Fire and Ice - Part II

When the news broke about Dr. Jeri Nielsen being trapped at the South Pole with breast cancer, her name did not at first make the papers, but "the media's appetite for news about the 'mystery woman' with the lump in her breast had become insatiable. I was still hoping that I could remain anonymous. . . the last thing I wanted was to be remembered as the 'woman with the lump."

No danger of that from anyone who reads this book. It should be self-evident that a woman who signs on to be the sole doctor for a team of researchers at the bottom of the earth, where six months are spent in darkness, planes can only get in and out four months of the year, and you don't need deodorant because you wear so many layers of extreme weather garments, it is unlikely that anyone will smell you, such a woman is likely to be above the norm.

Dr. Nielsen was an Emergency Room specialist, opting for the life of medicine in the war zone of Saturday nights. After freeing herself from an abusive marriage, which lost her her children, she needed to make a clean start. That's when she saw the ad for a doctor.

Her equally adventurous parents and two brothers supported her in this new venture and were provided the emotional support that she needed when she needed it most: from the time four months into her mission, when she discovered the lump.

The book is not a "how I got cancer and survived" story. It's the story of The Ice, the people who are drawn to it and the comradeship that develops in their little, closed society. It is also a description of day to day life at the Pole.

The book was written by Maryanne Vollers. Ms. Vollers has several bestsellers to her credit, one of which was nominated for a National Book Club Award. She has written for Time, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, GQ, and many other magazines noted for excellent writing.

Fire and Ice - Part I

Many moons ago, I mooched two books from Becky, Sebastian Junger's Fire and Dr. Jerri Nielsen's Ice Bound. Becky thought they made a nice mooch pair and so did I. They were also excellent books.

I've noticed some Amazon reviewers who were disappointed by Fire. I wasn't disappointed, but it did come as a surprise that the book is a collection of pieces written for various magazines, not a full-length narrative.

The first two pieces are on wildfires and the men and women who fight them. It is very much in the vein of The Perfect Storm, except that Junger was there with the firefighters and most of them are still alive. It is an exciting story, presenting the techniques and dangers of fighting wild fires and recording the successes and failures of the 20th century. Oddly, one of the great successes, the ability to attack and control small fires before they get out of hand, has been a major factor in the increase in the number of fires. I leave it to you to find out why.

The remaining pieces were written as Junger moved from one war zone to another. Again, very well-written and interesting articles, but it does get depressing to realise how many zones there are and how long Junger and others could go on writing about them.

Lang by Kjell Westö

Lang by Kjell Westö was published in 2005 for English readers and his is first crime/suspend novel. Kjell is a Swedish speaking Finlander author of several novels and books of poetry since 1986. Lang is psychological mystery with its polar opposite being Roseanna which is a Police Procedural story by the husband-and-wife writers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. In Lang a crime is committed but the focus is on the why and its consequences rather then on its detection. The story is driven by the question what redemption is possible if your life is driven by fame and success rather then by love.

Lang is the host of Finland’s premier chat show-think Michael Parkinson crossed with Jeremy Paxman and started his rise to the top of the cultural heights by being a successful highbrow novelist. But his second marriage has just failed, and his son from his first is on drugs. He hasn’t written in over ten years and his TV ratings are slipping as viewers switch to new Friday night formats such as Big Brother and How to be a Millionaire. Worse still, he is in is 40’s going grey and fading physically.

A chance encounter with Sarita in a bar starts an obsessive lust affair complicated further which it becomes clear that she is equally locked in an unhealthy relationship with the violent father of her son. Yet it’s like a drug that initially gives the high of a revitalised career but then destroys it as the addicts needs to have more of what he craves leads to murder…but also redemption.

The story is not told by Lang but his best friend who is contacted in the opening scene for a spade to burry the body. Lang browbeats him to get the spade but when arrested keeps his friends involvement secret. The story then unfolds with the friend trying to discuss and write up Lang’s version which we gradually see is more his then Lang’s. We lean more about their friendship and Lang’s abuse of it and how he neglects his mentally ill sister. It also becomes clear that whilst Lang is clearly a charming but nasty piece of work, his friend and Sarita are not merely victims as they are playing their own games. Even Saritia’s violent drug-seller ex husband has more redeeming qualities then first appearances would suggest.

