Pirates & Privateers: Books for Adults -- Alternative Fiction & Time Travel

Lone Star Rising: Voyage of the Wasp
By Jason Vail
Fireship Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-61179-235-5, US $16.00 / CAN $19.95

In October 1776, American rebels encounter the British army at Harlem Heights. One casualty is General George Washington and, soon after, the rebellion is put down. Tennesseans, however, live on the frontier away from the British and, in 1804, they declare themselves a free state. The British don’t respond until four years later; although they gain the upper hand, the remnants of that rebel force move to the Spanish territory of Texas under the leadership of Andrew Jackson. The community of Jacksonville thrives, but the influx of non-Catholics who refuse to heed Spanish laws eventually alarms the Mexican authorities. Andrew Jackson, though, has no intention of surrendering his freedom or power.

After a near-fatal run-in with a Spanish frigate in April 1819 and a double-dealing employer, John Paul Jones II leaves New Orleans and returns home to Baltimore, only to find that his family is dead. Seven months later, an unemployed and cynical Jones is approached by Davy Crockett, who holds a letter of introduction from Jones’s former employer. Crockett hires Jones to find a suitable ship that can be outfitted – illegally and surreptitiously – as a naval warship. Crockett is dubious that the ramshackle vessel will ever amount to anything, but Jones proves him wrong. Hired to sail Crockett and the Wasp to New Orleans, Jones soon finds himself part of the Texas Navy and allied with French pirates. But the captain of a Spanish frigate knows of the rebel vessel and is hunting for the elusive Wasp and her captain.

This alternative history novel, the first in a series, presents an interesting series of what-ifs about the early days of Texas history. Told mostly from Jones’s point of view, the tale is interlaced with excerpts from A Short History of the Republic of Texas and the Free States of America by Victor D. Lautenberg. The problem is that Vail tends to lead the reader to an exciting point in the story, then steps back to let Lautenberg tell what happens. As a result, the action fails to rivet the reader’s attention. Even so, Lone Star Rising makes readers wonder about what would have happened had the United States never been, while pirates from Jean Laffite’s Barataria operations assist the fledgling nation of Texas in gaining its freedom.

Pirate Freedom
By Gene Wolfe
Tor, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7653-5850-9, US $9.99 / CAN $13.99

reviewed by Laura Nelson

Chris, Christopher, or Crisoforo lives in a monastery in Cuba, initially to attend the boarding school there. When the school closes, he stays on a couple more years, but decides he isn’t interested in studying to be a priest, and leaves, wearing only the now three-sizes-too-small tee shirt and jeans he wore when he arrived.

At first, he fails to notice that everything is different from what he remembers. Then he is unable to find his father’s house. There aren’t any cars or roads or landmarks he’s familiar with either. But he doesn’t have time to dwell on this, as he is caught in a daily struggle to survive. Eventually, an opportunity to work on a wooden sailing ship comes along and he takes it, entranced with the idea of regular meals and a place to sleep. But few things are ever as simple as they sound, and he is not warmly greeted by the other sailors.

He starts to learn the job, but the journey is interrupted when the ship is captured by pirates. Chris refuses to sign their articles and thus becomes their prisoner.

Rather improbably, the captain of the pirates, Bram Bart, takes a liking to him, and after they capture another vessel and decide to make it into a consort, Bart offers the command to Chris. Thus the real adventures of the book begin.

The captured boat is a slaver. Chris sells the slaves and keeps the money to buy another vessel, but ends up getting robbed. He has to join the buccaneers on Tortuga to make some money.

Then he, Melind (a man he befriends while living as a buccaneer), and a few others capture a ship in the night and take it over. The boat includes some Spanish prisoners, two or four men and a boy, who asks to speak to Chris in private. When they’re alone, the boy reveals that he is Estrellita, a maid whom he wooed on Coruna. She donned men’s clothing and ran away from the high class Spanish family that employed her.

