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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
DNF at about a third way in.
I had high expectations of this book, so it's rather disappointing that it just doesn't live up to them. I love the original PotC trilogy, and the idea of more backstory was very appealing. Unfortunately, I don't find the writing very good , and to be honest, I feel that every page I've read up until now barely contributes anything to the story. If this hadn't been so many pages, I probably would've finished it, but I'm not going to force myself through 650 pages of something I don't really like all that much.
I had high expectations of this book, so it's rather disappointing that it just doesn't live up to them. I love the original PotC trilogy, and the idea of more backstory was very appealing. Unfortunately, I don't find the writing very good , and to be honest, I feel that every page I've read up until now barely contributes anything to the story. If this hadn't been so many pages, I probably would've finished it, but I'm not going to force myself through 650 pages of something I don't really like all that much.
I really enjoyed this book. It covered a lot of excellent fun backstory regarding Jack's relationship with Teague & the EITC, etc. There were a number of fun accounts regarding how certain objects in Jack's wardrobe or other possessions came to be his.
The only thing keeping this one from 5 stars for me is that I think Ms. Crispin both found and LOST Jack's personality and voice throughout the book. It would be tough to write for him, but I think there was a silliness and bravado that he was lacking at key moments, though she captured his "softer side" rather well in some more intimate moments.
Was hoping to find out what happened to some of her characters (Esmerelda) after the story ends and Jack's "official" PotC stories begin with the films... Would also have been nice to see some of the other Disney characters' introductions--Joshamee Gibbs in particular, since it seems like he and Jack go way back, but there was no mention of him in this prequel... Also would love to see how the crew of the Black Pearl came together once he convinced Barbossa to be his first mate (Marty, Pintel, Ragetti, etc) and how Jack became an official Pirate Lord... But perhaps these loose ends just leave Ms. Crispin a few stories she could tell in another book one day. Disney willing, I'd read it!
The only thing keeping this one from 5 stars for me is that I think Ms. Crispin both found and LOST Jack's personality and voice throughout the book. It would be tough to write for him, but I think there was a silliness and bravado that he was lacking at key moments, though she captured his "softer side" rather well in some more intimate moments.
Was hoping to find out what happened to some of her characters (Esmerelda) after the story ends and Jack's "official" PotC stories begin with the films... Would also have been nice to see some of the other Disney characters' introductions--Joshamee Gibbs in particular, since it seems like he and Jack go way back, but there was no mention of him in this prequel... Also would love to see how the crew of the Black Pearl came together once he convinced Barbossa to be his first mate (Marty, Pintel, Ragetti, etc) and how Jack became an official Pirate Lord... But perhaps these loose ends just leave Ms. Crispin a few stories she could tell in another book one day. Disney willing, I'd read it!
Jack Sparrow, as seen in this novel, is courteous, respectful, compassionate, loving and selfless. That is to say, he's completely unrecognizable from the movies.
Gone are most of Jack's flaws, like his greediness, cowardice, self-serving nature, childishness, or lack of hygiene. Sure, in the movies, Jack eventually does the right thing in the end. But in this book, there's no hint of a struggle; he's downright heroic from start to finish.
Much like the fourth and fifth films in the Pirates franchise, this book suffers the problem of centering the story on Jack. In my opinion, we the audience are best left not knowing Jack's intentions or thought process. As Will says of Jack's plans in the Curse of the Black Pearl, "This is either madness or brilliance." Therein lies the charm of Jack's escapades. As much as I would have preferred to have an original character, with Jack Sparrow as a scene-stealing secondary character, let's forgive this as a conceit of the novel.
This book is a prequel novel, with Jack serving as an EITC captain under Cutler Beckett. It's possible that this book was intended to show Jack's progression from a straight-laced officer to a cutthroat pirate. But that arc is completely undercut by the half of the book dedicated to flashbacks of Jack's childhood growing up as a pirate in Shipwreck Cove. He grew up a pirate, he'll be a pirate in the movies, so why keep this charade of an honest life?
There's little in the way of trickery, scheming, and backstabbing, which were core components of the POTC trilogy. Several times in this novel, the characters verbally announce their plans, they execute them, and nothing goes wrong. For example, they set out to free a captured prince enslaved in the Bahamas. They find him and free him. Nothing goes wrong, no one discovers them, no one chases them.
There are two female characters, Lady Esmeralda and Princess Amenirdis, who are hopelessly in love with Jack. While it's nice that both are competent women with unique skillsets, the romance is anything but interesting. They are never annoyed or frustrated with Jack (because he has no negative traits in this book). Both are completely content with sharing him as a lover and completely accept that Jack's love for the sea will keep him from settling down. I'm not asking for a love triangle, but, man, a little conflict in either relationship would be nice.
