Customer Reviews

Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl's Adventure Upon the High Seas

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You've read the blurb - Art turns into a pirate and sails the high seas, convinced that she is after all, daughter of Piratica. There are some interesting little twists and turns of the plot, and not until close to the end is the denuement.

This is a brillantly executed tale of adventure and derring do!

Art is so well conceived and written, full of normal human frailties and doubts but determined to soldier on through life.

She meets up with, and robs a very handsome young gentleman who accompanies them - albeit unwillingly at first and later out of curiosity, we are told...

So, ingredients - high seas, adventure, lost loves, new faces, wicked enemies and a dog - what more could you possibly need for a wonderful story?...!!

Artemesia Fitz-Willoughby Weatherhouse was practicing grace and deportment, as befits a fine young lady of early 19th-century British society, when a clumsy tumble down the stairs restored lost recollections of her youth. Now 16, she suddenly remembers the accident six years earlier when an exploding cannon on her mother's pirate ship robbed her of both her memories and her mom. No longer content to be a "lady" -- and thoroughly despising the father whose only wish for her was to suppress her natural instincts and personality -- Artemesia escapes her rigid school and seeks some means to resume her former life.

After an unexpected encounter with a notorious English highwayman, Artemesia makes her way to a seedy dockside tavern, where she finds a large portion of her mother's former crew making a bare living as coffee salesmen. But they, though pleased to see this younger model of their beloved former leader, have more memories of hers to restore -- particularly those proving that Art's version of events were never true. They weren't pirates, the crewmen insist, but actors portraying pirates on stage. Their popular productions -- with Art's mother always starring in the lead role of the good-spirited and merciful pirate queen Piratica -- were so realistic that they had impressed on young Art's mind memories more vivid than the truth.

Or did they? Tanith Lee's young-adult novel "Piratica" has a good many twists and turns in the plot before readers discover the real story of this young girl's past. But, until they surface, Art isn't content to pass her time in that seedy pub; instead, she -- now using the name Art Blastside -- leads her acting troupe to sea, where they commandeer a ship and make their fiction into reality under her mother's trademark black-on-pink Jolly Roger.

Compared to some of Lee's other, more mature fiction, "Piratica" is a trifle awkward and oddly paced, and its heroine is just a little bit too good at everything she tries to do. Acting solely on memories from, in some cases, her infancy, she demonstrates unparalleled skill at seamanship and knowledge of the sea. Her crew, meanwhile, is presented as a tight collection of actors who, once prodded by their 16-year-old captain, excel at all things nautical. It stretches even the most pliable limits of belief.

Not that "Piratica" isn't an enjoyable read. It is, and I was never tempted to cast it aside; Lee's mastery of character and plot are too deft not to hold my interest. Still, a far better example of young-girl-as-pirate fiction can be found in the pages of L.A. Meyers' excellent "Bloody Jack" series, which I heartily recommend. Even so, I am sure I'll want to read "Piratica II" if the opportunity presents itself.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(net) editor

First, let's get something straight. In order to enjoy Piratica, you must suspend reality. Half of the things that happen in this book would never work in real life. So if you're looking for a deep, intellectual novel, you will be seriously disappointed.

If, however, you are searching for a book that will make you laugh out loud even on repeat readings, where fantasic adventures are possible and an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl can become a heroine, then this book will be a joy for you. It's also my personal favorite of Tanith Lee's books.

Like other reviewers, I found this book a little tough to get into. In fact, I probably read the first few chapters 5 or 6 times before I could really get into the book, but it is definitely worth it. The plot twist that comes up a few chapters in is genuinely surprising (it surprised me, anyway!) and makes the book infinitely more intriguing and enjoyable. The plot is extremely rewarding (after those first few chapters at least) and, as ever, Tanith Lee's exposition is beautiful.

It's interesting to read some work of hers that's aimed at a younger audience, and this book treads a fine line between what you might expect from Lee's other work and what you might expect from a pirate story. The sensual elements are more restrained, perhaps, but the characterisation is still very Lee.

I think this book should not be a disappointment for either pirate fans or Lee fans (unless you're just looking for smut, because you won't find it here), and would recommend to it to anyone who likes all things whimsical, fantastical, and piratical.

As a fourteen-year-old using (with permission) her mother's account, I really enjoyed this book.

The first time I saw it, I wasn't very interested by the description or cover, and only decided to get it because it was free (long story--I wasn't in a bookstore). But I was hooked within the first ten pages. Though the author uses a style which is hard to get into at first, it was a nice change of pace from the usual, standard way books are written, and overall I think it would not have been as good if it hadn't been written this way. The alternate universe thing is a tad confusing, but it makes sense that she should need to use it, for the plot would be different if England were a monarchy in the book.

As a hopeless romantic when it comes to books (that is, to a certain extent) I really liked the romance in this book. I actually thought she could have gone a bit more into that part, but I think she makes up for it in the sequel, which is also good to read after the first.

