Pirate Freedom

I spent the last few days meandering through Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom (11/07, Tor, editor: David Hartwell), which is a lovely historical pirate novel with a side helping of time travel.  Wolfe is rather casual about the time travel element and never even attempts to explain how it works.  His narrator ends up three centuries in the past and doesn't really seem to be too fazed by the experience, or to find it worth recording much about how different it is on a day-to-day basis.  So don't go into this thinking "cool skiffy time traveling pirate novel!"  It's not like that.  But the book is so finely written that even though there is little sense of urgency to find out what happens next, I was quite content to drift quietly along with Wolfe's prose regardless.

Despite a narrator so laid-back he's supine, it's a fun pirates-of-the-Caribbean yarn which is much more realistic than most pirate fantasy.  I can't personally vouch for the accuracy  of Wolfe's clearly extensive research, but it feels thorough and convincing to my historian's instincts.  The sea battles are pleasing echoes of Patrick O'Brian's novels, though less obsessively detailed (which is fine) and much shorter, pirates and their prey for the most part being less motivated to get into long, dangerous engagements involving entire fleets of ships.  I also thought briefly of David Weber's Harrington novels; the more I read good descriptions of early sea battles, the more I notice how much Weber translated - with mixed results - to his space battles.

One tidbit stood out for me in the general rush of historical detail: teenage pirates. While movies are full of grizzled pirates, in the novel and (I'm guessing) historically, pirates tended to be young and die young.  The idea of an entire shipload of teenage boys (and the occasional girl) armed with cutlasses and pistols storming a ship is terrifying in entirely new ways!  (Quick flash to S.J. Tucker's Wendy songs...)

The story slips back and forth in time.  The narrator is currently a priest in the 20th century, telling the tale of his adventures in the past (and occasionally reflecting on his problems in the present) and clearly hoping someday to return to his life there.  The past story, as noted, is a good pirate yarn, though coolly told both by the author and by the narrator when retelling it as a story-within-the-story.  Blood and guts are limited, though there is plenty of death, and the narrator, as noted, remains preternaturally calm throughout.  I could have wished for a little less calm here and there, but it works.  I was very pleased by the ending, which managed to surprise me even having accurately guessed the general outline of what was coming.

Finally, I must mention the lovely interior illustrations, lovely black and white pieces by cover artist David Grove.  I'm a little irked with myself for not finishing this book before the Hugo nomination deadline a couple of days ago.  I wouldn't have nominated the novel itself for a Hugo, as it didn't excite me in a "must nominate!" sort of way, but I sure would have nominated Grove!

A fine, fine book all around.  I recommend enjoying it yourself.