Some plotlines go nowhere: Cutler Beckett hires a spy aboard the Wicked Wench. He doesn't do anything, Jack learns about him, and he's never mentioned again. Several problems are resolved by magic: the Wicked Wench is about to be shot to pieces by an enemy ship, and
On the positive side, this book is well-researched. I stuck around and learned a lot about ships and sailing. Crispin does a great job describing era-appropriate clothing and food.
If you love Pirates of the Caribbean and you're looking for more...I would look elsewhere. Maybe try Treasure Island or the Count of Monte Cristo. I'm going to check out On Stranger Tides, the Tim Powers book that the fourth movie was loosely based on.
Gone are most of Jack's flaws, like his greediness, cowardice, self-serving nature, childishness, or lack of hygiene. Sure, in the movies, Jack eventually does the right thing in the end. But in this book, there's no hint of a struggle; he's downright heroic from start to finish.
Much like the fourth and fifth films in the Pirates franchise, this book suffers the problem of centering the story on Jack. In my opinion, we the audience are best left not knowing Jack's intentions or thought process. As Will says of Jack's plans in the Curse of the Black Pearl, "This is either madness or brilliance." Therein lies the charm of Jack's escapades. As much as I would have preferred to have an original character, with Jack Sparrow as a scene-stealing secondary character, let's forgive this as a conceit of the novel.
This book is a prequel novel, with Jack serving as an EITC captain under Cutler Beckett. It's possible that this book was intended to show Jack's progression from a straight-laced officer to a cutthroat pirate. But that arc is completely undercut by the half of the book dedicated to flashbacks of Jack's childhood growing up as a pirate in Shipwreck Cove. He grew up a pirate, he'll be a pirate in the movies, so why keep this charade of an honest life?
There's little in the way of trickery, scheming, and backstabbing, which were core components of the POTC trilogy. Several times in this novel, the characters verbally announce their plans, they execute them, and nothing goes wrong. For example, they set out to free a captured prince enslaved in the Bahamas. They find him and free him. Nothing goes wrong, no one discovers them, no one chases them.
Spoiler
The one character who betrays Jack is so cartoonishly evil that it's not a surprise at all. Let's talk about the strange sequence of these events. Christophe, a French pirate, assaults a female barkeep in Shipwreck Cove and Jack and Esmeralda find out about it. Christophe is then arrested for murder and breaking the pirates' code. Barely a dozen pages later, Jack decides to free this guy, because he thinks he can't possibly be guilty. This guy?? The guy who you just learned assaulted someone?? Truly a baffling plot decision.There are two female characters, Lady Esmeralda and Princess Amenirdis, who are hopelessly in love with Jack. While it's nice that both are competent women with unique skillsets, the romance is anything but interesting. They are never annoyed or frustrated with Jack (because he has no negative traits in this book). Both are completely content with sharing him as a lover and completely accept that Jack's love for the sea will keep him from settling down. I'm not asking for a love triangle, but, man, a little conflict in either relationship would be nice.
Some plotlines go nowhere: Cutler Beckett hires a spy aboard the Wicked Wench. He doesn't do anything, Jack learns about him, and he's never mentioned again. Several problems are resolved by magic: the Wicked Wench is about to be shot to pieces by an enemy ship, and
Spoiler
Amenirdis blows up the enemy ship with magic. She also casts a convenient spell to make Jack's crew forget about her entire secret island.On the positive side, this book is well-researched. I stuck around and learned a lot about ships and sailing. Crispin does a great job describing era-appropriate clothing and food.
If you love Pirates of the Caribbean and you're looking for more...I would look elsewhere. Maybe try Treasure Island or the Count of Monte Cristo. I'm going to check out On Stranger Tides, the Tim Powers book that the fourth movie was loosely based on.
Brilliant! Absolutely loved this book. I'll write a more detailed review at a later date, but I'd recommend it to anyone that liked the films, likes pirates, or adventure novels!
Excellent book that expands on the Pirates of the Caribbean universe. Video review will come soon.
adventurous
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I was finally able to purchase a used copy at an online used book site for a reasonable price. Glad I didn't pay the huge $$$'s oddly being asked for it elsewhere. It was just an okay read. Long. Easy to skip through sections. Storyline was okay, but quite predictable. What I didn't like was that Jack Sparrow seemed to completely lack cleverness and inventiveness. He seldom saved the day by doing something outrageous - and that made the book a bit dull. Still, it's Pirates of the Caribbean so that was enough to keep me reading.
When I put The Price of Freedom on hold, it was half as a joke - the thing seemed to me to be a giant, somehow published fanfic tome, and I wanted to see just how nuts it would be. And come on… more Captain Jack? I’m not going to say no to that.
