2018-04-19 18:05:24

Hi all,

I am trying to find a series in the topic of 17th century pirates,  jack sparrow, long john silver style etc.

Does anyone know of such a series?

Also I am looking for time travel series but not Dr Who.

thanks

2018-04-19 18:11:48

Sorry neither of these is a series, but my favourite time travel type book is Replay by Ken Grimwood. And a book I really love, wich is kind of a pirates book though not really the sort you mean, is Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson. Both of these have audio versions that are very good.

2018-04-19 18:50:31

If you like pirates, On stranger tides by Tim Powers is definitely worth a read, indeed pretty much anything by Tim Powers is worth a read but On Stranger tides is to my knolidge his only book about pirates, also voodoo, blackbierd and a lot of very creepy puppets big_smile.

You can find My review here

Another really good book I read about all aspects of sailing, pirates included was runing proud by Nicholas Monsarrat.
This is the story of a man who is cursed to sail the seas forever and lives from the 16th century to the present (though the book ends after the battle of trafalga and the death of Nelson).

It goes all around the world to different sea ports with the sailor being everything from a naval officer, to an admiralty clarke and  a convict fisherman, and yes, he's a pirate too, indeed the book features that most famous pirate of them all Henry Morgen.

I will advise this one is not an easy book to read, both because bits of it (including the bits about pirates), are really! nasty (they did some pretty horrific things back then), and  each section of the book is partly written to use the idioms, language and naval terms of the time in which it is set.

Still if you really want to dive into the past and see real pirates rather than rejects from treasure island or peter pan, Running proud is worth a read, although I don't know if I'll ever go back to it myself, glad though I am to have experienced it originally.

Time travel wise
remember that Doctor who of course is a long running series and changes hugely, and should not be judged by the bombastic crap that is currently on tv, indeed Big finish in the audios have had some amazing pure historical stories, such as Son of the Dragon, catch 1782, the marian Conspiracy and farewell to masadon that are just bloody good stories set in the past, heck two of the most  recent monthly stories, last years Peter loo masacre and this years The behemoth are both absolutely fantastic examples of pure historicals that delve into their periods in a really interesting way, neither involving aliens etc.

Still, doctor who aside, one author I can highly recommend for her time travel books is Connie Willis, particularly her book Doomsday book, which is probably one of the best Time travel stories I've ever read. You can go here for my review. This is about a historical researcher who goes back to the time of the Black death for her undergraduate degree, and yee gods, if you want to see  accurate depictions of the past and some really lovable characters trying to cope in bad situations this is the book.

I actually need to get back to her Oxford time travel series which my lady is a huge fan of, albeit none are quite as grim as doomsday book.

Another time travel story I really enjoyed is Michael Bishop's no enemy but time.
This is the story of a man who goes back to the prehistoric era in his dreams. What I particularly enjoyed in this one is the way that he characterises the hominids he meets, even though they don't speak, indeed the relationship he has with one hominid woman is quite beautiful.

Btw, I was assuming here that by "time travel" stories you mean stories about people going into the past. There are manifestly others kicking around with different ideas, for example Robert Silverberg's wonderful novella sailing to bizantium which is the story of a twentieth century man who winds up in the 50th century where people reproduce cities from the past as holiday destinations, indeed thinking about it even if you just want to read a book about ancient cities like mohenjo daro or alexandrea this one might be a good one too though as a novella its comparatively short.
find my review of that here

hth.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-20 00:45:59

Hello.


@dark.

Where can I get Running proud in audiobook form? i'm asuming that's how you read your audiobooks but when I looked on google, I couldn't find anything.

I'm gone for real :)

2018-04-20 08:02:55

Hi brad. The book's full title is "the master mariner, book one, running proud"
It was supposed to be the start of the duology that carried the protagonists story to the present day, but the author died before writing the second part.

The only place I know who have it is the RNIB talking book library unfortunately Brad, though as your in the Uk getting it shouldn't be too problematic.

As I said it was well worth reading, I just don't know if I'll ever read it again.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-20 08:12:27

Hello.

@dark. Thanks for the information.

I'm gone for real :)

2018-04-20 18:11:11

thanks very much for the kind suggestions.

I will definatly check out most of them.

2018-04-21 21:12:07

Glad you like the suggestions.

Another favourite of mine in terms of time travel is The anubis gates by Tim powers. True, this one isn't your typical time travel story since it features magic rather than science, but much of the plot does involve an English professor who winds up in early 19th century England and it does have some really interesting stuff about historical paradoxes and predestination, as well as body swapping villains, some monsters that would give lovecraft pause for thought and even an evil clown! big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-25 13:11:52

I had a recommendation from Flackers that interested me called "Ghost Pirates".

The title alone got me really interested, anyway I read the book over 2 nights as its just over 4 hours long.

I want to share it with you guys to get an opinion of the book,
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nusvqydmoyrr5 … s.zip?dl=0

The reason is because the contrast between Flackers view on what a good book is, I am interested in other peoples opinions of it incase I am in the minority who thought there was 0 interesting characters not to mention a shallow storyline.

