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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
A fun pirate adventure with that great Tim Powers twist.
Great book! It had absolutely nothing to do with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie sharing the same title, but really fun read!
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
This is a classic swashbuckling pirate tale complete with magic, voodoo, famous pirates like Blackbeard, and large ship. Just a really fun book.
First off, you may have noticed a similarity of title between this book and the fourth film in the Johnny Depp pirates franchise. Let me list for you now everything that's the same between the book and the film:
*They both involve pirates.
*They both have Blackbeard.
*They both mention the fountain of youth.
And that's all. Moving on.
I had a hard time with reading this one, which is my fault. I had a number of distractions which made getting through this book take longer than it normally takes me to get through a three to four hundred page book. But the book didn't make it any easier. There were times where it felt very bloated with characters. We have a couple of characters that are introduced, given a backstory to explain how they came to be a pirate, just so that they can have one chapter where they get removed from the story, and thus screw up some other character's plans in some way. Plus, just about every main character (and a few minor ones) bounces between several different names and identities. And sometimes these secret identities are only known one random new character that gets a backstory just so the reader can understand where this new guy has come from and why he's now become important for a chapter.
Add to this that the second third of the story is a bit of a slog to get through. I can see what the author was trying to do. Sending your characters into a mystical place with very flexible rules of reality can allow you to get away with doing all sorts of things. But when the best description I can come up with is "characters went in, weird stuff happened, characters came out" I would say your losing your some of your readers to the randomness your putting in there. Also, I've never seen a book before where an epilogue was used to end the story. Not really a complaint, but while reading it, my brain kept asking why this wasn't just labeled chapter 30.
Most of the book is pretty good, and I wonder if I gave it a reread in the future when I would be better able to give it my full attention, if I wouldn't like it better. But for right now, I can't see myself doing that any time soon.
*They both involve pirates.
*They both have Blackbeard.
*They both mention the fountain of youth.
And that's all. Moving on.
I had a hard time with reading this one, which is my fault. I had a number of distractions which made getting through this book take longer than it normally takes me to get through a three to four hundred page book. But the book didn't make it any easier. There were times where it felt very bloated with characters. We have a couple of characters that are introduced, given a backstory to explain how they came to be a pirate, just so that they can have one chapter where they get removed from the story, and thus screw up some other character's plans in some way. Plus, just about every main character (and a few minor ones) bounces between several different names and identities. And sometimes these secret identities are only known one random new character that gets a backstory just so the reader can understand where this new guy has come from and why he's now become important for a chapter.
Add to this that the second third of the story is a bit of a slog to get through. I can see what the author was trying to do. Sending your characters into a mystical place with very flexible rules of reality can allow you to get away with doing all sorts of things. But when the best description I can come up with is "characters went in, weird stuff happened, characters came out" I would say your losing your some of your readers to the randomness your putting in there. Also, I've never seen a book before where an epilogue was used to end the story. Not really a complaint, but while reading it, my brain kept asking why this wasn't just labeled chapter 30.
Most of the book is pretty good, and I wonder if I gave it a reread in the future when I would be better able to give it my full attention, if I wouldn't like it better. But for right now, I can't see myself doing that any time soon.
I enjoyed this quite a bit - the humor is "dry", not slapstick as you might expect from pirate movies such as POTC or Yellowbeard, so be prepared for that... but it is plentiful. The main drawback is that the only female character of note is pretty much drugged unconscious through the whole book - she's more of a plot device than an actual character. This could have been 5+ stars if the author had found some way to incorporate a vital, strong woman in the same role. Even worse, the few times she was conscious, she WAS smart and funny and even a little tough - shoe could have been so much more.
Two of the villains are creepy beyond belief, and both have incest issues - and who would think there was such variety of creepiness even in that single vein! Could be really disturbing to some readers, just a heads up... the straightforward pirates and voodoo masters are wicked, but in a much more fun (& understandable) way!
Two of the villains are creepy beyond belief, and both have incest issues - and who would think there was such variety of creepiness even in that single vein! Could be really disturbing to some readers, just a heads up... the straightforward pirates and voodoo masters are wicked, but in a much more fun (& understandable) way!
John Chandagnac was a puppeteer-turned-accountant on his way to Jamaica to reclaim his birthright from his thieving uncle. On the way, however, his ship was captured by pirates. Chandagnac must become the pirate Shandy to defeat the magic-wielding pirates, save a magician's daughter, and claim his family fortunes.
I really enjoyed most of the book. As with Anubis Gates, the writing style is tremendously exciting, and this time he's got swashbuckling pirates to work with instead of just Romantic poets. I tore through the first 80% of the book, hardly able to put it down. But then, as with Anubis Gates, it just lost me. The book seems to lose focus toward the end. When I read Anubis Gates, I got the sense that Powers had just become bored with the story and was trying to end it quickly so he could move on. On Stranger Tides seems to have suffered from the same problem. The killing of Blackbeard, a terrifying character throughout and the prophesied goal for our main character (according to Woefully Fat, the bocor who infodumps the information Shandy will need to accomplish his goals) is over in a flash, and his character lacks all the menace that had been cultivated throughout.
