Corsair

By: James L. Cambias

Narrated by: Victor Bevine

In the early 2020s, two young, genius computer hackers, Elizabeth Santiago and David Schwartz, meet at MIT, where Schwartz is sneaking into classes, and have a brief affair. David is amoral and out for himself and soon disappears. Elizabeth dreams of technology and space travel and takes a military job after graduating.

Nearly 10 years later, David is setting himself up to become a billionaire by working in the shadows under a multiplicity of names for international thieves, and Elizabeth works in intelligence, preventing international space piracy. With robotic mining in space becoming a lucrative part of Earth's economy, shipments from space are dropped down the gravity well into the oceans.

David and Elizabeth fight for dominance of the computer systems controlling ore drop placement in international waters. If David can nudge a shipment 500 miles off its target, his employers can get there first and claim it legally in the open sea. Each one intuits that the other is their real competition but can't prove it. And when Elizabeth loses a major shipment, she leaves government employ to work for a private space company to find a better way to protect shipments. But international piracy has very high stakes and some very evil players. And both Elizabeth and David end up in a world of trouble. Space pirates and computer hackers...James L. Cambias' Corsair is a thrilling near-future adventure!

©2015 James L. Cambias (P)2015 Audible Inc.

Good and Plenty

Pirates with computers! A near future action-adventure with plot twists that surprise and delight. There were so many tense moments that I almost started smoking.

The characters were developed perfectly.

Little slow to start because the characters had to be developed, but once the story got going, it was really difficult to put the book down...or in this case, the headphones!

Addictive listen full of action/suspense and humor

If you could sum up Corsair in three words, what would they be?

Space Pirates! Hackers!

What did you like best about this story?

It was just a fun/addictive listen. It moved at a very good pace and had some bits of humor tossed in all the action/suspense.

What does Victor Bevine bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Narration was very good. Just the right amount of personality/inflection to really relay the tone of the book.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Made me laugh. Also was a book I didn't want to put down.

Dull

This is a personal opinion. The book is well-written. Characters are varied. Plotting is ok. The narration is professional. Yet the book lacks 'soul' for want of a better description. I find it unlikely that anything the Air Force is involved in would have such lax security for a project it is even remotely interested in. That's where I stopped reading.

It reads like those block-buster movies that have lots of scene changes to build the plot. And, like those block-busters, you are left with balony instead of steak. When I start to skip to the end of chapters to get on with the story, I realize I don't want to finish it.

P.S. I am a tremendous fan of 'The Martian'. Corsair does not compare.

Decent, worth the listen.

The story was pretty good, captivating with enough uncertainty to keep it interesting. Victor Bevine, as always, was phenomenal. He makes it worthwhile by his performance alone.