a very silly small book about pirates and ham and scientists! Very silly, quick read when I finally rescued it from the back of MTBR.

A short, deliriously funny novel about pirates.

Seems funny :)

Having finished watching Our Flag Means Death, I figured it was time to go for this slim little book promising amusingly anachronistic pirate adventures with Charles Darwin.

Unfortunately the book doesn't get much beyond amusing, and the reason why can be found in the Acknowledgements, where author Defoe names only one general book about pirates that he found helpful in the writing--and nothing about Darwin. Look, it's a funny, anachronistic book, I'm not expecting spectacular research, but I just feel like there are so many ways that pirates and Darwin and scientists in general can be funny, but Defoe kind of shrugged and gave up that comedic potential. So, while there are plenty of jokes, most of them don't actually depend on the pirates-and-scientists theme. You could swap them out for just about anything--it probably wouldn't take more than a day to revise the text--and most of the jokes would still work: cowboys and teachers, bandits and politicians, you get the idea.

So, the plot, to remind me later:

Our nameless Pirate Captain, who sports a luxurious beard, has been vacationing with his pirate crew, which includes the pirate with the scarf, the pirate with the accordion, and the first mate, the pirate who wears green. (I found this lack of names funnier than I should, given my own tendency to read books so quickly that I forget the names of characters.) They're bored, so it's time for a new Adventure. After stocking up on roasted ham, they attack the Beagle hoping for gold, but instead find a young Charles Darwin and Bobo, the monkey that he's trained to be a human in almost every way. As it turns out the evil Bishop of Oxford has kidnapped Darwin's brother in protest against Darwin's scientific ideas--and the Pirate Captain makes the best of a bad situation by diverting attention from the lack of gold toward the potential for more adventure.

The pirates sail to Victorian England and we're done with the ship for good, sadly. To Darwin's dismay, the pirates lack hustle, spending some time at arcades and shopping for the latest in pirate fashion instead of focusing on search-and-rescue. While disguised as scientists so that they can stay at the exclusive Royal Society Gentleman's Club, they learn that the Bishop of Oxford has been hosting a circus with a suspicious number of ladies' nights, so the Pirate Captain sends two of his crew disguised as ladies to investigate, while he goes to a pirate convention masquerading as a ham convention.

As it turns out, the Bishop is capturing ladies and turning them into soap that will keep him looking young, so our pirates find themselves in a predicament. Meanwhile, the Pirate Captain meets up with some old friends and plans what OFMD's Stede Bonnet would call a f***ery: Darwin will present the amazing Bobo to the public and a sheet-draped pirate disguised as the "Holy Ghost" will interrupt the proceedings. When Bobo defeats him, the crowds will see how science triumphs and this will somehow make the Bishop confess where he's got Darwin's brother. As it turns out, the Bishop would rather chase the Pirate Captain around the Royal Society museum until Bobo steps in to save the day, the Bishop reveals his dastardly plans, and the Pirate Captain and Darwin engage in some piracy, stealing another scientist's experiment in order to save the day. Darwin's going to take toast-of-the-town Bobo on the road to earn his keep, and the pirates will go back to sea and their piratey ways.

That's it. This isn't a long book, so I didn't mind reading through to the end. If you want a very light bit of fun, there's no need to worry about overcommitting to this. And if you do like it more than I did, it looks like there's a whole series you can enjoy. Sadly, it does not include the Adventure with Cowboys to which the pirates allude--I'm on a bit of a western kick right now. ( )

These books are just adorable. Want a super fast afternoon read? Love pirates? Love ham? This is for you! ( )