So does it work? Well don’t expect a nice simple bad-guy versus good-guy as nothing is easy or simply resolved and you are left with perhaps more questions then answers. It rings psychologically true and the writing and structure works well with memorable characters that haunt you even when you are not sure if you enjoyed or loved the story. Strongly recommended.

Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

Baby Proof explored an interesting topic for a chick lit book. Ben and Claudia are in their 30's and get married with the shared feeling that neither of them want kids. Then a couple of years into their marriage, Ben has a change of heart. Claudia has no interest in changing her mind, so the marriage breaks down, and after a big fight Claudia leaves and moves in with her best friend. Thus begins the question of will she change her mind and get back together with Ben, or will they stay apart. There was not nearly enough emotion in this book for a couple who otherwise loved each other deeply and were perfect for each other, but were ripped apart by this one issue, albeit a huge one. And in the end, the issue is not even resolved. There is hint of a possible resolution but overall there is no answer. It's like the author couldn't make up her mind one way or the other. I wish I could have cared about Claudia more, but I just wasn't feeling much of what should have been heart-wrenching grief over having to part with Ben. I cared more about her best friend Jill, who was in a long-term affair with a married guy. There was too much filler in the book as well that just didn't add to the story, and I think this contributed to caring less about the couple we're supposed to care about. The sub-plot of her sister who was having trouble conceiving was relevant to the story, but her other sister who had a cheating husband was not, and took away from the story. The last third of the book was worth the read, but overall I was disappointed. This book didn't meet my expectations, and didn't sufficiently flesh out the topic at hand, nor resolve it. Emily Giffin's first book "Something Borrowed" I thoroughly enjoyed and thus have sought out her other titles, but the second book "Something Blue" was disappointing along with this third one. I will not be rushing to get her fourth book that's due out in May 2008.

Closely Observed Trains written by Bohumil Hrabal

Closely Observed Trains written by Bohumil Hrabal is considered one of the greatest Czech and European writers of the 20th century. His books are translated into 27 languages. The short novel was the basis of one of the most popular new wave movies made in the 60’s. He died in the late 1990’s possibly by suicide and had to struggle through the long oppression of the communist regime with many of his books having to be smuggled out to be published.

However this is not some worthy political diatribe but an earthy sensual satire that contrasts the bumbling humour of the Czechs and the crudity and repression of the local Nazis as the German front collapse at the end of the war. The opening scene is of a shot down aeroplane wing fluttering into the town and causing panic in the streets. From this we learn about the Hrma family, Great Grandfather who had a war pension from 18 and would drink a bottle of rum and smoke a pack of cigars a day in from of the local workers to show how easy he had it until finally beaten to death in his 80’s, a grandfather who tried to hypnotise the Germans invaders to stop, and a father who had served on the railways for 25 years before he retired to be the village holder of lost and abandoned objects.

And finally we meet Milos Hrma the teenage railway apprentice on the way to work at the local railway station after a 3 month sick leave. He is acutely aware of the town’s view that the whole family are scroungers and wastrels. The sick leave was because he had tried to commit suicide after failing to “rise to the occasion” with his first love as he feared that the eyes of the town were on him.

Milos is one of Hrabal's "wise fools" - simpletons with occasional or inadvertent profound thoughts - who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy oneself despite harsh circumstances. As he rejoins work he walks into a crisis. It appears that the station dispatcher –a sex mad woman’s man had used the entire official stamps one night to stamp the bum of the female telegraphist. As these were in German, this prompts the investigation of the way that the station was being run much to the frustration of the bumbling pigeon fancier station master ambitions. In the resulting chaos of events Milos gets to achieve sexual maturity and political maturity as he finally makes a moving and heroic stand against the Germans.

The novel is less then 100 pages but each of the characters spring of the page and the underlying politics are hinted rather then laid on with a trowel. For example the horror of this time is mainly conveyed with subtle quiet descriptions of the trains and their passengers passing through the station- a hospital train from the front passing a train with fresh troops on the way to the front or the state of the animals stranded on delayed trains. Its real targets were off course the Communists and the need to take a stand against them which the Czechs did in 68 and in the 90’s to gain their freedom in the velvet revolution. But don’t worry about the politics. Instead enjoy the story and writing that paints pictures in your mind with memorable scenes and humour leaving you desperate to see the film and read more of his books. Highly recommended.

