Blackbeard nodded. “I was sure you’d figured that out. Yes, old Hurwood plans to raise his wife’s ghost from her dried head and plant it in the body of his daughter. Hard luck on the daughter, left with no body…”

Book Review:

Review by Bill Brody  (JUN 12, 2011)

My review is of a paperback reprint of a Tim Powers novel, On Stranger Tides, first published to a good deal of critical acclaim in 1987. No doubt the success of the new movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides inspired the reprint.

Voodoo plays a major role in this novel, in particular with regard to resurrection. Voodoo and other western systems of magic are all tied up with the relationship between magic, blood (and its analog, sea water) and cold iron. It turns out according to this tale at least that cold iron quenches magic. The magic of Europe has been much diminished in the 17th century due to steel, armor, swords and the other trappings of European material culture. Magic flourishes in the western hemisphere where blood still rules over steel. Blood is the antithesis of cold steel; it is likened to hot iron. Magicians typically have white gums because so much of their blood is in use for magic that they suffer congenital anemia.

Oh, and there are pirates galore; most notably Blackbeard, who we discover is a powerful magician in his own right. Blackbeard’s historic practice of going into battle with lit candles woven into his beard is explained by the revelation in this tale that his patron voodoo demon, his loa, is summoned by smoldering fire. Later in the story a lit cigar serves the same purpose.

Some truly freakish and slimy souls inhabit Powers’ Caribbean world of 17th century. The good people in our tale are not all that good or pure, but they at least try. The bad ones like Blackbeard and Hurwood are truly awful. Hurwood is clearly psychotic, driven to madness by the death of his wife. In his madness he carries her rotting head in a basket and has plotted to resurrect her soul into the body of his daughter, leaving the daughter without a body to call her own. Blackbeard captains a ship of zombies. Among Blackbeard’s other atrocities is manipulating someone to bludgeon-murder his wife in order to be blackmailed into becoming a vassal pirate.

In some ways it is odd to speak to anachronism or logical irregularity in a work about invented magic, but there is one thing that stands out as being off. Hurwood is a University Don, a scholar, who knows the work of Newton and the most up to date developments in science. His explanation of the magic environment surrounding the Fountain of Youth is profoundly anachronistic. He corresponds the locale to a quantum system with some features so precisely known that other aspects are required to be correspondingly unknowable. It should be noted that Newton, who many believe was the archetypical scientist, in reality spent a great deal of his professional life involved with alchemy, and can well be thought of as a magician in his own right. No one from that time and place could have entered into the mind-set of quantum uncertainty. Another quibble is that Jack Shandy, the protagonist is less interesting than the bad guys. Additionally, his love interest, Beth, Hurwood’s daughter, is almost a non-entity. It is not that Jack is two-dimensional or just a purely good guy; he has killed, betrayed and he clearly loves. His back-story is interesting. It is just that he comes off as somewhat vapid by comparison.

Powers is an extremely gifted storyteller His wit is unfailingly dry and brilliant. His powers of bizarre invention are pretty amazing. The plot flows, jumps and bubbles weaving one fantastic invention after another. I enjoyed On Stranger Tides a great deal and I am eager for the next gem from this wizard of off beat fantasy. Readers should be encouraged to explore the long list of his fantastic novels.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 57 readers
PUBLISHER:	Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (April 26, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Bill Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Tim Powers
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of:Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

Bibliography:

• The Skies Discrowned (1976)
• An Epitaph in Rust (1976)
• The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
• The Anubis Gate (1983) 
• Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (1985)
• On Stranger Tides (1987; April 2011)
• The Stress of Her Regard (1989)
• Night Moves and Other Stories (2000)
• Declare (2001)
• Three Days to Never (2006)

Fault Lines:

• Last Call (1992)
• Expiration (1995)
• Earthquake Weather (1997)

Movies from Books

• Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides (May 2011)

And at that moment Lazue shouted, “Sail ho!”

Straining his eye to the glass, Hunter saw square canvas directly astern, coming above the line of the horizon. He turned back to Enders, but the sea artist was already making orders to run out all the canvas El Trinidad possessed. The topgallants were unreefed; the foresprit was run up, and the galleon gathered speed.

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett (JAN 9, 2010)

Pure fun, Crichton’s posthumous pirate novel swashbuckles from dastardly deed to deadly danger and, just when all is lost, cobbles together ingenuity and luck to sail another day of derring-do.

It’s 1665 on the remote British colony of Jamaica where “privateers” keep the economy humming. News arrives of an especially rich Spanish prize anchored in the harbor of an island fortress, an impenetrable place bristling with cliffs, swamps and jungles and crawling with Spanish soldiers.

The previous year an assault on the island took the lives of the entire 300-man force, save one. That one, Whisper, his voice lost to a Spanish cutlass, is a broken man. But not even Whisper’s catalogue of deadly obstacles can deter our handsome hero, Capt. Charles Hunter, who mulls the information and assembles a crew of talented cutthroats.

Among them is the crafty Frenchman Sanson, “the most ruthless killer in all the Caribbean;” Basso, the tongueless “Moor,” a giant of a man who makes a living being underestimated; Lazue, a lithe, eagle-eyed woman who lives as a man but bares her breasts in battle to disorient the enemy; Don Diego the Jew, whose talent with explosives is beyond genius (encompassing a special invention involving the fresh intestines of rats), and Mr. Enders, the “sea artist” and surgeon whose skill as a helmsman is legendary.

Needless to say, none of these talents will go to waste as Hunter braves every peril land, sea and foe can throw up against him in a page-turner that never flags.

Soon to be a Spielberg movie, if rumor has it right, this one features no complicated characters or deep moments (unless sea monsters count?), just (fake) blood-soaked escapist fun.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 379 readers
PUBLISHER:	Harper (November 24, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Michael Crichton
EXTRAS:	Audio Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of:NEXT State of Fear Prey Airframe

Bibliography:

• The Andromeda Strain (1969)
• The Terminal Man (1972)
• The Great Train Robbery (1975)
• Eaters of the Dead (1976) (also called The 13th Warrior)
• Congo (1980)
• Sphere (1987)
• Jurassic Park (1990)
• Rising Sun (1992)
• Disclosure (1994)
• The Lost World (1995)
• Airframe (1996)
• Timeline (November 1999)
• PREY (November 2002)
• State of Fear (December 2004)
• NEXT (November 2006)
• Pirate Latitudes (November 2009)
• Micro (November 2011)

Published as Jeffrey Hudson:

• A Case of Need (1968)

Non-fiction:

• Travels (1998)

Movies from books:

• The Andromeda Strain (1971)
• The Terminal Man (1974)
• The Great Train Robbery (1979)
• Disclosure (1994)
• Jurassic Park (1993)
• Rising Sun (1993)
• Congo (1995)
• Sphere (1998)
• The 13th Warrior (2000)
• Timeline (April 2004)