Chris Bunch (1943–2005)

Wow... this was going to be a longer review but the final final sequence was so incredibly dumb in its attempts to be awesome, that i’m feeling a little drained.
Also there wasn’t a single action sequence in this entire thing (and there are a lot of them) that i was able to completely follow but a lot of the hand-to-hand stuff seemed utterly ridiculous.

This started off really well actually as a sort of dickensian, dystopian nightmare. I was hopes of at least 4-stars, but the changes of scene and supporting cast made it impossible for me to keep caring.
I had become utterly uninvested by the time we entered the final quarter.

This is an easy read, but its mostly trash in my opinion.… (meer)

Bunch, Chris. Corsair. 2001. Orbit, 2002.
Chris Bunch was a prolific science fiction novelist and journalist. Corsair seems to have been meant as a series of maritime fantasies, but he died before he finished more than the first volume before his death in 2005. The hero, Gareth Radner, is a young man who dreams of leaving his fishing village and going to sea. When his village is attacked by slavers, his parents are killed, and he goes to live with his uncle who runs a trading company. He soon finds himself at sea working for his uncle, first as a ship’s purser, and ultimately as an independent corsair fighting the slave trade. There are magicians in this world, but they play a secondary role to what is otherwise a straightforward pirate adventure story, more in the tradition of Treasure Island than Horatio Hornblower. Readable. 3.5 stars.… (meer)