And so the 653 pager sat on my library bookshelf for weeks, untouched. My boyfriend laughed at me, incredulous that I would read something so… so… geeky wasn’t the right word for it - no, he was shocked that I’d read something so ridiculous - and that such a book even existed.
I agreed with him - a 653 page written prequel to the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise? Seriously? Who came up with this idea? Who on earth would read this?
Me, that’s who. I picked it up late one night, figuring I would read 50 pages, then skip to the end and see how it all turned out. I was leaving for vacation the next morning, and needed something inane to get me to sleep - but not the book I was bringing with on vacation (A Clash of Kings); I needed to pay too much attention to that one to read before bed.
Two hours later, I was two hundred and fifty pages deep in Cap’n Jack’s sea jaunt, and had no intentions of putting the book down, ever.
Now, in her acknowledgments, A. C. Crispin extols her editors for their prime work eliminating anachronisms, idiosyncrasies, and anything else that didn’t need to be in the book. And I’m sure on those fronts, they did a great job. On actual grammatical and type error editing… not so much; not that I cared, the only thing the book lacked in my devouring of it was an audio recording of Johnny Depp reading his lines to me in that wonderful Sparrow voice of his.
Okay - so what the heck did Crispin write about for 653 pages that we needed to know and wasn’t in the movie?
First Mate Jack Sparrow, an employee of the East India Trading Company, (YES, I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: AN EMPLOYEE OF THE EITC), is somewhere in the Caribbean when his cargo ship is attacked. Luckily, the pirate captain of the attacking ship is a former lover of Jack’s, and doesn’t steal his entire cargo. Unluckily, Captain Baimbridge, furious at being attacked, boarded, and stolen from by a female pirate, tries to attack la Dona Pirata. In the ensuing swordfight, Baimbridge suffers from a heart attack and dies, leaving Jack in charge of the ship (though not officially captain… yet.)
Across the ocean, a princess and her brother set sail from a magically hidden island in search of their missing father. They are captured and sold into slavery, but not before Princess Amenirdis casts a protective spell over herself, altering her appearance to that of an old ugly hag. Separated from each other by the cruel slave trade, Amenirdis (now calling herself by the name Ayisha) longs for her brother and hopes for a chance at freedom.
Back at port, EITC employee Cutler Beckett comes into possession of a few pieces of golden jewelry he believes are connected to the legendary island of Kerma - and if he can locate the slave these pieces were stolen off of, he can locate Kerma’s treasure. His hunt soon leads him to suspect Ayisha’s involvement with the royal Kerman family, though her disguise and self-imposed language barrier deter Beckett’s ability to question her further.
Upon Jack’s return to shore with the pirate-lightened cargo ship, and explanation to Cutler Beckett the events of the pirate attack, he is promoted to Captain (huzzah! huzzah!) and given command of the vessel Wicked Wench. Beckett, ironically convinced that Ayisha was once a slave on the island of Kerma, tells Cap’n Jack to offer the woman escape from Beckett’s ownership and then charm her into giving up the location of the island. Then, Jack is to return to Beckett with the coordinates and the fabled Kerman treasure - and Beckett will set sail for Kerma with a dozen slave ships, prepared to snatch up the citizens.
Of course, we all know Cap’n Jack to be a moral man. Don’t we? And of course, Cap’n Jack has another plan up his sleeve - one that doesn’t involve stealing an entire population to be slaves or giving Cutler Beckett any treasure at all.
In The Price of Freedom, we see Jack in an entirely new light than the four movies (though I haven’t seen the fourth. Not sure about that one.) - and love him all the more for it. His wobbling morality and quick wit, paired with his prowess at the helm (of both a ship and a woman) make him an entirely lovable, dimensional character. One doesn’t have to have seen the movies to fall in love with this adventurous naval romp. The supernatural, mystical aspects of the book are, as in the movies, important to the characters’ survival, but not overarching. I hope Crispin continues the series where the movies leave off (though I imagine this to be a tricky undertaking what with the promise of five- and sixquels) - for just as in the movies, Captain Jack Sparrow is an addictive character.
And so the 653 pager sat on my library bookshelf for weeks, untouched. My boyfriend laughed at me, incredulous that I would read something so… so… geeky wasn’t the right word for it - no, he was shocked that I’d read something so ridiculous - and that such a book even existed.
I agreed with him - a 653 page written prequel to the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise? Seriously? Who came up with this idea? Who on earth would read this?
Me, that’s who. I picked it up late one night, figuring I would read 50 pages, then skip to the end and see how it all turned out. I was leaving for vacation the next morning, and needed something inane to get me to sleep - but not the book I was bringing with on vacation (A Clash of Kings); I needed to pay too much attention to that one to read before bed.
Two hours later, I was two hundred and fifty pages deep in Cap’n Jack’s sea jaunt, and had no intentions of putting the book down, ever.
