Customer Reviews

Fast Ships, Black Sails

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While this may not be the first pirate story anthology, Fast Ships, Black Sails doesn't hold back, with its captivating cover featuring a classic pirate standing proud at the prow of his ship, while small glowing-eye dragons fly around, a tiny dragon skeleton sits on his shoulder, and in the cloudy distance is what appears to be a ghost pirate ship. This collection edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer features a combination of classic swashbuckling pirate tales, as well as fascinating stories of the fantastic from authors like Conrad Williams, Garth Nix, Elizabeth Bear, and many more.

In the opening story, "Boojum" from Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette - possibly the best in the collection - we are in space, and the mighty spaceships are living entities that grow and change and have mouths; they are biomechanical. The authors do an excellent job of creating an interesting world that leaves the reader wanting more. In Naomi Novik's -- author of the successful Temeraire series - "Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake," the daughter of a very important noble is kidnapped by pirates and thought murdered, but Araminta is a special woman with some unique powers allowing her to outwit the pirates who have taken her hostage. In Michael Moorcock's too short story "Ironface," there are pirates in space and Ironface is the most feared in the solar system, who makes the trip to Venus to accept the expensive bribe that he collects each decade, then his ship, Pain, floats back out into the dark realms of space.

Fast Ships, Black Sails has the perfect pirate story for any reader, as it presents both the classic and the unusual stories of privateers and buccaneers sailing the high seas, as well as the dark matter clouds of the cosmos.

Find more reviews, as well as a selection of my writing, and a link to the book review podcast BookBanter at www.alexctelander.com.

Its difficult to rate an anthology, as the stories are rarely of uniform quality, for obvious reasons. Out of the 20-odd tales here, there are 5 or 6 I truly enjoyed, 2 or 3 I skimmed over out of duty, and the balance were readable, if you had time to kill.

Pirates of all types are found in this collection: space pirates, ice pirates, supernatural pirates, pirate pirates, and last but by no means least, rat pirates.

Boojum, the opening tale by Bear and Monette is one of the best in the book, but I also found Garth Nix and Naomi Novik did sterling work also. Suara Sea by Flint and Freer was fun, but my favourite story was "A cold day in hell" by Paul Batteiger. The imagery conjured up by that tale was superb and its setting unique: to call it Pirates on Ice is not to spoil the story but hopefully to intrigue. The world found in that story could support a whole novel, if not a series of them.

The nonsense tale "The Adventures of Captain Black Heart Wentworth" by Rachel Swirsky was also great fun, but sadly unfilmable, save by Pixar. Thats not to say a story should be filmable to be a success, but I challenge the reader not to regret being unable to see that tale on the big screen.

For the price, there are books of uniformly higher quality available, but as far as anthologies go, this is a solid one, assuming you like pirates (and if you don't, you should).

A great gift for talk like a pirate day, or to any Pastafarians who hold pirates in reverance.

Naomi Novik's name drew me to this anthology, since I like her Temeraire series so much, but the standout story of this collection is the first one, BOOJUM by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. Of the others, some were enjoyable diversions, while others had me skipping pages. Some were engaging stories, others felt self-indulgent (taste is an individual thing, after all).

An anthology like this can serve a couple of purposes - not just enjoyment for itself but also as a taster of various authors' work. I've found a couple of new ones to follow up, so that's good.

There is such diversity that it doesn't necessarily read well story after story, but as a dipper, one story at a time rather than several in a row.

It's an engaging and varied collection of bonbons, pirates in all sorts of times and places, not all involving peglegs and parrots. But the one I've read over again, the one that will stay with me, is Boojum.

This is a very strong anthology with some absolutely excellent pirate fiction. The stories range from traditional pirate tales to genre spoofs to tales with a touch of fantasy to space pirate stories, and I enjoyed the heck out of nearly all of them. Just a couple fell flat for me, but overall, this is a fantastic anthology that would be a great addition to the pirate section of your bookshelf.

You don't have a pirate section? I can't be the only one who does.

