Rating: 
Summary: I wish I had written this!
Review: I am a huge fan of Fraser's "Flashman" series, and have enjoyed "Mr. American" and "Black Ajax" as well. "Pyrates" only enhanced my appreciation for this author. It is one of the few books I have ever read that actually made me laugh out loud. It is hilarious from start to finish, especially the side comments from the pirate "greek chorus" at different spots throughout the book. You don't have to be a fan of swashbucklers to like this story. You just need to enjoy well-written, well-crafted, and unbelievably witty writing. Thank you, Mr. Fraser...you are a master of your craft. I know you wrote this book while working on screenplays for Hollywood -- any chance THIS story will ever become a movie? We can only hope!
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Someone else wrote a review and expressed the same sentiment I have. This would make a wonderful movie. I picked up a Pan edition (U.K.) several years ago and have read it a half-dozen times.This is as much a book about Pirates as Home Game (by Paul Quarington) was a book about baseball. We have the perfect hero in Captain Avery. Virtuous, handsome, and painfully "perfect". And the perfect anti-hero in Captain Blood. Rakish, clever, and a rogue. Mix in a cast of characters you would find in every b-movie Pirate flick, and throw in a Monty Pythonesque sense of the absurd and you will end up with The Pyrates. Fun from beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Someone else wrote a review and expressed the same sentiment I have. This would make a wonderful movie. I picked up a Pan edition (U.K.) several years ago and have read it a half-dozen times. This is as much a book about Pirates as Home Game (by Paul Quarington) was a book about baseball. We have the perfect hero in Captain Avery. Virtuous, handsome, and painfully "perfect". And the perfect anti-hero in Captain Blood. Rakish, clever, and a rogue. Mix in a cast of characters you would find in every b-movie Pirate flick, and throw in a Monty Pythonesque sense of the absurd and you will end up with The Pyrates. Fun from beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: One of the funniest books ever written
Review: The Pyrates is to swashbuckling pirate stories what The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is to science fiction. I'm not a fan of Fraser's Flashman books (I was never able to get into them), but this book is laugh-out-loud funny and one of my all-time favorites.
Rating:
Summary: One of the funniest books ever written
Review: The Pyrates is to swashbuckling pirate stories what The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is to science fiction. I'm not a fan of Fraser's Flashman books (I was never able to get into them), but this book is laugh-out-loud funny and one of my all-time favorites.
Rating:
Summary: A historical laugh riot!
Review: This book is a dream to read, especially when you get to the end and find the authors notes on the basis of the characters (one is Captain Hook as played by Basil Rathbone, etc.). 'Appy Dan Pew alone is worth the price of admission on his ship Le Grenouille Frenetique (The Frantic Frog). There are duels, fair maidens (of many types), every version of pirate imaginable, and musicians diving for Korngold music. If you enjoy a good pirate yarn and want a good laugh, I can think of no better book. Yes, there is a short-coming here and there (the end is more of a second-rate fade out than an actual conclusion), but this is less important than the parts that are SO right. Read and laugh -- if you can't laugh at this, may you be keelhauled twice!
Rating:
Summary: The Pyrates
Review: This book is witty and inciteful. It is less historical as it is humorous. I totally enjoyed it. Anyone with an affection for old Hollywood Swashbuckler movies, will love it.
Rating:
Summary: The Pyrates
Review: This book is witty and inciteful. It is less historical as it is humorous. I totally enjoyed it. Anyone with an affection for old Hollywood Swashbuckler movies, will love it.
Rating:
Summary: Jolly Good
Review: With only three books to be read in the Flashman series, I decided to give one of Fraser's other books a chance and couldn't have wished for better beach reading.
As a long time lover of the pyrate genre Fraser made this into a truly enjoyable tale, over the top throughout and brimming with endless anachronisms. While the story's protagonist Ben Avery shares Flashman's ability to always get the girl, his rigid and often rather unpractical code of honor is the very opposite of old Harry's self serving cowardice. That part of Flashy's personality is here covered by colonel Blood, who, however, lacks the former's ways of attracting the opposite gender.
Especially, since Fraser is so well steeped in the pyrate history this spoof with its continuous side commentary reads like the best Monty Python movie. In all a great farce.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful read, a great story told by a great storyteller.
Review: You've seen them countless times before, the dashing heros and evil villains in those classic pirate movies. But you've never seen them as they are in George MacDonald Fraser's labor of love, The Pyrates. Fraser, author of the Flashman books of historical fiction, wrote The Pyrates as his personal tribute to the many pleasurable hours he spent with Daniel Defoe and Robert Louis Stevenson, Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn. Giving a nod to both Hollywood and history, Fraser has crafted a wickedly funny version of the English navy's run-in with the Coast Brethren. With tongue firmly in cheek, Fraser launches his Hero, Captain Ben Avery, on a mission that quickly goes astray. Forced to team up with the Anti-hero, Colonel Thomas Blood (British Army, cashiered), Ben must recover rare jewels o' price, rescue the Heroine, Lady Vanity, from the fell clutches o' evil pyrates, and rid the Spanish Main o' every tarry-handed mother's son in the Brotherhood. For spice, Fraser throws in a fascinating array of knaves, kings, despots, wayward admirals, Lost Indian Tribes, kidnapped damsels, thieves, sultry piratical temptresses, and shifty pawnbrokers. The Pyrates is a splendid read, a great story told by a great storyteller, and I'm past due for a new copy. But this book also shows Fraser's immense skill as a writer. He breathes life into every character, no matter how minor the role, and he writes with a precision and economy that leaves me amazed. So clap yer deadlights on The Pyrates, wi' a wannion, and blame y'rself if you leave emptyhanded, for this be a right fine read, by the Powers, devil a doubt, or scupper me wi' a marlinspike...else.
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