Your Humble Blogger may be perfectly capable of perusing the new book shelf at the library without picking up a book with a title like The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, but why would such a capacity ever be exercised? Particularly when it worked out so well this time.
Any lengthy note about this book would undoubtedly spoil it (and be longer than it), so I’ll just say that if, on the whole, a completely flaky story about Pirates! told as if the only information the author had ever heard about pirates was in the pages of Boys’ Own Adventure Stories’n’Stuff appeals to you, then this book would appeal to you. Yes, yes, there’s a zeppelin. Yes, Mister Bobo defeats the Holy Ghost in hand-to-hand combat. Yes, there’s ham. Yes, the Pirate Captain’s beard glitters with piratical cunning. Yes, the reader gets to find out what the best thing about pirating is.
Honestly, my reaction to the book (after the sniggering had died down) was that this was precisely the sort of book I imagine I could write myself, if I had the discipline and an editor who would throw away the three hundred least funny pages. This means that however good this book is, there’s a good chance that for the next one, the editor will only throw away two hundred pages, making the book 30% less funny.
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.