Shoeless Joe by W.P.Kinsella

Well it’s supposed to be about dreams, magic, life and not about baseball...wrong it’s about baseball and an American understanding that baseball is a way to unlock dreams, magic, and life.

But I am not an American follower of Baseball so along with Underworld by Don DeLillo it went over my head (although DeLillo’s books first chapter was a stunning, lyrical depiction of the centuries’ baseball World Series final moments). So is Shoeless Joe...stunning, lyrical writing? No, assume wooden, workaday.

Think I am being harsh? Well I look forward to a story based of a brickie who puts a goal up in Norfolk. George Best then appears to help him build the football pitch and gradually all the world ** players appear (Lev Yashin as goalie, Carlos Alberto Torres, Nílton Santos as full backs, Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Moore as centre backs etc for one last game with the Brickie’s long lost father as the ref. That I would understand so Nick Hornby get writing it.

But for the moment I am sticking to the film of the book-Field of Dreams. And making a mental note to be wary of any book that has a sports theme!

** run past me again how in Baseball one country = a world series whilst the 2006 World cup has 198 counties competing and over 700 million people watched the actual finals

Slow River by Nicola Griffith

Slow River is British writer Nicola Griffith's second science fiction novel, first published in 1995. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Lambda Literary Award in 1996. Her first novel, Ammonite explored the notions of gender and sexual identity and also won the Lambda Literary Award as well as the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. So we are talking about a sound writer with a poet’s sensibility for language who tells a good story. One of the roots of her writing has stated in interviews is the grief and rage over her sisters' deaths (one was killed during a police chase).

Nicola also uses her experience of being a lesbian to shape the themes and events in these two books. Click on to her site if you want to know more about her http://www.nicolagriffith.com/. This is not an unusual theme in SF. As a genre it is very open to exploring sexuality in all its forms say as in the Culture novels of Ian M Banks or in several of Ursula K. Le Guin's novels.

We start the story with the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful families naked, hurt and running in fear in the deep of the night. Her family are rich from biotechnology- the use of bacteria in waste disposal, water purification etc. And we are in the near future of a surveillance society with DNA finger tip electronic money economy.

A stranger (another woman and no angel) offers help. The story then splits three ways. We go into the past to follow why Lore’s childhood and family history lead her to her abandonment in the streets. It moves into the future to follow the consequence of her getting a job in a bio water purification plant whilst the middle strand explores the consequences of accepting the stranger’s help.

Nicola Griffith's changes tense according to which story line is being follow so for the childhood she uses 3^rd person so we are observers and when at the Plant she uses 1^st person so we are directly involved in the action. The focus of the story also changes according to the level. So when exploring her family life it’s the consequences of any teenage whine that your mum and dad fuck you up. In the help from the stranger story line we explore the criminal world of this imagined future and a less then perfect relationship. And the last story line is action driven as it becomes clear that the plant is in serious danger from internal and external forces. And it’s not clear who is friend and who is foe. This last section has a lot of very realistic detail…as does the lesbian sex. In the final chapters each of the story lines merges and gives twists you don’t see coming.

So Slow River is a feminist, lesbian SF novel with cyberpunk/ biopunk leanings. And shame on you if you went yuck as you will miss a cracking good read. Highly Recommended.

The Book of Erotic Failures by Peter Kinnell

Some amusing anecdotes. English bawdy humour with its roots in working class music hall. Read George Orwell's famous essay if you want to know more on this tradition of humour -http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Art_of_Donald_McGill/0.html

Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris

Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood is traced through the events that lead to the production and nomination of “In the Heat of the Night", "Bonnie & Clyde", "Doctor Doolittle", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "The Graduate” for the best picture in the Academy Awards Ceremony of 1967. As you read it you become painlessly enmeshed in the practical nuts and bolts of movie making as well as the political, social and technological changes affecting their production and distribution. It is clearly based on meticulous research and interviews so you get both the contemporary take on things and the older and perhaps wiser reflections on events of many of the main characters.

