Pirate Latitudes (spoilers may exist)

[ArtherEld]

So. Have you read the new Michael Crichton book yet?

What did you think?

What do you think about the movie news?

Movie news: Steven Spielburg will direct the movie. He's hired David Koepp to write the screenplay. David Koepp wrote the screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Oh yeah... yeah I know. Crystal Skull. I know...

Discuss.

[Jean]

this thread may later be merged with the general Crichton thread

[Bev Vincent]

I got my $9 copy from Amazon this week -- can't wait to tear into it.

[mae]

Too bad there wasn't any kind of editor's foreword. It would've been interesting to read about the discovery of the book and the second unfinished one.

[Bev Vincent]

Yeah, I'd be interested to know the book's vintage. Given that it's a period piece, there probably won't be any giveaways about when it was written from the text itself.

[mae]

I think it was said it was written together with Next.

[Bev Vincent]

Here's my review

[ArtherEld]

Here's my review

I agree with some of your main points.

But, first, I actually liked the fact that he put the typical events you'd see in every pirate story: treasure galleon, sea battles, a captured damsel, dealing with hostile villagers, hurricane, and even a kraken battle. Like this was Crichton's way of going, "Okay, you know all those mythical pirate adventures, what if they were true. If one was true, this is how I think it would happen." Then we get a mythical kraken that we know to probably be a giant squid, but back then they chalked it up to a godlike sea monster. And where the villager scene in Pirates of the Carribean was humorous, the villager scene in Pirate Lattitudes was more gruesome.

However, while I liked his approach here in putting those events in the book, the events were too short, lacking suspense, and even rather easy problems to get out of.

The Matenceros heist was the most disappointing part of the whole book, because that was basically, as you said, where the MacGuffin, the treasure galleon, was. The heist was supposed to be some nearly impossible thing, and they pulled it off like child's play.

The villagers scene was almost not needed, or it needed to be longer. Was I the only one who thought maybe the villagers were stashed aboard the vessel, planning to make a sneak attack of their own?

The rest of the events I rather liked. The kraken battle was actually pretty exciting. And the last act back when they return to Port Royal was pretty suspensful.

You said Hunter was indestructible. I'm going to take it a step further and say, so were all the principal characters of Hunter's crew. It was like a Star Trek episode, complete with Crichton employing the "red shirt" method of dealing with other characters. It's a disappointment for those who read the description of the book when it says, "Hunter will lose a lot of his crew on his adventure." (paraphrased) And you get to the book, and the characters that end up losing their lives are characters we could care less for. Names are only given at the time of their death. We even feel the same as Hunter when the book says he was trying to feel grief for the young sailor who Cazalla kills, but he couldn't grieve. Neither could the reader. We didn't know who this kid was. I can't even remember the name that was given. But Hunter and his main indisposable officers survive unscathed, with the exception of one traitor who Hunter ends up facing off with at the end.

There's no equal rival to Hunter, as Cazalla has an anticlimactic end early on in the book.

In the end the book seems unfinished, with the exception of the opening and final acts. Everything in the middle almost seems to be the reason this book remained on Crichton's hard drive, awaiting his revision.

I liked the book, but was hoping for more.

[Whiplash]

Not going to get into a lengthy review but although it is short, I found the book very entertaining. I think it will make a great movie!