The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

Today’s post is from Erik at Schimelpfenig Library:

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe

I’m an actor here in town and some of my favorite acting experiences (as well as writing) have been the melodramas at The Pocket Sandwich Theatre;  I’m also a big fan of Monty Python.  That combination is the general idea behind The Pirates! series and it works really well.  There are several books in the series (5 or 6 I’m not sure, sorry)  and the Pirates! meet and have adventures with folks ranging from Ahab to Communists.  This particular adventure finds our hero, The Pirate Captain, worried that his crew are getting bored with the mundanity of pirate life.  So, seeking to break the monotony, he gets tricked into attacking the HMS Beagle.  From there, hilarity ensues at a breakneck pace including a chimp in a suit (Mr. Bobo, the Man-panzee), a kidnapping, damsels (and pirates) in distress, murder, intrigue , corruption at the highest levels of the Church and the satisfying comeuppance for the bad guys all wrapped up in just 144 pages.

And that may be my one complaint about this book.  It was just too short, I wanted it to go on for a while longer but I guess that is what the rest of the books are for.  There are a few things that take a little getting used to, like the fact that the pirates aren’t named but rather described such as “the Pirate in the Green Scarf,” but you get used to that pretty quickly.  The book isn’t going to kick James Joyce around and get confused for classic literature or any of that stuff but it is a nice, quick, enjoyable read that I would definitely recommend.