Thrilling story, great plot and characters that keep you guessing right til the end. Great for fans of this genre.

Very interesting story! I'm always interested in naval stories, the cover really drew me in. This is a book about James Porter, a thief-turned-pirate. You'll find the book is well-researched. Also, lots of great pictures are included that help the story come alive.

If you're not into naval stories though, you'll find it less dynamic. What you notice right away, it's not a book for everyone. But that's fine! If you're curious, be sure to give it a try.

This read was inspired by the recent remake of Papillon in a way. James Porter, after all, was very much a Papillon of his time and place. The time being 1830s, the place being the penal colonies of Australia’s surrounding territories. Transport and living conditions as terrible as you’d imagine and Porter wasn’t having it, he tried to flee time and time again, in ways more and more daring and audacious. He’s gotten as far as South America, only to be extradited back. And yet throughout his adventures he remained a man resolute, punished but not destroyed by the system, not merely surviving, but attempting to have a life of his own, even seeing the very system that has chained him up get changed and upgraded to reflect a more civilized approach to prisoner management in agreement with more civilized times. So it’s a very interesting and compelling story as exciting as any work of fiction, although occasionally dragged down by nonfictional narrative. A lot of the material comes from Porter’s journals, which, of course, gives him a lot of control in his self representation and (possibly) skews the plot a certain way, but then again every man is very much the heroic figure of his own story and that is very much the case here. The book provides plenty of quotations from Porter himself and relevant figures. And there is also a very nice amount of photos, drawings, etc. to give the story a much welcome visual boost. It may not have been as dynamic of a book as, say, Papillon was of a movie, but it still read quite well, finishable easily in one day and told a doozy of a story. Unconquerable resolve on a quest for freedom…that’s legendary as far as literary themes go. Thanks Netgalley.