Fun to jump back into Gene Wolfe, even if part of his plot (published 2007) mimics my manuscript from 2004. I won't hold it against him. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2017/03/review-of-pirate-freedom-by-gene-wolfe.... ( )

An interesting take on the pirate novel from Gene Wolfe. As other reviewers have mentioned, he recycles the narrative device from the Wizard-Knight in which the narrator recounts, in a conversational letter, events that occured after he was mysteriously transported to another time/place. In this case, the narrator is transported into the early 18th century Carribean, an era when Spain was the dominant sea power, and her ships plied the Atlantic bringing gold and other treasure from the New World.

After signing on as a seaman aboard a Spanish merchant ship returning to Spain from Cuba, he learns the basics of navigation and seamanship. Later, while re-crossing the Atlantic aboard the same ship, he and the rest of the crew are captured by pirates. Eventually, the narrator becomes a pirate captain himself.

On the positive side, the novel is fast-paced, held my attention, and I was easily able to finish it in a few days. The main problem with the book is that Wolfe tries to cram too much action into the 300 pages, and thus much of it seems rather cursory. In particular, the climactic voyage around Cape Horn from the Atlantic to the Pacific is covered in just a few pages. Similarly the final battle with the double-crossing band of pirates is covered in little over a page. It almost seemed like the author was struggling to meet a deadline.

The other problem with having so much action packed into so few pages is that there is no room for descriptive passages to make the reader feel they are actually there. When I read nautical fiction, I want to hear the thunder of the sails flapping in a 40 knot gale, and feel the sting of the salt spray as waves crash across the bow. There was none of that here. In fact, the Carribean seemed remarkably placid, in terms of weather, during the narrator's time as a pirate.

Similarly there was almost no description of how the pirates looked, how they dressed, what they did in their spare time, etc. There was no room for character development, and so it was difficult to feel that these were real people.

I guess this review sounds more critical than I initially intended. This is Gene Wolfe after all, and even bad Wolfe is better than 80% of what is out there. ( )

Gene Wolf says to himself, "Self, I can write about pirates, properly researched and everything; why write anything else?"

Coming from an author legendary for the subtlety of his works, this book is a suspiciously straightforward story about a man mysteriously transported to the past, in which he becomes a pirate and adventures ensue. Lots of fun, but a little awkward in the blocking occasionally. ( )