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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9781585748006
ISBN number: 1585748005
Label: The Lyons Press
Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 416
Printing Date: July 01, 2003
Publishing house: The Lyons Press
Sale Popularity Level: 55099
Studio: The Lyons Press
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Product Description:
In THE PYRATES, the author of the celebrated Flashman novels pays tongue-in-cheek homage to the swashbuckling books and movies that have always stirred his imagination. In these rollicking pages you'll find tall ships and desert islands; impossibly gallant adventurers and glamorous heroines; devilishly sinister cads and ghastly dungeons; improbably acrobatic duels and hair's-breadth escapes; and more plot twists than you can shake a rapier at. A deliriously entertaining combination of Errol Flynn action-adventure and Naked Gun pastiche.
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Rated by buyers 
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First something becomes a cornerstone of society then you parody it and that is when things start to get fun. Think of a book that you would write if you could jam every conceivable plot clique and character into 600 pages; Friaser did all that.
In typical buccaneer fashion there are damsels in distress, great escapes, sword fights, evil Spaniards, upright British officers, rouges a treasure, great men of the age and a whole lot more. There is also a handy 30 pages or so at the end to help the unwary separate fact from fiction.
A very good investment all round solid gold.
Rated by buyers -
A brilliant book by one of my favorite authors. I stumbled on it by accident, while looking for Flashman. In a sense, this is even better: Flashie can sometimes get repetitive, but Fraser keeps this one moving. Virtually everyone and everything plays out in strict accordance with Pirate Cliche, with the exception of the cliffhanger ending. Walls between the narrator and the audience are broken down, so that Fraser can explain, for instance, what the background music or camera-eye view would be if this were a movie (and it should be-think of "Airplane","M.P. and the Holy Grail" and a solid Errol Flynn movie rolled into one.) I could say a lot more, but why bother? You should be reading the book. Trust me.
Rated by buyers -
Now that I've read all of the Flashman series, I went searching for something else written by George MacDonald Fraser. I came upon a book that he wrote some time ago entitled "Pyrates" (yes, that's the way he spells it).
This book is a hilarious spoof on all the pirate movies of the late 1930s...Errol Flynn, John Barrymore, et al. Our heroes are handsome down to their chins, our heroines are "real" blondes, at least according to Fraser (taking after Mickey Spillane's "I, The Jury"). Our villains are so evil that one even keeps losing his dentures.
But, as always, Fraser's writing has me guffawing as he (writing from the vantage of the 1980s) portrays things happening in the 1600s in current terms; ie, castaway sailors in the Indian Ocean were arrested by the Burmese Coast Guard and found guilty by a Burmese court for "fishing without a license".
This is one heck of a read.
Rated by buyers -
This has long been one of my favorite books. I've read it over and over so that I need to replace the copy that is falling apart. One does need to be familiar with the old pirate movies of the 1940s and 1950s to appreciate some of the jokes, but it is definitely in a class with the sort of antics that occur in Disney's Captain Jack Sparrow movies. Plus it has the added bonus of telling you what is real history and what is pure fancy on Fraser's part. My favorite character is the anti-hero, Col. Blood, who really did exist, no doubt with the same personality traits that Fraser has given him. I not only am ready to replace my copy but prepared to buy others as holiday gifts for the Captain Jack fanciers on my list.
Rated by buyers -
Imagine the fantasy and imagination of The Princess Bride; take the joie de vivre of Pirates Of The Caribbean; mix it a little with the eccentricity of Carry On Don't Lose Your Head (leaving out the tackier parts of the humour) and then take each of your favourite pirate stereotypes (bad guys, good guys, grey spots, needlessly evil Spaniards, sword fights and derring-do) and turn it into one of the most joyous and hilarious books you'll ever read. Oh, and some of the characters really existed, too, just to add a slight historical edge.
The Pyrates is perhaps the funniest book you'll read all year, perhaps it's the funniest book you'll read in many years. For a long, long time I thought it was the funniest book I was ever going to read.
One gets the clear impression while reading this book that GM Fraser, the author, has thrown caution to the wind. Normally his books are considered, paced and quite recognisably scholarly, for all their adventure and humour. With Pyrates, however, we get a writer having the most fun he's had in years, and sharing it with his readers.
Reviews can be used for many purposes; the purpose of a review may be to critique a novel from a particular standpoint, or it may be to throw interesting light on it by placing it in a broad context. The possibilities are almost endless. In this case, I'm going to nail my colours to the crow's nest:
I'm writing this review simply to tell you how much I loved this book, pass on some of the happiness it gave me, and thoroughly recommend that you get a copy of it as soon as you can. I hope it makes you laugh out loud as often, and as heartily, as I did!
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