Now, in her acknowledgments, A. C. Crispin extols her editors for their prime work eliminating anachronisms, idiosyncrasies, and anything else that didn’t need to be in the book. And I’m sure on those fronts, they did a great job. On actual grammatical and type error editing… not so much; not that I cared, the only thing the book lacked in my devouring of it was an audio recording of Johnny Depp reading his lines to me in that wonderful Sparrow voice of his.
Okay - so what the heck did Crispin write about for 653 pages that we needed to know and wasn’t in the movie?
First Mate Jack Sparrow, an employee of the East India Trading Company, (YES, I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: AN EMPLOYEE OF THE EITC), is somewhere in the Caribbean when his cargo ship is attacked. Luckily, the pirate captain of the attacking ship is a former lover of Jack’s, and doesn’t steal his entire cargo. Unluckily, Captain Baimbridge, furious at being attacked, boarded, and stolen from by a female pirate, tries to attack la Dona Pirata. In the ensuing swordfight, Baimbridge suffers from a heart attack and dies, leaving Jack in charge of the ship (though not officially captain… yet.)
Across the ocean, a princess and her brother set sail from a magically hidden island in search of their missing father. They are captured and sold into slavery, but not before Princess Amenirdis casts a protective spell over herself, altering her appearance to that of an old ugly hag. Separated from each other by the cruel slave trade, Amenirdis (now calling herself by the name Ayisha) longs for her brother and hopes for a chance at freedom.
Back at port, EITC employee Cutler Beckett comes into possession of a few pieces of golden jewelry he believes are connected to the legendary island of Kerma - and if he can locate the slave these pieces were stolen off of, he can locate Kerma’s treasure. His hunt soon leads him to suspect Ayisha’s involvement with the royal Kerman family, though her disguise and self-imposed language barrier deter Beckett’s ability to question her further.
Upon Jack’s return to shore with the pirate-lightened cargo ship, and explanation to Cutler Beckett the events of the pirate attack, he is promoted to Captain (huzzah! huzzah!) and given command of the vessel Wicked Wench. Beckett, ironically convinced that Ayisha was once a slave on the island of Kerma, tells Cap’n Jack to offer the woman escape from Beckett’s ownership and then charm her into giving up the location of the island. Then, Jack is to return to Beckett with the coordinates and the fabled Kerman treasure - and Beckett will set sail for Kerma with a dozen slave ships, prepared to snatch up the citizens.
Of course, we all know Cap’n Jack to be a moral man. Don’t we? And of course, Cap’n Jack has another plan up his sleeve - one that doesn’t involve stealing an entire population to be slaves or giving Cutler Beckett any treasure at all.
In The Price of Freedom, we see Jack in an entirely new light than the four movies (though I haven’t seen the fourth. Not sure about that one.) - and love him all the more for it. His wobbling morality and quick wit, paired with his prowess at the helm (of both a ship and a woman) make him an entirely lovable, dimensional character. One doesn’t have to have seen the movies to fall in love with this adventurous naval romp. The supernatural, mystical aspects of the book are, as in the movies, important to the characters’ survival, but not overarching. I hope Crispin continues the series where the movies leave off (though I imagine this to be a tricky undertaking what with the promise of five- and sixquels) - for just as in the movies, Captain Jack Sparrow is an addictive character.
Just like the films, I thought this book was a lot of fun, but not as good as it could have been. Sometimes the writing seemed very juvenile, almost like something I would have written when I was 13 or 14. The first half of the book dragged, and then all of the really good stuff at the end went by in a flash. I felt like some things were just tacked on to correlate with the films. I also felt like Jack didn't really develop, and I had a very hard time picturing him. I just had hard time reconciling the two characters; the Jack in this book just didn't seem like the same character played by Johnny Depp. So much of it just seemed weak to me. However, it was a really fun read (once you got past the monotonous stuff).
I would definitely read another POTC book by A.C. Crispin, but more because it will be a fun read rather than because it will be well-written.
P.S. If you enjoyed the nautical/piratical aspects of this book, you'll really like the Jacky Faber books by L.A. Meyer. The first book is a bit tough to get through, but after that, they just keep getting better and better.
I would definitely read another POTC book by A.C. Crispin, but more because it will be a fun read rather than because it will be well-written.
P.S. If you enjoyed the nautical/piratical aspects of this book, you'll really like the Jacky Faber books by L.A. Meyer. The first book is a bit tough to get through, but after that, they just keep getting better and better.
This book was so long and contained so much that it could have been two books! Sometimes entire action scenes were summed up in a way that was kind of disappointing. The writing was decent, but the characters other than Jack Sparrow were pretty two-dimensional. It was enjoyable and definitely fills in Jack's history in a satisfying way. I don't know if I'd read it again though.