Chris calls her “Novia,” which means sweetheart, and she becomes as fierce as any of the male pirates. She also plays a central role in running the ship. Toward the end of the story comes a bit of sexual intrigue when Chris finds out Estrellita’s true identity and that she is pregnant. But that’s as “steamy” as the book gets. (Sorry guys!) To tell you the reason she hides her true identity from Chris would ruin the end of the book, so you’ll have to read that part for yourself!

Pirate Chris’s story is interwoven with that of modern-day Chris, a Catholic priest. We are never told an exact year either lives in, although we are given some hints. Pirate Chris talks about how long it took him to learn to load a musket and utilizes some of his modern-day knowledge to make a few alterations and improvements to the ship to assist the pirates in capturing prizes. Father Chris reminisces about his father teaching him to shoot a laser pistol. He also comments on reading modern stories of pirates and about Anne Bonny and Mary Read. He believes that Novia was probably just as fierce, if not more so, than they were.

The story is set in the age of wooden sail, and Wolfe seems to have done his homework about the period fairly well. One thing I like is that he never employs the over-used plot device of placing the main character amongst the crew of, say Blackbeard, and then re-telling a familiar story from this character’s “unique perspective.” Nor does he invent an alternate timeline for Blackbeard, allowing him to live longer or only appear to have been killed.

Chris faces many moral challenges, both as a priest and as a pirate. Because of his childhood upbringing in a monastery school, he often agonizes over some of the choices he faces in order to survive. He experiences guilt over the plight of some of his victims. As the story draws to its conclusion, his biggest moral choice becomes whether to travel back in time to warn himself about leaving the monastery and being sent back in time, or to rejoin his lover from his pirate days.

Some readers may not care for the way Wolfe brings in moral lessons and religious beliefs into some of Chris’s decisions. Personally, I found the contrasts and his inner struggle about what is right and wrong to be insightful and interesting.

There is a moment of levity provided when Chris sees that the ship they have just captured is called Castillo Blanco (White Castle), but it doesn’t have any hamburgers.

As part of their adventures, they soon learn from the captured crew that Castillo Blanco is a cursed ship. Several sailors have disappeared or turned up dead.

Toward the book’s end, the pirates set out on a Henry Morgan-style land invasion of Portobello with the ultimate goal of robbing one of the Spanish mule trains carrying loads of gold. Some of the obstacles they encounter resemble the hardships Morgan and his men endured during their land campaigns, but this is the only part of the book that feels as if some of it may have been taken from a real pirate story.

The only other detraction from the book I find is that it is highly narrative, sometimes neglecting to drop the reader into the action, keeping the reader at arm’s length. A character will say something, but instead of just replying, the author interrupts by having Chris say, “And I told him . . . .” The story could have been a lot more action-packed at times.

Pirate Freedom has very nice illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, which adds a nice touch to the story. The paperback I bought is 417 pages and has a glossary at the end to help with a few terms and locations. Overall, I rate this book at four stars, only because of the large amount of narration throughout the story. It’s still a good read and something a bit different from many recent pirate stories.

Meet the author

Review Copyright ©2018 Laura Nelson

The Second Gate
By Brian Wyvill
Thunderchild, 2018, ISBN 978-1719243773, US $12.99 / CAN $17.25
e-book US $2.99 / CAN $3.83

Crossing a secluded area at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Sarah Malette notices a man following her. He is the spitting image from a childhood nightmare. The experience rattles her, but she chalks it up to his being homeless and hurries on her way. Instead of finding Professor Duncan in his office, she encounters his teaching assistant. (Annette is like a sister, since she and Sarah grew up together after Annette’s mother disappeared.) Together they marvel at the nautical artifacts decorating Duncan’s office. They all date from the late eighteenth century, which makes sense because of his fascination with the Napoleonic wars; what is odd is that they look brand new, even though it’s 2015. They also discover a door, hidden behind a coat rack, leading to an empty room.

Annette, who is French Canadian, also has a keen interest in the same time period. Her focus and thesis are on the year 1798, particularly on a single event: the Battle of the Nile. She believes that had Admiral Brueys won the engagement, rather than Admiral Nelson, all of Canada might be French, rather than just Quebec. When Sarah mentions the homeless man, Annette is also troubled. Could this be the same man who terrorized her and her mother when she was younger? Is he looking for her?