I think my favorite stories are "Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, "The Nymph's Child" by Carrie Vaughn, and "Pirate Solutions" by Katherine Sparrow. "Boojum" is the aforementioned space pirate story, narrated by Black Alice, a junior engineer on a living ship. Boojums are strange space creatures that allow humans to use them as transports; they will allow their crew to pillage ships as long as the boojum gets to devour the ship itself-and whatever crew is left on board. Alice develops a bond with the ship, and when they're attacked by the vicious Mi-Go (yes, that is a Lovecraft reference), Black Alice must do something desperate to survive. This is a very strange story, but it is incredibly imaginative and very well-written.

"The Nymph's Child," written by Carrie Vaughn of the Kitty Norville series, is about a woman who had sailed with pirates disguised as a man. When they are captured, the captain-who is her lover-tells the Marshal that Gregory Lark es actually Grace Lark and is with child. Years later and Grace keeps a tavern and has a proud teenage daughter who seems desperate for adventure. When an old face shows up and asks the secret to crossing the Strait of the Iron Teeth, where a dragon is rumored to dwell, Grace must face up to her past and come to terms with her daughter's desires. I adored this story; the blend of fantasy with a more traditional woman-in-drag pirate tale is very well done.

"Pirate Solutions" is another genre-bending story with three hackers named Jack, Anne, and Mary finding a bottle of bone rum and setting sail with their group of cyber pirates. And I mean that literally, they set sail on a semi-restored sloop with the uncanny knowledge of their pirate forebears: Calico Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. The story is a strange blend of sailing-the-seas and cyberpunk piracy and a ragtag group of pirates looking for a home.

It was really difficult to pick just three favorites; I could go on and on and on about how great the stories are in this anthology, but I unfortunately have papers to grade and other stuff to write, alas! But you! I know yer not a yellow-bellied landlubber, so get thee to a bookstore and pick up this anthology! Just don't pillage it. Bookstore managers don't look too kindly on those bent on plunder.

An anthology of short stories about pirates past, present and elsewhen that was generally quite a hoot. Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette's story "Boojum" is about a pirate living space ship and a very low ranking pirate on that ship. "Skillet and Saber" by Justin Howe is about the cook's mate on a pirate ship and his adventures. "The Nymph's Child" by Carrie Vaughn is about a woman pirate who pleads her belly to save her neck, when she is caught, but then must give up her grown daughter so she can sail the seas. "Araminta, Or the Wreck of the Amphidrake" by Naomi Novik is dragon-free, but has a title character a young woman who is both titled, and when confronted with pirates, becomes their leader. There are other wonderful stories in here, but these are some that spoke to me.

The stories in 'Fast Ships, Black Sails' - while sometimes of very disparate genres - were all quite good examples of different methods of piracy. While there was very little focus on actual historical piracy, the fantasy versions presented here ranged from heroic to villainous which I found to be a good mix to be expected in such a collection.

It seems that I'm not too fond of Vandermeer's writings, but his (and his wife's) ability to put together top-notch collections of short stories by others is quite enviable.

If you enjoy not-quite-real versions of piracy, I would heartily recommend this book; if you're looking for fiction that hews closer to historical accuracy you would be best served looking for something else.

On the whole, I enjoyed the stories in this book, but only a few were memorable or even satisfying. A great idea, with less than perfect execution.

Compilations always include something you don't like, but you won't know til you have read the book right through.

The blurb on the back cover mentions swashbuckling stories from the past, present and beyond. Be prepared for some space pirate stories to venture into science fiction territory, these are however some of the best in the book.

'A Cold Day In Hell' is a good story and well paced. If the idea of two or three masted ( or more ) sailing ships on huge ice skates whizzing across frozen worlds is new to you, check out the 'IceRigger' trilogy by Alan Dean Foster ( he also wrote Star Wars, Alien 1,2+3, the Chronicles of Riddick etc. ). Michael Moorcock's 'Ice Schooner' is another.

'Boojum' and 'Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe' are the first and last stories in the book. Like any good tale, Boojum leaves the reader in suspense as to how it ends right to the last pages. Sarskoe is typical of many short stories in that you are left with the impression that the tale is only half told and that what you are reading is just an excerpt from a full novel. Other stories in this book leave the same feeling.

Should you be well versed in nautical terminology and sailing rigs and technique, then picking the bloopers will be inevitable. The trick is not to let that get in the way of following the plot. Speaking of which, some of these stories will have you scratching your head as to just what the point of the story is!

Overall, the book is well worth the money