The context is that Hollywood in the mid 60’s was still mainly organised as factory-studios with the exception of United Artists that was a publisher-distributor (a producer put a creative package together and agree costs and profits and UA marketed and distributed.) But the whole system was in reality the walking dead. Before the mid 50’s back to the 30’s 5 of the 8 big studios also controlled the theatres. This link was broken by a 1948 Supreme Court ruling that required exhibition to be separate from distribution-production. This system had allowed the studios to do block booking which was usually a package of 5 films- one good and the rest a range of A and B stinkers. It was this practice that the judgement had ruled on. The solution was seen a divorcement which RKO as one of the weaker studio had jumped on for its own advantages so forcing a chain reaction of separation. Ironically, it was the first to be broken up by an outside conglomerate, stripped of its film assets and finally came out of the movie industry completely.

The studio’s economic model was churning out colour, bright light big screen westerns, war and sex-comedies (think John Wayne, Doris Day) and the occasional musical aimed at families. TV was seen as the big competitor and a destroyer of its mass market so they resisted allowing films being distributed to TV. Directors would even sue them because the commercial breaks were affecting the artistic balance of the film. The big earner in this economic model was to have a road movie. This was a film that would open in the big theatres with booked seats charging above average prices and would only be released to the next range of theatres when the income started to fall. In this way a film could be an income stream for 2 years. However in the 60’s the big road movie had been the Sound of Music so the studios were falling over to produce the next big expensive musical most of which were to be box office turkeys and become the final nail in the coffin for the studio-factory system.

Another factor in this light fare was the aftermath of McCarthyism with the Studios steering away from anything political despite the obvious major social revolutions taking place due to the Civil Rights movement, the growing anti war movement and the baby boom generational cultural revolutions. The production code also imposed self censorship and meant that films were increasingly at best out of touch or at worse reactionary. For example, afro-Americans appeared in films as servants and nowhere behind the scenes with the exception of Sidney Poiter as the “good Negro” had which itself reflected the racism of the time of which Sidney Poiter was fully aware.

Yet by the 70’s this whole economic model had changed. All the studios had become distributor-producers with close links to TV’ production and distribution. They were all on they way of being absorbed into conglomerates. The summer blockbuster had arrived, and franchises (think Bond, Jaws, Planet of the Apes, StarTrek) were integral to profits. The key market was no longer families but the 15-21’s, censorship was replaced with ratings. Integration behind and in front of the camera took off as Hollywood realised the economic power of its black audience. And they embraced European film making and styles.

Don’t think this is a dry history book as much of this context is woven into the real heart of the book which is to look at the twists and turns of the stages of the films production. The structure is like a novel in that you read so far in the events of a movie before switching to another often by following how the events in the one gave or frustrated opportunities in the other. This list gives you a flavour of the complexities of making a move and the serependity of the results.

• Screenplay- Bonnie and Clyde by writers who wanted the film to be the start of American New wave. Or ones that started as novels adaptations such as the Graduate. What is hot or not then depends on what is seen as the next big book office which what drives the Doolittle project

• The Producer-Doolittle and the Bonnie and Clyde film had a rocky ride before this became clear. What is hot is not depends on how well you did so Kramer could get a package for Guess who coming to dinner but Warren Beatty could not but his charm proved to be the winner

• The Director. Bonnie and Clyde had a very bumpy two years before Penn agreed to come on aboard. And the graduate Director had never shot a film and had only just become known as a Theatre Director after years of being part of a famous comedy team. What is hot is not depends what was hot in the book office so knowing a turkey was on the way a number of projects were driven to get things moving before the money moved away.

