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Captain Blood - His Odyssey
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Reviews for Captain Blood - His Odyssey
Rating: 4.157960199004975 out of 5 stars
4/5
402 ratings27 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pirates of the Caribbean!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another classic bites the dust!This week my intent was to read "Captain Blood", considered a classic, and a book that's been sitting on my shelves/e-reader for far too long.I enjoyed "Captain Blood", partly for the story, and partly for the verbal fencing. I loved how the title character was able to handle those who were under the impression that they were "somebody". Even the uncle of the love interest, Arabella, can't match wits or swords with Peter Blood.The arrogance of the aristocracy of the time period is well portrayed, and the passages describing the battle tactics and life on the ship were interesting. None of the descriptions were distracting from the plot, which sailed right along. I was surprised to discover that this book was over 300 pages...it read much like a substantially shorter story.Recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed this swashbuckler and am glad I came off my high horse to do so!
Sabatini is a wonderful writer and was very famous in early Hollywood days. I had thought he was "earlier" than that. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love me some pirates.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Peter Blood is a doctor who does not want to be involved in the politics. This is seventeenth century England and monarchies are ever changing. Peter Blood is accused of treason when he treats on of his patients who happens to be a rebel. He is convicted and is sold into slavery to a plantation in West Indies. He escapes and gets into buccaneering ways. He has many adventures and this is a excellent narration of them.This book is fast paced and very entertaining. The language is Dickensonian. It has adventure and a little bit of romance. A 4/5 read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I hadn't heard of Sabatini until quite recently, when I saw him credited as one of Arturo Perez-Reverte's major influences - along with Alexandre Dumas. That was enough to make me seek out a book!
This 1922 novel is the story that the movie starring Errol Flynn was based on - and it is indeed, as one might expect, a swashbuckling pirate adventure.
Peter Blood, an educated doctor with a military background, runs afoul of the law for giving medical aid to a political rebel against King James Stuart.
Condemned as a traitor, he's shipped off to the Caribbean and sold as a slave - where, of course, he chastely falls in love with his owner's daughter, Arabella.
His medical training gives him opportunities other slaves do not have - and when the chance comes, he makes an escape, seizes a ship, and turns pirate -
leaving his true love behind.
Many piratical adventures ensue, giving the book somewhat of the feeling of a serial - but enough of a plot runs through all Blood's escapades to tie it all together.
A fun, quick read, regardless of the novel's age - it's definitely withstood the test of time. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Growing up, this was my favourite book. It continues to hold this position today. A cracking adventure with a beautiful use of language. I do love the work of Rafael Sabatini - and this is his writing at its best.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5McBooks Press began some years ago issuing a new “Classics of Nautical Fiction” series (pant! pant!) No doubt related to the success of the O’Brian books. Sabatini wrote several swashbuckling tales during the early twentieth century. Captain Blood was one turned into a famous movie starring Errol Flynn. Typical of many books written before the enlightened days of political correctness, it suffers from racism and sexism. The romance is a bit mushy, but what the heck, it’s a rousing good story. Peter Blood is a doctor in England who makes the mistake of aiding a rebel fighting King James. He is charged with treason, comes within an inch of hanging, is sent to Jamaica as a slave, then sold to the treacherous and meanspirited Colonel Bishop. The colonel’s niece Arabella — ravishingly beautiful, of course — takes a special interest in Blood, who manages to escape bondage with numerous of his fellow slaves when Spaniards ransack the town. Blood takes a Spanish ship by force and becomes a pirate, preying only on the wicked Spanish, mind you; after all, he’s still a noble Englishman at heart, and he names his new ship. . . well, you guess. In the end he . . . well, you guess. It’s all in rousing good fun and is saved from being completely trivial by Blood’s character, who has some wicked ripostes and dialogue. Faced with an obnoxious French admiral who demands that Peter’s captains be more obsequious, Blood responds: “I am happy to assure you that the reminder is unnecessary. I am by way of accounting myself a gentleman, little though I may look like one at present; and I should not account myself that were I capable of anything but deference to those whom nature or fortune may have placed above me, or to those being placed beneath me in rank may labour under a disability to resent my lack of it.” Beats television any day. No commercials either. Try it instead of the Super Bowl, no wait, I guess that’s already over or is it?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For some reason what I remnember from reading this is the opening when the hero is conmviced by Judge Jeffeys for giving medical care to one of Monmouth's rebels and in turn tells Jeffreys that he is doomed to a horrible death. Beyond that, I enjoyed both the book and the movie based on it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5At the beginning of great popular historical novels, there are often excellent historical plots. The book starts at the end of the attempt by James Scott first duke of Monmouth - an illegitimate son of Charles II - to dethrone and replace England's Catholic King James II. When his mostly popular "Whig" forces are defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685, Peter Blood has to reluctantly leave his geraniums tended so carefully in his British garden, in the town of Bridgewater. Monmouth was executed for treason on 15 July, 1685. Peter Blood, a former soldier retrained as a Doctor rides close to the battlefield as remnants of the beaten army flee the repression of the victorious soldiers. For having showed compassion for an injured nobleman of the defeated faction, Peter Blood is summarily arrested without protection of Habeas Corpus to become one of the victims of the "Bloody Assizes" of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys - 25 August 1685. In this parody of justice, instead of releasing the innocent doctor from unlawful detention, the angry judge personally sentences him to slavery - along with 800 of the 1500 judged by Jeffreys- and to unpaid plantation work to the West Indies for life. Sabatini reminds in a very comic manner that this Judge Jeffreys is to die from a bladder stone as he in fact did, after the Glorious Revolution, in the Tower of London in 1689. The elegant prose of Mr. Sabatini crafts delicately the fate of his hero who is to rise again in the face of adversity and Royal absolutism. Fortunately for us, the reader, and regrettably for Peter Blood, in 1685 the Glorious Revolution was still three years in the making giving ample time to transform himself from plantation slave - though spared hard labor and beatings because he tends to the Island's Governor's gout - into a pirate.