape.

[Shana McCarl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too boring to finish

[Pinudya · Rating 5 out of 5]

First time read Tim Severin's book. Impressive on how he developed the story and character. Definitely look for his other books.

[Elizabeth MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed the narrative and it satisfied a bit if my craving for a Pirate book.

I think my least favorite part of the novel was the dry character development. I didn't get to know Hector as well as I would have liked. I also found that he moved on really quickly from emotional moments, like when his friends/ aquentences die he shows very little grief or when finds out his sister is a concubine with a child and she tells him to leave her and forget her and he just accepts that and gives up on this person when finding her has been his main goal for the entire book.. You get to know him a bit better as the book goes on but he is still generally very nieve and two dimensional by the end and a lot of the plot drive is based on luck and random proficiencies he has or picks up and at the end of the book when he gets somewhat forced into being a Captain and it definitely follows his trend of just being lucky but I would have liked to see more growth from him or see him earn the role more.

I assume this book is mainly a drawn out set-up for future adventures. I say it's drawn out because a major part if this book is just world building, you clearly see the authors interest is in History and he does an excellent job of describing different aspects of roles and life during the time period. I loved how real everything felt and I enjoyed the miniature POV changes where you get to meet side characters but the consequences of that is that the book isn't really just about Hector and his adventures.

Overall I enjoyed the book enough that I would read the rest of the series and other novels by Tim.

[Lauren Swain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a while to get through this as there is a lot going on but then on the other hand I also found the pacing a little slow.

All in all, I did enjoy and look forward to carrying on with the series.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just kinda meh. The plot was exciting but boring to read.

[John Speight · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was rather dissapointed in this book after reading the Viking series that came before. While those had vikings actually going a viking, Corsair actually has almost no piracy in it aside from the opening raid and a few pages of drifting in the Mediterranean. Mostly its actually about how Hector is now a slave, but so very many people just look at him and decide that he is just so frikken cool and they need to be really nice to him and totally undermine the whole slave experience. The author seems to have done alot of research and then decided to put EVERY RANDOM FACTOID that he discovered in this book. Several pages are devoted to the fantasia, and it does nothing for the plot or character development. In fact there is almost no character development in this whole book. Stuff happens and is immediatly forgotten without consiquence. The worst part is how the book ends, instead of going out with a bang, it goes out with a sigh.

[Jorgen Schäfer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Severin’s Corsair starts out with a raid by a Turkish slave trader on a city at the Atlantic coast of Ireland, where Hector Lynch and his sister Elizabeth are taken prisoner and brought to the Africa to be sold as slaves. Before they arrive, though, they are separated, and Hector starts on a long journey to find his sister.

The book is set in the 16th century and is able to both draw the reader into a fascinating and fast-paced story, as well as to relay a very accurate historical view of those times. It concludes with a summary of which people and events in the book are historically accurate and where the author took some artistic liberties, another important part of a good historical novel for me.

All in all this is by far the best book I have read in recent times, a must read for fans of historical novels. The follow-up books promise to be about piracy in the Caribbean, so if that is your kind of story, start here, it sets the mood perfectly.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je suis plutôt surprise que l'auteur est classé cette série dans la section "jeunesse" sur son site. C'est peut-être en raison de l'âge du personnage principal qui a 17 ans. Néanmoins, j'ai trouvé ce livre ardu sur certains points. Le premier est le niveau de la langue. J'ai lu ce livre en version originale anglaise et malgré mon niveau d'anglais plutôt avancé, j'ai eu de la difficulté avec plusieurs mots dont le vocabulaire marin. Le deuxième point est les sujets abordés. Il ne faut pas oublié qu'il s'agit d'un récit d'un jeune homme enlevé par des pirates et qui est vendu comme esclave. Je reconnais que l'effort de documentation de l'auteur pour rapporter le plus fidèlement possible les conditions de vie des esclaves et des galériens de l'époque. Cependant, certains passages peuvent choqués un jeune public par en raison de leur violence et leur cruauté. Il s'agit tout de même d'un très bon roman d'aventure avec des personnage très attachants. J'ai très hâte de lire la suite!