The saving of Beth Hurwood felt rushed, and the reclaiming of the Jamaican estates is just dropped entirely - despite being the stated goal from the very beginning and despite Shandy's uncle being narratively brought back from the dead in order for it to happen.
The magic system itself is a bit of a touchy subject. There are, of course, real Vodun practitioners, and they are not typically the kids of people who have a lot of social power. The taking and using of their religious beliefs for the entertainment of outsiders is a problem. That said, the magic system worked quite well in the context of the story, it paired well with the plot.
There were some gender issues with the book as well. There are very few main characters, with only two who are meaningful to the plot. One of those is dead, and the other is a helpless, even catatonic damsel through most of the plot (though she does have some potential when she's conscious). Other female characters include the mother of a bad guy with an Oedipus complex, and a few women in the pirate camp who are either sexually available or attached to a male pirate (or both). Even more offensive, one of these latter women is named Ann Bonny. That's right, one of the most famous female pirate captains is here reduced to a pirate wife and potential sexual distraction for the main character. The erasure of women in fiction and history isn't exactly uncommon. Whole worlds are constructed where women just don't seem to exist at all, or they exist elsewhere, or they hang around in the wings to provide goals, distractions, and the next generation of characters. It's annoying, but at least Powers has the excuse that he's grown up in a culture where this is normalized. Naming one of these background characters Ann Bonny, however, just feels nasty. Better to pretend she doesn't exist than to remake her as little more than a wife and potential sexual conquest.
I still found the story gripping, and it was full of wonderful ideas and creepy imagery. But aspects of it, particularly on the gender side and how the baddies were constructed, made it feel very dated.
I really enjoyed most of the book. As with Anubis Gates, the writing style is tremendously exciting, and this time he's got swashbuckling pirates to work with instead of just Romantic poets. I tore through the first 80% of the book, hardly able to put it down. But then, as with Anubis Gates, it just lost me. The book seems to lose focus toward the end. When I read Anubis Gates, I got the sense that Powers had just become bored with the story and was trying to end it quickly so he could move on. On Stranger Tides seems to have suffered from the same problem. The killing of Blackbeard, a terrifying character throughout and the prophesied goal for our main character (according to Woefully Fat, the bocor who infodumps the information Shandy will need to accomplish his goals) is over in a flash, and his character lacks all the menace that had been cultivated throughout.
The saving of Beth Hurwood felt rushed, and the reclaiming of the Jamaican estates is just dropped entirely - despite being the stated goal from the very beginning and despite Shandy's uncle being narratively brought back from the dead in order for it to happen.
The magic system itself is a bit of a touchy subject. There are, of course, real Vodun practitioners, and they are not typically the kids of people who have a lot of social power. The taking and using of their religious beliefs for the entertainment of outsiders is a problem. That said, the magic system worked quite well in the context of the story, it paired well with the plot.
There were some gender issues with the book as well. There are very few main characters, with only two who are meaningful to the plot. One of those is dead, and the other is a helpless, even catatonic damsel through most of the plot (though she does have some potential when she's conscious). Other female characters include the mother of a bad guy with an Oedipus complex, and a few women in the pirate camp who are either sexually available or attached to a male pirate (or both). Even more offensive, one of these latter women is named Ann Bonny. That's right, one of the most famous female pirate captains is here reduced to a pirate wife and potential sexual distraction for the main character. The erasure of women in fiction and history isn't exactly uncommon. Whole worlds are constructed where women just don't seem to exist at all, or they exist elsewhere, or they hang around in the wings to provide goals, distractions, and the next generation of characters. It's annoying, but at least Powers has the excuse that he's grown up in a culture where this is normalized. Naming one of these background characters Ann Bonny, however, just feels nasty. Better to pretend she doesn't exist than to remake her as little more than a wife and potential sexual conquest.
I still found the story gripping, and it was full of wonderful ideas and creepy imagery. But aspects of it, particularly on the gender side and how the baddies were constructed, made it feel very dated.
this is not the most fun Tim Powers I've read, but it was a fun pirate romp.
Wasn't sure of what to expect when I started reading this. Had the Disney film in my head initially, but that was quickly erased, and then it became a beautifully paced, horribly creepy, marvelous pirate adventure with a lot of black magic.
A historical fantasy set in the Caribbean featuring pirates, voodoo and a puppeteer who is out of his depth. The story had a the same sort of crazy, whacked out historical details that the Anubis Gates had without the annoyance of time travel. I feel much better about reading more from Powers as I enjoyed On Stranger Tides the whole way through.