Arr, Which It's A Gratuitous Llama Book Review, D'ye See, Sa-Ha!

The Pyrates by George MacDonald Fraser.

In a word, this book is insane. A fond send-up of the entire 17th Century pirate genre, it reads like a cross between Bored of the Rings and Treasure Island or, if you prefer your similes cinematic, a cross between Blazing Saddles and Pirates of the Caribbean. A sample:

Gloom hung in dank folds o'er the spectral castle on lonely Octopus Rock, gloom so thick, d'ye see, that it seemed to ooze through the battlements and drip down the sheer walls like treacle. No moon peeped through the lowering cloud-wrack, no faintest glimmer relieved the inky dark, save for the lanterns on the score of galleons riding in the rock-bound harbour, the guard-room lamp beaming above the grim castle gateway, the rays from a dozen crenellated windows in the massive keep, the flare of a match as a sentry had a crafty smoke, the whoof! of a chip-pan fire i' the cookhouse - oh, all right, the place was positively ablaze with light, and when the moon suddenly came out you could see for miles! Satisfied? It was still pretty dark in the corners, anyway.

The plot involves a stolen crown and carries you from Charles II's London to Madagascar and the Spanish Main. On the way, Fraser amuses himself by jamming every single swashbuckling adventure stereotype he can think of into the story, from an Erol Flynn superhero through six different Pirate Kings and their crews, damsels in distress, an insane Spanish Viceroy and his Donnish minions, lost tribes of South American Indians, the Royal Navy and a lowly gardener who loves his drippings. (Don't ask. You'll just have to read the book.)

Despite the fact that this book is a lampoon, it shares with Fraser's Flashman series a basis planted in the truth, about which Fraser has some interesting and intriguing things to say in some notes at the end of the story. He also provides a complete bibliography of his sources and it is a testiment to both his writing skill and the niftiness of his subject that it is only by main force that I have stopped myself going to Amazon.com and buying the entire lot in one go.