By the way this is no dig at Flackers as I am grateful for his suggestion, its just nuts on books seem great to 1 person and garbage to another.

2018-04-25 14:00:11

Moderation!

I'll remind everyone that while its not a major deal we do have to be careful with posting links to direct download copywrite stuff on the forum since we don't want to get the site into trouble.
In the case of The Ghost pirates this wasn't as much an issue since the book was first published in 1909 (the entire text is on wiki source), but it is a point to consider, if people want to share books please don't do it here.

I've not personally herd of the ghost pirates, but when I consulted wikipedia it said it was one of Lovecraft's favourite novels.
Remember in those days authors were often a lot less picky about things. It didn't matter if your horror novel didn't have great characters so long as it did the horror right, likewise adventure stories like King Soloman's mines weren't read because they had awesome characters, but because they had really fun descriptions of swashbucling adventures with lions and mad native priests and such, sort of the hollywood blockbusters of the day, albeit ones that took a deal more creativity on the part of the authors.

All of this is working up to saying that perhaps The Ghost pirates, like a lot of Lovecraft's own novels was more about the horror than the people involved, so probably not as much a representation of pirates as  ineffable beings from the dawn of time.

I might give it a go, but at the moment I'm busy reading To say nothing of the dog, conny Willis's second Oxford time travel story, the sequel to the aforementioned Doomsday book.

this is again another story about the time travelling historians who go back and studdy the past, but one with a really different style to the first, since wher doomsday book is a really grim look at the black death, To  nothing of the dog is a dry, ironic (and very English) comedy set in Victorian times with lots of running around, disasterous boat trips up the thames and everyone trying very hard to do the right thing in well meaning ways and getting horribly confused big_smile.

I suspect how much people enjoy it would depend upon people's liking for a certain sort of rather dry, surreal  English humour which Conny actually writes very well despite being American.

Btw, I'm not making this up, Mrs. Dark pointed out the dry humour thing to me which is something I didn't notice myself until she mentioned it, she said it was one of the things she really had to get used to being over here.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-25 17:10:24

The next book on the agenda is "Michael Bishop - no enemy but time"

Hopefully I will be more engaged with this one.

I hate Lovecraft's work to be honest so if Ghost Pirates was in that style then theres no wonder I never liked it.

After Michael Bishops book I will start Doomsday.  I could not find Running Proud on the overdrive ap with RNIB, only the master mariner, and I think that's just his wife speaking about her husbands work.

2018-04-25 17:26:56

no enemy but time is a strange book in some ways, I need to reread it myself, though if your issue with ghost pirates was character it shouldn't be a problem here since the book has lots of character.
Doomsday book is amazingly good. I'm afraid I don't know anywhere to get it here, indeed Conny Willis's work is not as well known as it should be but I'd definitely suggest having a hunt for it as its one of the best books I've read generally, aside from being one of the best time travel stories (and that from a life long whovian).

As regards lovecraft I agree. He did what he did very well, but he was sadly something of a one trick pony.

Btw I'm not sure about overdrive since I still prefer to get the RNIB books on cd myself but:

RNIB Catalogue wrote:

The master mariner.
1978. Adult. Sea stories.
TB3398

Matthew Lawe's act of cowardice in the midst of Drake's defeat of the Armada has brought upon him a wild witch's curse that he stay on earth until his guilt is purged. For four centuries he is to live the hazardous life of a British seaman. The first instalment takes him to with Hudson in search of a north-west passage; as a buccaneer to the Caribbean; and finally to victory at Trafalgar.
Read by Garard Green.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-25 19:32:18 (edited by flackers 2018-04-25 20:01:34)

It's okay, I admire the fact you can be honest about what you think. If someone recommends something to me, I find it quite difficult to then tell them I thought it sucked, but I find it equally hard to bullshit them about it too. It might be that the ghost pirates is just too old-fashioned for some. It definitely isn't character driven. It's like they're just ordinary men, there to sail a ship and nothing else. Though for me, the authentic description of life aboard a sailing ship of that era is one of the things I love about it, that and the atmosphere. Hope Hodgson is noticeably a contemporary of Lovecraft's, but I personally think he's a cut above even though HPL is a lot more famous. But WHH's style is never going to appeal to everyone. You get people saying how great he is, and those who say he's dull as ditchwater. I loved ghost pirates, and I think his most famous work House on the Borderland is genius given the time it was written. In terms of early twentieth-century horror, Hope Hodgson was way ahead of the field I think.

2018-04-25 21:01:11

I'll have to check it myself and see what I think Flacus next time I'm up for some horror, it might actually be an interesting one to review.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-05-18 11:18:41

Just a bit of threadcromancy, since my review of To say nothing of the dog by Connie willis is now up and can be read here

Since I mentioned it earlier in this topic I thought I'd post the link just to be complete.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)