Ken DiPalo, a friend and fellow classmate of Sarah’s, is infatuated with Annette, who thinks he’s more of a class clown, who’s always shirking his schoolwork. To demonstrate otherwise, he shares charts and maps stored on his smart phone with Annette and Sarah, who are also working on the same 1798 project. He also mentions that one 1720 resource discusses a man named Masthead Duncan – the same name as their professor. Sarah reveals that she came across a Royal Navy lieutenant with the same name in 1757. Another source places Duncan in 1798 on Malta. The unusual first name puzzles them because they can’t possibly be the same man given the activities mentioned and the ages of each man. It’s a coincidence they might query their professor about, but no one has seen or heard from him since he turned up at a local hospital with a knife wound.

Further discussion reveals several other oddities, one of which involves the hidden room in Duncan’s office. Ken comes up with a theory based on the evidence, which seems almost impossible to believe – time travel. The answer may be in the professor’s office and Ken just happens to have a key. Sarah is reluctant to break into the office, but Annette believes this may be her only chance to find her mother and perhaps provide Admiral Brueys with the necessary information to change the outcome of the battle. After acquiring the key and Ken’s smart phone containing the maps, she eludes the others to locate the gateway that will take her to 1798 Malta. Having a duplicate key, Ken and Sarah attempt to stop her, but she’s vanished by the time they get to the office. The only thing they can do is follow her through the gateway to find Masthead Duncan and stop Annette from changing history.

Going back in time may sound like fun, but it’s fraught with danger. Aside from stability issues with the gateway, their adventures include encounters with Barbary pirates, mutineers, kidnappers, galley slaves, and a sheik seeking a new bride. Rock climbing, safeguarding treasure, trekking across the desert, and participating in sea battles add further excitement to entice and engage readers. The love scene between two of the characters lacks the smooth flow present throughout the rest of the story. A few spots may puzzle readers – the delay between the time the French officers find the phone and confront Annette, for example – but Wyvill crafts a believable and compelling time travel that provides startling answers to the questions of what if France had won the battle at Aboukir Bay and how does a single misstep in the past affect the future. The Second Gate is the first book in a new series and promises some intriguing future adventures for the characters we meet in this volume.

By Jayme Evans
Wings Press, 2002, ISBN 1-59088-075-7 (e-book), $6
ISBN 1-59088-959-2 (paperback), $11.95

An eerie Caribbean storm threatens to ruin Dr. Bethany Henry's well-deserved vacation with her twin brother. She tosses aside the pirate romance she's reading to help Bryce secure everything before a waterspout engulfs them. After the terrifying funnel passes, they encounter a wooden sailing ship manned by authentic-looking pirates captained by a handsome swashbuckler named Joshua Blackmon.

Although Joshua understands little of what Bethany says, he realizes she and her brother are from the future. Bryce's T-shirt says 1999, but the year is 1814, and Joshua and his crew are privateers. A superstitious lot, his men will think Bethany a sorceress if he doesn't protect her. To that end he locks her in his cabin and imprisons Bryce in the brig until he can convince them that he and his men aren't reenactors and that the twins have traveled back in time.

Bethany is an independent woman who rails at captivity, but she fears the captain's crew more and won't jeopardize her brother's life. She scoffs at Joshua's hypothesis, until he forces her to watch a bloody sea battle unfold. If Joshua dies, what will become of her and Bryce? Will they ever return to their own time? If not, how will she adapt to living in a time when women lacked the independence and freedom of her century?

This fast-paced story portrays pirates with realism often lacking in historical romance. Discovering a tie-in with Jean Laffite was an added treat and, while Bethany shares her knowledge of what will happen to the Baratarians, Ms. Evans neatly weaves the facts into the story without allowing Bethany's knowledge to alter history. Adventure, mutiny, danger, and love combine to make this an intriguing what-if tale of pirates and privateers.