The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: hilarious!
Review: Funniest book I've read all year! Short & sweet. Monty-Python-esque in its delivery. The footnotes are the best part. Guaranteed to crack you up! Check it out at your local bookstore. Once you pick it up you'll be finished with it anyway...it's that funny and that short!

Rating:
Summary: Mmmmmmm! Ham!
Review: If Monty Python wrote a short book about ham-loving pirates that encountered Charles Darwin and his "Man-panzee" that proved we evolved from apes this would be it!

Rating:
Summary: A quick, silly read
Review: It's Very Silly. As the title would indicate.
Here's the blurb from the back cover:

Dear Reader,
I'm choosing to picture you as an attractive young woman, about nineteen, perhaps reading this 150 years from now, while in bed wearing just a daring negligee, tanned thighs stretched out on those silk sheets of yours. You're no doubt wondering why the men of your time couldn't be a bit more like the charming piratical rogue writing these words, instead of the monstrous oversized brains they've probably evolved into. Well, what are you waiting for? With your advanced scientific knowledge it's no doubt a cinch to reconstitute me from just a few of my piratical cells, and to this end I have stuck a couple of hairs from my glossy beard into the back cover. I take it you still have hams in the future? A nice big ham waiting for me would be a treat.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy my adventure.
The Pirate Captain
Port Royal Jamaica, 1838

See, the Pirate Captain mistakenly attacks Charles Darwin's ship The Beagle, and...
Nah, go read it for yourself. It won't take long, and you'll get some good chuckles and guffaws.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastical! Piratical! Anachronistical!
Review: Part of the fun of reading Gideon Defoe's The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists is picking up on the anachronisms that litter the book like dead lubbers. Some are obvious - Post-It Notes - and some are less so - things in the Natural History Museum in London that will be there long past the year the story takes place [brontosaurus wouldn't make it into the Natural History Museum until at least 50 years after the story takes place]. The basic story goes like this - pirates capture Charles Darwin and the crew of the Beagle and they go to London and have an adventure. If the reader has issues with suspension of disbelief, then this slim volume will be tough going. Some knowledge of pirates and the real people in Darwin's cohort are necessary to get a lot of the jokes [Darwin's pet bulldog in the story is named Huxley]. The humor is very British [although understandable on this side of the pond] and very silly. Although they probably won't have a lot of the background necessary to find it funny, this book is safe for young readers, the worst things in it being very mild innuendo and swear words represented by assorted punctuation marks. This is the type of book you can knock off in a couple of hours on a lazy afternoon while sipping rum in the sun. I doubt it will ever be a bestseller [and it didn't win the author the hand of the young lady he was trying to impress], but if you like pirates, Darwin, and have a sense of humor, you should find the book a short and enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Hilarious!
Review: The Pirate Captain, a dashing man very fond of ham, attacks The Beagle-thanks to a false tip from Black Bellamy, the pirate with a knife between his teeth-and, finding no treasure, becomes involved in an adventure with the not-yet-famous Darwin. Darwin's brother, Erasmus, has been kidnapped by the "blackhearted Bishop of Oxford" to keep Darwin from exhibiting Mister Bobo, who he (Darwin) has trained to communicate with word cards. The Pirate Captain and his crew return to London to assist Darwin in rescuing Erasmus, a feat which forces all the pirates to pretend to be scientists, and some of them to pretend to be scientists pretending to be women.

What do you mean it doesn't make any sense? It's not supposed to! That's the beauty of this little gem: with one outrageous chapter after another, The Pirates! is full of puns, jokes and allusions. It's purposefully written with no sense of historical accuracy, adding an extra layer of fun, and uses every piratical cliché and stereotype to the fullest humorous advantage. Scurvy, a hot air balloon, ham, a grisly murder machine, swashbuckling, an exciting chase scene in the Museum of Natural History, talking primates, breakfast cereal and pirates! What's not to love?

The Pirates! is Defoe's first novel and, for me, is the best comic novel debut I have ever had to fortune to read. Not only was it hard to put down, but it demanded to be read aloud, first by me to my husband, and then by him back to me as he read it! The book cover says that he "wrote the Pirates! to convince a woman to leave her boyfriend for him. She didn't". I just hope that her failure to follow through won't stop him from writing another Pirate Adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Harr - This Be A Hilarious Book, Maties
Review: This is a superb comic novel. If you like pirate stories, or if you like ham, or even if you like scientists, you should purchase this book immediately.