Book Log 1/2010 - Michael Crichton: Pirate Latitudes

This is the first Michael Crichton book I've read, and possibly the last is it's a posthumous publication (he died in 2008). I found it fascinating with some gripping and tense passages,  but with an oddly unsatisfying ending despite the success of the hero's enterprise. It's like eating meringue, sweet during the act, but it doesn't satisfy for long and afterwards you realise you've eaten empty calories and kind of wished you hadn't started.

Set in the Caribbean in 1665, the hero of the tale, Captain Charles Hunter sets off from Port Royal – in partnership  with Governor Almont – to attack a Spanish stronghold of Mataceros and liberate the treasure galleon lying up there for the winter. Hunter has put together a crew with specialist skills, interesting but mostly two-dimensional, recruited a la 'Magnificent Seven'. Sanson, the killer; the eagle-eyed, trans-gendered Lazue; Mr Enders, the sailing master annoyingly constantly described as a 'sea-artist'; Bassa, the Moor, strong as an ox, and Don Diego, the Jew, an explosives expert.

After a bit of perfunctory sex with the wife of the governor's new secretary, Hacklett – getting the obligatory and unemotional entanglement out of the way early – but providing a reason for a later plot turn, there follows an adventure which rolls through every conceivable oceanic catastrophe to another (including an argument with the Kraken), all narrowly averted. The sea stuff is meticulously researched, but the raid on Mataceros is just too easy and Hunter also manages to rescue - almost as an afterthought, Governor Almont's niece, Lady Sarah. Is there a convenient romance ahead? Some steamy caribbean sex? Sadly no, though the prickly Lady Sarah does a bit of half-hearted witchcraft that seems misplaced in this story and is never followed through.

On the way home in the liberated Galleon they encounter a set of serial marine woes which include a sea battle, cannibals, repairing the ship out of nothing, a Kraken and a monster hurricane, not necessarily in that order. They lose contact with Sanson and their original ship, the Cassandra, but eventually win through. Could it get any worse? Actually yes. When they eventually get back to port they are arrested as pirates because the governor's secretary, Hacklett, (his wife already known to be carrying Hunter's child) has taken over with the help of the garrison commander. Hunter escapes, of course, and in the process sets Almont back in power and gets his conviction overturned. So far, so good, but from here it starts to get less satisfying...

Hunter then goes after Sanson, the sole survivor of the Cassandra, who has stolen half the treasure. He kills Sanson and takes the treasure map. And if it ended there it would be fine, however in a two page epilogue Crichton sucks all the fun out of the previous 300 pages. Hunter never deciphers the treasure map and spends most of the rest of his (short) life searching for it, dying 5 years later in a cottage in England having been weakened by malaria. The epilogue reads like Hunter is a real historical figure (if he is I can't find any references) and wraps up all the rest of the individual stories - mostly dismally. (for instance Almont and Lady Sarah return to London where they die in the great fire the following year),

It's a strangely unsatisfying book despite having many fine moments. Although all the elements are there, the style is spare and somewhat uninvolving. This could almost be the blueprint for a much more fleshed out novel, yet the spareness itself is not unattractive. On the basis of this, however, I will not seek out Crichton's back catalogue. I believe the film rights have been sold and it will probably make a better film than a book when the pixie dust has been sprinkled over it, a blistering romance concocted between Hunter and Lady Sarah and/or Mrs Hacklett and the happy-ever-after ending of choice inserted.

Oh, and casting Johnny Depp as Hunter wouldn't hurt,

Book Log 1/2010 - Michael Crichton: Pirate Latitudes

This is the first Michael Crichton book I've read, and possibly the last is it's a posthumous publication (he died in 2008). I found it fascinating with some gripping and tense passages,  but with an oddly unsatisfying ending despite the success of the hero's enterprise. It's like eating meringue, sweet during the act, but it doesn't satisfy for long and afterwards you realise you've eaten empty calories and kind of wished you hadn't started.

Set in the Caribbean in 1665, the hero of the tale, Captain Charles Hunter sets off from Port Royal – in partnership  with Governor Almont – to attack a Spanish stronghold of Mataceros and liberate the treasure galleon lying up there for the winter. Hunter has put together a crew with specialist skills, interesting but mostly two-dimensional, recruited a la 'Magnificent Seven'. Sanson, the killer; the eagle-eyed, trans-gendered Lazue; Mr Enders, the sailing master annoyingly constantly described as a 'sea-artist'; Bassa, the Moor, strong as an ox, and Don Diego, the Jew, an explosives expert.

After a bit of perfunctory sex with the wife of the governor's new secretary, Hacklett – getting the obligatory and unemotional entanglement out of the way early – but providing a reason for a later plot turn, there follows an adventure which rolls through every conceivable oceanic catastrophe to another (including an argument with the Kraken), all narrowly averted. The sea stuff is meticulously researched, but the raid on Mataceros is just too easy and Hunter also manages to rescue - almost as an afterthought, Governor Almont's niece, Lady Sarah. Is there a convenient romance ahead? Some steamy caribbean sex? Sadly no, though the prickly Lady Sarah does a bit of half-hearted witchcraft that seems misplaced in this story and is never followed through.

On the way home in the liberated Galleon they encounter a set of serial marine woes which include a sea battle, cannibals, repairing the ship out of nothing, a Kraken and a monster hurricane, not necessarily in that order. They lose contact with Sanson and their original ship, the Cassandra, but eventually win through. Could it get any worse? Actually yes. When they eventually get back to port they are arrested as pirates because the governor's secretary, Hacklett, (his wife already known to be carrying Hunter's child) has taken over with the help of the garrison commander. Hunter escapes, of course, and in the process sets Almont back in power and gets his conviction overturned. So far, so good, but from here it starts to get less satisfying...

Hunter then goes after Sanson, the sole survivor of the Cassandra, who has stolen half the treasure. He kills Sanson and takes the treasure map. And if it ended there it would be fine, however in a two page epilogue Crichton sucks all the fun out of the previous 300 pages. Hunter never deciphers the treasure map and spends most of the rest of his (short) life searching for it, dying 5 years later in a cottage in England having been weakened by malaria. The epilogue reads like Hunter is a real historical figure (if he is I can't find any references) and wraps up all the rest of the individual stories - mostly dismally. (for instance Almont and Lady Sarah return to London where they die in the great fire the following year),

It's a strangely unsatisfying book despite having many fine moments. Although all the elements are there, the style is spare and somewhat uninvolving. This could almost be the blueprint for a much more fleshed out novel, yet the spareness itself is not unattractive. On the basis of this, however, I will not seek out Crichton's back catalogue. I believe the film rights have been sold and it will probably make a better film than a book when the pixie dust has been sprinkled over it, a blistering romance concocted between Hunter and Lady Sarah and/or Mrs Hacklett and the happy-ever-after ending of choice inserted.

Oh, and casting Johnny Depp as Hunter wouldn't hurt,