Ambushed by a gang of hardened sea robbers headed for the South Sea, Hector Lynch, pirate and fugitive, is obliged to navigate their vessel on a nightmarish journey through the stormy seas off Cape Horn and when his ruthless shipmates abandon him in Peru, he learns that Maria, the young Spanish woman who stole his heart and whose false testimony saved him from the gallows, is now living on the remote Ladrones, the Thief Islands, on the far side of the Pacific Ocean. His epic voyage to reach her will bring him face to face with a Japanese warlord who submits trespassers to his island to a deadly duel and with a naked Stone Age tribe who file their teeth to sharp points and sail boats that outpace the fastest galleon. In "Pirate: Sea Robbers" Tim Severin takes the reader on an enthralling adventure through the seventeenth-century world of the seafarers who risked scurvy, shipwreck and drowning in hopes of reaping fortunes in spice and treasure.
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.
Read this book in 2009, and its the 3rd volume of the delightful "Pirate" series.
In this tale. after escaping Coxon and his other tribulations, we'll get to know him now as a sea-robber, and in search of the woman with whom has fallen in love with, Maria.
From the very cold coasts of Cape Horn to Peru, after notifying the Spanish Governor in Peru of his brother's fate and subsequent death, Hector is rewarded with the whereabouts of Maria, and that is on the Ladrones, the Thief Islands, on the far side of the Pacific.
On their way to the Thief Islands, they will have to deal with several dangerous encounters and a duel with a Japanese swordsman, before they reach their destination.
Reaching the Thief Islands, Hector and his friends will ally themselves with the local people called, the Chamorro, to raid the Spanish fort in an effort to free the Island and reunite himself with Maria.
What is to follow is a delightful addition to this splendid "Pirate" series, and that's why I like to call tghis episode: "An Excellent Sea Robber"!
Another interesting adventure where the author cunningly manoeuvres Hector and his friends from Africa to South America and across the Pacific to Asia. In this way we get to see lots of the world at this time. The engaging story clearly makes up for the irritants in the book, I find Hector himself a distinctly irritating person and the way he pursues his love Maria is just annoying. I get hough that this is what drives the story from place to place and disaster to disaster. Despite my criticisms, which I think I made for both previous books in the series I did overall enjoy this book and will read the next one.
The Hector Lynch series continues to be entertaining and fresh—each book is perfectly matched to different regions which illustrate the way cultures clashed and migrated (and discovered each other) during this “high seas” time. I do like that he’s adding a little romance to Hector Lynch’s life in this one and it’s more to motivate his character forward. I continue to be entertained. Fun reads.
Sea Robber by Tim Severin follows Hector Lynch in search for his love from the west coast of Africa to the Americas and over the Pacific to the Philippines. As in the other books, Lynch visits exotic places at the ends of the world and experiences many different cultures.
The books by Tim Severin always strike me as less of a novel and more of a travel report with some fictional elements. I had the impression that this is even more strongly pronounced in this book than the others I read. The characters are thin and the plots are straightforward and predictable. In some parts of the book I could actually recognize the step-by-step outline the author had written down for the chapter. Meet the antagonist, then Hector gets caught, then he gets rescued by, then … And each step got a paragraph or two. This can be quite disappointing, but if you read it as a historical travel report with fictional decoration, it’s an excellent book.
If you are looking for historical documentary of various cultures and places, and can look past the somewhat glaring shortcomings as a fiction book, this book is for you.
I have to say that it annoys me no end when a love interest is brought into a story and suddenly the whole book goes down hill. If you can't write a convincing and engaging love story, then don't have a love interest in your story. I kind of feel like Severin ran out of steam by the end of this book and just wanted to finish it. There are engaging parts, but pretty much every time the love interest is in a scene she is either a second thought, pushed to the back and almost forgotten, or she's this unfleshed out meek thing that Hector can't seem to function around. Essentially she is just motivation, an adventure hook, for Hector, but I guess that's what all the women in the series have been so far. Really disappointing as she's the only female character who gets more than a handful of lines, and she made quite a promising entrance into the story.
Une lecture en dent de scie. Bien que ce soit un livre avec beaucoup d'actions et de rebondissements (peut-être trop), il y a quelque chose qui était présent dans le tome précédent qui manque à ce livre. C'est peu être à cause d'un manque de danger réel ou des moments où Hector Lynch agisait ''out of character''. Néanmoins, l'histoire et surtout le contexte historique sont assez captivants pour que je termine la série.
The whole trilogy really are a wonderful read, however, I did find them very hard to get into.book one, I almost gave up on, the first hundred or so pages I found a hard slog, but after that the characters are brilliant, all in all loved the trilogy
I do enjoy Tim Severin's stories, but have to laugh at just how many problems one man can encounter. Interesting historical notes at the end which informed me that several of the characters encountered were actually around at the time, as were some of the pirate ships.
A great read. I spent a couple of sleepless nights as I raced to finish the book. To me the characters stepped out of the pages and became real. Best story since I devoured Biggles as a lad.