• Casting-biggest breaker and maker of the process as the bankable star could prove a disaster in making or distributing the film as Rex Harrison for Doolittle. Or make as in the case of Hepburn and Tracey in Guess who’s coming to Diner. You also see the turkeys that might have been- Doris Day as Mrs Robinson and Robert Redford as the boy in the Graduate

• Production-pre, filming and post production. It becomes clear the importance of lighting, choosing locations, editing all had a powerful impact on the final films and how the decisions taken were shaped by the civil right struggle, the power of the studio, changes in the production code etc

• Distribution and the critics- Warner Brothers tried to bury Bonnie and Clyde- it had got as far as it did because Jack Warner in the last few weeks of being the last old time Studio Boss had been distracted by the making of Camelot. But a powerful critic going into print acknowledging that he had been mistaken in his first review gave Warren the chance to start the year long campaign to get an eventual successful national release

And before you now think that this is a nerd’s book, added to the film history, social and political context and analyses of how films actually get made (kills dead any auteur theory which holds that a director's films reflect that director's personal creative vision) a detailed biography of the key actors, producers, studio bosses directors, writers, technicians etc and their relationships to each other as the films finally get made and shown is woven into the story. For example: Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood is traced through the events that lead to the production and nomination of “In the Heat of the Night", "Bonnie & Clyde", "Doctor Doolittle", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "The Graduate” for the best picture in the Academy Awards Ceremony of 1967. As you read it you become painlessly enmeshed in the practical nuts and bolts of movie making as well as the political, social and technological changes affecting their production and distribution. It is clearly based on meticulous research and interviews so you get both the contemporary take on things and the older and perhaps wiser reflections on events of many of the main characters.

The context is that Hollywood in the mid 60’s was still mainly organised as factory-studios with the exception of United Artists that was a publisher-distributor (a producer put a creative package together and agree costs and profits and UA marketed and distributed.) But the whole system was in reality the walking dead. Before the mid 50’s back to the 30’s 5 of the 8 big studios also controlled the theatres. This link was broken by a 1948 Supreme Court ruling that required exhibition to be separate from distribution-production. This system had allowed the studios to do block booking which was usually a package of 5 films- one good and the rest a range of A and B stinkers. It was this practice that the judgement had ruled on. The solution was seen a divorcement which RKO as one of the weaker studio had jumped on for its own advantages so forcing a chain reaction of separation. Ironically, it was the first to be broken up by an outside conglomerate, stripped of its film assets and finally came out of the movie industry completely.

The studio’s economic model was churning out colour, bright light big screen westerns, war and sex-comedies (think John Wayne, Doris Day) and the occasional musical aimed at families. TV was seen as the big competitor and a destroyer of its mass market so they resisted allowing films being distributed to TV. Directors would even sue them because the commercial breaks were affecting the artistic balance of the film. The big earner in this economic model was to have a road movie. This was a film that would open in the big theatres with booked seats charging above average prices and would only be released to the next range of theatres when the income started to fall. In this way a film could be an income stream for 2 years. However in the 60’s the big road movie had been the Sound of Music so the studios were falling over to produce the next big expensive musical most of which were to be box office turkeys and become the final nail in the coffin for the studio-factory system.

Another factor in this light fare was the aftermath of McCarthyism with the Studios steering away from anything political despite the obvious major social revolutions taking place due to the Civil Rights movement, the growing anti war movement and the baby boom generational cultural revolutions. The production code also imposed self censorship and meant that films were increasingly at best out of touch or at worse reactionary. For example, afro-Americans appeared in films as servants and nowhere behind the scenes with the exception of Sidney Poiter as the “good Negro” had which itself reflected the racism of the time of which Sidney Poiter was fully aware.

Yet by the 70’s this whole economic model had changed. All the studios had become distributor-producers with close links to TV’ production and distribution. They were all on they way of being absorbed into conglomerates. The summer blockbuster had arrived, and franchises (think Bond, Jaws, Planet of the Apes, StarTrek) were integral to profits. The key market was no longer families but the 15-21’s, censorship was replaced with ratings. Integration behind and in front of the camera took off as Hollywood realised the economic power of its black audience. And they embraced European film making and styles.

Don’t think this is a dry history book as much of this context is woven into the real heart of the book which is to look at the twists and turns of the stages of the films production. The structure is like a novel in that you read so far in the events of a movie before switching to another often by following how the events in the one gave or frustrated opportunities in the other. This list gives you a flavour of the complexities of making a move and the serependity of the results.

