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Pirata

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Pirata

By: Simon Scarrow, T. J. Andrews
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
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About this listen

It is AD 25. Pirate ships strike terror in the hearts of those who brave the seas of the Roman Empire.

When young Telemachus gets the chance to join the crew of the merchant ship Selene, he's delighted to escape the rough streets of Piraeus. He knows little of the dangers of life at sea. And even past hardship has not prepared him for the terror on board when a pirate ship appears on the horizon....

The fight is bloody, but the result is never in doubt. Then the victorious pirate chief, Bulla, offers the beaten men a cruel choice: join us, or die. After surviving a brutal initiation rite, Telemachus impresses his new captain with his resourcefulness and strength and swiftly rises through the pirate ranks. But dangerous rivals talk of mutiny and murder. While Prefect Canis, notorious commander of the imperial fleet, will stop at nothing to take control of the Adriaticum from the pirate brotherhood.

Could Telemachus be the man to lead the pirate brotherhood and challenge Rome?

©2019 Simon Scarrow (P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Ltd Ancient Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Sea Adventures Thriller & Suspense War & Military Pirate Adventure Heartfelt Military Rome
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as much as i enjoyed the story..i just couldn't get my head around the 16 year old street kid becoming a pirate captain and getting the other captains to follow him in just a few months. just a bit too unreal. maybe a trilogy following his life and rise through the ranks would've suited better and made this a whole lot better. And the mention of his brother every other sentence was way too much...we got the gist of that pretty quickly so there was no need to fill in gaps with his brothers story.
this story just reeked of a 16 year okd boy in his bedroom writting out his fantasy.

an older lead character would've been better

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Fantastic, gripping story with excellent narration! I was looking for a pirate sea story and very happy I settled with this one.

Cracking Good Treasure!

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Not the usual standard I'm used to from a Simon Scarrow book. The characters were somewhat shallow, and the plot far too predictable. Mildly entertaining if you have nothing else to do, but a classic hero's journey with big signposts along the way as to what is coming next.

Spoilers following, so stop reading now if you don't want to know.

The major villain is 'determined to eliminate the pirates' because reasons, or more accurately based on a couple of short unconvincing exchanges with our hero that he parrots throughout the book. The minor villains are obvious and reflect characters in Scarrow's previous work. Nasty pirate number 1 is overcome, but then is quickly replaced by nasty pirate number 2. Perhaps Jonathan Keeble's (great) narration makes this even more evident for those who've listened to him perform previous Simon Scarrow books...

The premise of a 17 year old becoming the leader of a pirate gang, then subsequently a 'pirate king' are absolutely laughable. The authors do address this in a couple of places, but it is brushed over and too superficial. The idea would have been stronger with development of the character over a period of years rather than months. As an ex-sailor, it was never far from my mind that our hero is a teenager that was living on the streets a few months prior to taking on marines, Optio's and various other villains with ease, while commanding dozens or hundreds of men much older and more experience than him. Not at all realistic. Scarrow was able to pull it off with Cato...but not this time.

There were just a few too many holes in the plot for me.

Others may disagree ;)

Formulaic...

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Read well. Story so annoying.

SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

17 year old street rat in charge of a pirate fleet after 3-6months at sea. Besting grizzled Roman veterans in one on one combat repeatedly. Had to stop. Couldn’t take it anymore.

Love Simon Scarrow. Hate this book.

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