The advantage of long bus rides: much time to read while someone else deals with the traffic.
I was fully intending not to shop at Philcon, but how could I resist a Tanith Lee novel with the subtitle "Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl's Adventure Upon the High Seas"? I hadn't realized Tanith Lee wrote YA fiction, but I was certainly game to try it.
Piratica (Dutton, 2004) is the tale of one Artemesia Fitz-Willoughby Weatherhouse, daughter of deceased pirate queen Molly Faith and currently a student at the Angels Academy for Young Maidens in the year Seventeeen-Twelvety in an England that is just a bit different from our own. This is a fantasy world in the swashbuckling romance-of-piracy sense, not in the dragons-and-magic sense, though there are some unusually well-trained parrots. Artemesia has some memory problems as after-effects of the cannon explosion that killed her mother, but once she remembers her past (or does she?), she doesn't stay long at the Academy. Enter one Art Blastsides, would-be pirate queen; her parrot Plunqwette; and her scurvy crew, currently working as adverteers for a coffee magnate.
After some land-based adventurers involving an old theater, a highwayman named Gentleman Jack Cuckoo, and the unfortunate artist Felix Phoenix, we do eventually get off to the high seas and a pirate adventure complete with a treasure map and a villainous competing pirate queen named Little Goldie Girl. Tanith Lee exercises her formidable worldbuilding skills to take us to colorful locales slightly skewed from our own geography, including Lundun town, Grinwich, the pirate island of Mad-Agash Scar, and the terrible Doldrums. The crew includes the mysterious ex-slave Ebad Vooms; the terrible cook Whuskery; brothers Salt Peter and Salt Walter; the Eirish officer Eerie O'Shea; Black Knack (also know for his Hamlet); and the amazing Muck, the Cleanest Dog in England.
I don't want to say too much about the plot, which is a bit more convoluted than it first appears and worth experiencing at Lee's pace. So, talking around it, a few thoughts:
The novel is slyly feminist: one outraged ship captain angrily asks, "Is none of England's crime in decent male hands?" And it's also an interesting meditation on the borders of acting and the commonalities of piracy and theater. That was a nifty bonus for me; I didn't expect to find this as much a novel of the theater as of the high seas. I was also impressed that it includes both some interracial romance and an effeminate (probably gay, though it's not explicit) pirate fully accepted by all. Neither element is considered unusual enough to warrant comment within the story. There are also just enough horrible puns scattered throughout to amuse without become annoying.
Piratica is tremendous fun and perfectly workable for adult readers all the way down to, I think, preteens (though I'm not a good judge of age-appropriateness). I highly recommend it for young women/girls in particular but also for anyone who just likes a good pirate tale. Though I can't find any way to classify this as steampunk, it has a feel very similar to that of the Larklight books, with the advantage of having a heroine who is not a girly-girl and for whom "plucky" is an entirely inadequate term.
There are apparently two sequels, which I've ordered and will report back on soon. In the meantime, read for yourself:
I don't want to say too much about the plot, which is a bit more convoluted than it first appears
Your initial description of the plot didn't exactly make it sound anything but convoluted. And it gets even more so afterwards? And there are also horrible puns? I guess I'll have to make a trip to the bookstore.
Posted by: Serge | November 28, 2009 at 07:19 AM
There's actually a fairly significant chunk of Tanith Lee's output that's for young adults or children. (Including her very first novel, and still my own favourite, The Dragon Hoard.)
A prominent recentish example is Black Unicorn, which is noted for being set, incidentally, in a world where there's a type of domesticated creature called a "peeve".
Posted by: Paul A. | November 28, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Oaul A... Groan.
Posted by: Serge | November 28, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Oops. 'Paul A'.
Posted by: Serge | November 28, 2009 at 11:52 AM
After today's technological exploit of successfully setting our home up for wireless access, I've decided to treat myself. If neither the local Barnes & Noble nor Borders have Piratica, I'll buy it on the internet tomorrow. I wouldn't read it right away, but I love the act of buying books.
Posted by: Serge | November 30, 2009 at 12:44 AM
If you buy it from Amazon, please do it by clicking on my link above. I get a few cents on any sales made on Amazon to someone who arrives via one of my links. (So far this is about $14 over two years, which doesn't exactly pay for the Typepad account, but maybe one day it will start to be a little more substantial.)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | November 30, 2009 at 05:22 AM
On anything I buy that visit, not just that item? So if I click on one of your links to get to Amazon, then buy something else entirely, you still get the referral money? Hmmmm.
Posted by: Mary Aileen | November 30, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Mary Aileen,
Yup! So feel free to always go to Amazon when you want to shop by clicking on any of my shopping links.
I get interesting reports of what links people click on and then whether they buy that item or something else, and I can see what the "else" is, though its not broken down by purchaser. Anyone want to admit to being the Paige Turner mystery fan or the purchaser of Killer Klowns from Outer Space? (That's a great bad movie, if you know what I mean.)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | November 30, 2009 at 11:07 AM
I just added a few cents to your account, Susan. No, I didn't order Killer Klowns. Yes, I ordered Piratica.
Posted by: Serge | November 30, 2009 at 12:37 PM
Be sure to let us know what you think of it!
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | November 30, 2009 at 02:10 PM
I got Piratica today.
Posted by: Serge | December 07, 2009 at 08:09 PM
I see you've got CM Valente's blog linked; have you read Palimpsest?
I ask because Piratica reminds me doubly of Palimpsest: the latter's first chapter is titled rhymingly "16th and Hieratica;" and the initially-fictional-but-subsequently-actualized YA novel referenced within is titled similarly, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendation!
- Eli
(Also, it appears we have a number of friends in common.)
Posted by: Greektoomey | December 11, 2009 at 08:16 AM