The Fortunes Of Captain Blood

This is the good stuff! If you've ever sailed with Conan of Cimmmeria, been in a tavern brawl with the Musketeers or swung over to the deck of a hostile ship with Errol Flynn, Rafael Sabatini is the mother lode. Here are pirates of the brave, capable and eloquent variety, and women worth risking life and limb over. If you're new to Captain Peter Blood, here's a once-over: the core and original book is "Captain Blood His Odyssey" and read that first if you can. Sabatini subsequently wrote "The Chronicles of Captain Blood" which is also sometimes titled "Captain Blood Returns" and this one, "The Fortunes of Captain Blood" but both subsequent volumes take place between the chapters of the original novel, deepening it, but not changing Peter Blood's happy ending. "Fortunes" is effectively a short story collection set in the Caribbean c. 1687--the great era of doubloons and buccaneering. Sabatini knows the period, understands naval warfare at this level to his fingertips and is the best dialogue writer ever to also describe swordfights--and no, I do not exclude Dumas. Buy this book. Buy all the Captain Blood books, and while you're at it, order "The Black Swan."

The Best Book is Captain Blood. That 2nd Best Book is The Chronicles of Captain Blood. And this, The Fortunes of Captain Blood, is the 3rd Best Book! Order it and you will agree! The stories are so entertaining, refreshingly unromantic, and hugely adventurous! But do make sure you read Captain Blood and the Chronicles of Captain Blood (also known as Captain Blood Returns). There are six main adventures, each divided up into several segments. Read a chapter at night, and in your subsequent slumber dream of swashbuckling, buccaneering, forty-gun frigates, and a highly moral, greatly-to-be-admired, sardonic physician-turned-pirate! Your life is not complete if you haven't read the Captain Blood series!

Raphael Sabatini apparently knew a good thing when he wrote it. The original Captain Blood was a runaway best seller. So Sabatini began cranking out further adventures of Captain Blood that were essentially collections of unrelated stories. Each chapter of "Fortunes" relates a complete stand-alone vignette, not related to the other chapters of the book. You won't find a continuous narrative, and not much in the way of Blood's pining for the unreachable Arabella Bishop. But if you are interested in a rock-em, sock-em collection of great, salty short stories starring Sabatini's sympathetic hero Peter Blood, then "Fortunes" is for you. Be sure that you first read the original "Captain Blood, His Odyssey", also sometimes sold simply as "Captain Blood". Then, once you are hooked on the main story, get a copy of "Fortunes" and enjoy even more piratical high-seas hijinks from everyone's favorite soldier of fortune. As a delightful little "bonus", see if you are a careful enough reader to pick out the error in Sabatini's time-line. You'll have to remember the original Captain Blood story, and then in "Fortunes", read the story of The Eloping Hidalga. Something between the two doesn't add up. See if you can spot the mistake.

This is another collection of Sabatini's short stories featuring Peter Blood presented in serial order so the book can be read cover to cover or one story at a time. The plots center around Captain Blood's clever outwitting of his many opponents and incidents brought about by his fame in the Caribbean, including an imposter besmirching his reputation and a clever adversary who sees through one of the Captain's many alternate personas. Highly readable and very enjoyable.