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Gr...I wanted to like this more than I did. Pirates! Rafael Sabatini, who wrote Scaramouche, one of my favorite books! But no. On top of being rambling, ranting, and overly episodic and without much point other than "I did it all for the respect of a woman," it was hypocritical! Captain Blood is MADE A SLAVE in the West Indies and the big deal was escaping slavery from the planter, then from various governments...Well, Blood then completely looks aside from slavery throughout the book. Negroes this and that, come here, do this, then disappear. It's not enough to assign menial tasks to nobodies, no, they specifically have to be Negroes. GAH. Published in 1922, so he should have figured it out by then. You know what? It wasn't realistic then, either. I just could not get over the hypocrisy of it. Could not.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Written 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, 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
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Peter Blood, forced into piracy, never abandons his sense of honor. Pining for the unattainable and beautiful Arabella, he names his ship after her and paints it red. With an amazing gift for strategy, he leads his buccaneers to victory despite overwhelmingly poor odds. Every chapter was a delight in this high seas adventure.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5this story, along with Treasure Island sets the standard for Caribbean pirate stories... establishes the role-types for the swashbuckling handsome pirate captain, and the villainous stupid governor/admiral/general who always has a beautiful daughter who falls for the pirate captain... loads of fun and an easy read!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chronicling the adventures in life and love of a gentleman pirate, Rafael Sabatini not only documents the Monmouth Rebellion in this piece of historical fiction, he also tackles issues of feminism, disillusionment with politics and religion, issues between nations, questioning corrupt officials, the spirit of piracy and other social outcasts--it has everything. Sabatini was a master of historical fiction, creating works such as Scaramouche and Black Swan, yet he was overlooked by every literary scholar since the publishing of his novels, and remains underrated to this day. Captain Blood IS the best piece of historical fiction I've read, and it can even be seen as a product of it's time, as it was published in post-WWI England. 5 stars for Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Some books provide pure pleasure from beginning to end, and this is one of them. Sabatini is a brilliant storyteller, and this is surely the ultimate pirate tale. Except that Peter Blood is no pirate. Rather, he is a man unjustly made a slave, who, despite the continuing injustices done him by the English, Spanish, and French, remains true to an inner code of honor that even extends itself to alter the natures of the predominately motley crew who serve under him After reading this, the surface joys of watching Johnny Depp as a pirate seem absurd. While Sabatini's characters fit mostly into neat stereotypes, he fleshes them out through brilliantly rendered action scenes and superb, delicious dialogue so that the whole story takes on a real life and provides a whole world for the reader to revel in. There are no dull moments, just a series of cascading pleasures as the story draws to an immensely satisfying conclusion.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Captain BloodRafael SabatiniAugust 25, 2010The true and original tale, exactly the same plot as the movie with Errol Flynn, with the character of the physician and pirate Peter Blood. He is wrongly sold into bondage in a sugar plantation after a rebellion in England, daringly seizes a Spanish ship come to attack the colony, then proceeds on his career as a pirate, before changes of fortune make him again a respectable man. It is a classic of romance with the planter’s daughter, mistaken motivations, sea battles, treachery and sword fights. Read in a Kindle edition in about 2 evenings, an escape.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved this book. Nice, involved plot, with a great swashbuckling hero.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This one's a re-read... Just as gripping as I remembered it. Gross racial politics, but that's a product of the time it was written in. And it sort of rollicks along right until the end. I might not give this to a kid - too many racist bits - but if you're an adult, and can recognize them, it brings you right back to the days when you could get thoroughly engrossed in an old fashioned adventure.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved Sabatini's swashbuckling, good guy, bad situation epic. Captain Blood is a fictional compilation of several well known pirates a provides a nice escape to Caribbean.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An enjoyable pirate romp. I don't think it's Sabatini's best, despite being the most famous due to Errol Flynn's portrayal in the film. The characters are a bit over-the-top and some of the naval battles aren't that probable...but it's still fun and we're not reading this as a treatise on naval warfare, are we?
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The best pirate book I've ever read. Historical, a little romance, adventure. A nice break from scholarly reading- not serious at all. I certainly didn't know what to expect. enough variety in the fights that it was not boring even though there was the same type of thing several times.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The movie with Errol Flynn was based on this book.(very loosely).Sabatini was the premier adventure writer of his day. His books were the Star Wars and Star Trek of his day, and should be read with that in mind. Writing styles and stories would be concidered cliche today but still fun to read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5well, no suprise this is a classic, its suprisingly exciting: peter blood is an educated doctor who is forced into piracy after being cruelly enslaved for a crime he did not commit, the rest is all super exciting=romance, adventure, intrigue, all on the high seas
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I didn't enjoy this book. It was TOO swashbuckling and over-the-top for my taste. I guess I should have known by the title--I mean, it's hard for me to even buy the main character's name, much less all his adventures. I quit after about 75 pages.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Exciting page turner. Very well-written novel based on the real-life adventures and exploits of Captain Henry Morgan.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I always feel silly when I list a book titled Captain Blood on my lists of favorite books, but it's just so good! The book reads like a movie, which is no surprise since Sabatini was a screenwriter as well as a novelist. (This book became a film starring Errol Flynn.) It's extremely visual, and moves along at a very fast pace. The characters are engaging and personable, with all of them displaying strengths and weaknesses, faults and virtues. The title character is particularly well-drawn, and inspires the same admiration in the reader as a member of his crew would undoubtedly feel. An excellent and playful sea adventure.