In this book the main character was not my favorite character, however. She seemed to me very much the stereotypical individual!independant!sexrole!strong!female, and while I'm all for that stuff, it gets old when it's always pointed out how she "wears man's clothes" and is a "fierce female pirate" who, for instance, gives her crew breaks at rowing the boats, but never stops for a rest herself. It's a little unrealistic that after 6 years at a girl's school she'd know everything about ships and sailing and is as strong as any man.

That rant over with, Felix is ceretainly an interesting enough character to make up for Art.

Overall, I really liked this book (despite complaints--there were more things good about it that I just didn't list) and it's sequel, as well. It's a good book for middle schoolers, probably, so anyone older or younger might not like it as much. I'm really looking forward to Tanith Lee releasing a third one, and hope it's as good as the first two.

I almost gave up on this book while reading the first third of it. The writing was awkward, as if Lee struggled to find the story's voice. The plot was tedious and the characters uninteresting.

But when Art and her unusual crew set out to sea, the book greatly improved, turning into an enjoyable, creative take on pirate legends. After all the adventure, swashbuckling and derring-do, Lee's pitch-perfect ending lent poignancy to the tale.

This book doesn't show Tanith Lee at her greatest or

creativ-est. Somehow, I didn't quite connect with Art (maybe if it were written in first person it would be better). This book is pretty straight forward, with a couple of twists, but overall, it lacks something of interest. However, I still believe that it is a great book for YA readers and I definitely recommend it and other Tanith Lee books.

First of all, read this book's other reviews at your own risk, because many utterly spoil the twist. (This review is spoiler-free.)

One of those books with a vague blurb, I almost didn't check "Piratica" out of the library. However, I'm glad I did, because it turned out to be a good read!

It begins with an unusual twist on the "hero wakes up with amnesia" plot. Rather than waking up with amnesia, our heroine wakes up from a knock on the head with a cure for amnesia, suddenly remembering her lost life as a pirate girl on the high seas. Disgusted with the refinement school her wealthy father has placed her in, she runs away to seek adventure.

This is where it starts to get cliched once again. There were a great many cliches in this book, as a matter of fact, many very similar to those in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series. Because of this, I didn't find the first half of the book so impressive - though there was a lovely twist early on that I didn't see coming.

However, the second half was very impressive. Though the stereotypes continued and the plot was nothing particularly special, there was so much fun adventuring going on in the foreground that it wasn't an issue. What's more, I really started to feel for the characters, and even cried at two points in the story! Throughout the whole story, a wonderful balance was struck between a lighthearted tone and serious issues, which to me worked quite effectively. The ending was also very satisfying. Again, not the most original, but definitely worth it.

One other thing I'd like to mention is the character names. I just loved the author's choices - there were characters with names like Salt Walter, Salt Peter, Artemesia, Goldie, Felix, Honest Liar, Ebad, and so on. Such a small detail, but it really helped give the book its own unique character. Even the place names were quirkily renamed from London to Lundon, Portsmouth to Port's Mouth, Thames to Thamis, Madagascar to Mad Agas' Scar, the Americas to the Amer Ricas, giving the world of "Piratica" a familiar-yet-exotic atmosphere.

If you like the adventure genre, complete with pirates, maps to buried treasure, exotic locations and escaping the law, this is a fun book to read! I almost guarantee that any fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean will enjoy it, because it is very similar in many ways. But it also has its own twists and exciting moments. 4/5 stars.

It took me a while to get into this book, which is one of those YA books that I would enthusiastically recommend to younger readers but not necessarily to other adults. But once I got into it, I had a lot of fun. It presents an exciting vision of a fictional British Empire in which women are the most interesting heroes and villains. Towards the end, there's an awesome girl-pirate sword fight between Art Blastside, a.k.a. Piratica, Queen of the Seas, and her nemesis, the insufferable and wicked Little Goldie Girl. Also, it includes the line: "Is none of England's crime in decent male hands?" No, not in this world, sir.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the tale of Artemesia / Art Blastside / Piratica, indeed a "singular girl" having an "adventure upon the high seas."

The story starts with Artemesia falling down the stairs at her girls' school, and, thanks to the knock she gets on the head, remembering her previous life with her pirate mother at sea. She runs away, only to find her mother's old crew, and they set to sea and become pirates once more, Art assuming the identity of Piratica, her late mother's name.

What follows is a rollicking adventure with everything you'd expect in a pirate's tale: evil pirates, a parrot, a treasure map, ships, fun, jewels, a "lost" island, treachery, heartache, actors, etc.

I do agree with other reviewers that at times the plot twists seemed a little contrived, Art's knowledge and ability a little suspect (you wonder if she is indeed delusional), and the writing sometimes hard to get into. But if you're looking for a fun, girl-centric adventure story, this is highly recommended. (I would have given it 4.5 stars if I could.)