• Screenplay- Bonnie and Clyde by writers who wanted the film to be the start of American New wave. Or ones that started as novels adaptations such as the Graduate. What is hot or not then depends on what is seen as the next big book office which what drives the Doolittle project

• The Producer-Doolittle and the Bonnie and Clyde film had a rocky ride before this became clear. What is hot is not depends on how well you did so Kramer could get a package for Guess who coming to dinner but Warren Beatty could not but his charm proved to be the winner

• The Director. Bonnie and Clyde had a very bumpy two years before Penn agreed to come on aboard. And the graduate Director had never shot a film and had only just become known as a Theatre Director after years of being part of a famous comedy team. What is hot is not depends what was hot in the book office so knowing a turkey was on the way a number of projects were driven to get things moving before the money moved away.

• Casting-biggest breaker and maker of the process as the bankable star could prove a disaster in making or distributing the film as Rex Harrison for Doolittle. Or make as in the case of Hepburn and Tracey in Guess who’s coming to Diner. You also see the turkeys that might have been- Doris Day as Mrs Robinson and Robert Redford as the boy in the Graduate

• Production-pre, filming and post production. It becomes clear the importance of lighting, choosing locations, editing all had a powerful impact on the final films and how the decisions taken were shaped by the civil right struggle, the power of the studio, changes in the production code etc

• Distribution and the critics- Warner Brothers tried to bury Bonnie and Clyde- it had got as far as it did because Jack Warner in the last few weeks of being the last old time Studio Boss had been distracted by the making of Camelot. But a powerful critic going into print acknowledging that he had been mistaken in his first review gave Warren the chance to start the year long campaign to get an eventual successful national release

And before you now think that this is a nerd’s book, added to the film history, social and political context and analyses of how films actually get made (kills dead any auteur theory which holds that a director's films reflect that director's personal creative vision) a detailed biography of the key actors, producers, studio bosses directors, writers, technicians etc and their relationships to each other as the films finally get made and shown is woven into the story. For example:

• Hepburn and Tracey may have been gay or bisexual and in a protective relationship- being adulterous being the better option!;

• Rex Harrison and wife were very fun of the sauce- she when drunk would do flipovers wearing no knickers;

• Sidney Poiter was used as an Uncle Tom by the film industry but his films shown on the TV( sold by the studios as worthless negro films) widened his audience appeal and encouraged TV companies to Black Actors in positive roles as in Mission Impossible and Startrek);

• Dustin Hoffman went back onto welfare until the Graduate was released and capitulated him into and stardom and the Midnight Cowboy; and

• David Webb the author admits how priggish he was in the film’s changing the scene so the wedding is distributed after the vows and not before the vows as in the book

This was an extremely enjoyable book that enabled me to see these 1967 films and films in general in a new light. Its 500 pages flew by as I managed to read it over 4 days and was left begging for more. Highly Recommended.

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami is on the surface a gritty hard boiled thriller set in the Kabuki-cho red-light district of Tokyo as the approaching New Year leaves near empty except for the human wreckage of the city. Jimji a young illegal sex tourist guide makes a good but shady living from taking westerners around the girlie bars, peep shows, hookers that allow foreigners.

He meets up with Frank who hires him for three days but from the start Jimji feels something is wrong and he starts to be sucked into an ever deepening nightmare that threatens his and his girl friend existence.

The story is told in the 1^st person from Jimji perspective and is based on clear fluid writing equal if not better then Haruki Murakami, which evokes the place and time so that you have a movie in your head. Not necessarily a good thing given some of things that happen.

Beneath the surface is a very different story which leads to conclusions and beginnings that can be misunderstood if psycho thriller is the readers’ sole expectation. We are instead being lead into mediation through the events affecting two desperate characters on what the Western and Japanese experience of loneliness is. The key passage for me is this one.

I remember the American making this particular confession, and the way his voice caught when he said “accept it”. Americans don’t talk about just grinning and bearing it, which is the Japanese approach to so many things. After listening to a lot of these stories, I began to think that American loneliness is a completely different creature from anything we experience in this country, and it made me glad I was born Japanese. The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different from the sort you know you will get through if you just hang in there. I don’t think I could stand the sort of loneliness Americans feel.

Reflect on what is being said here and you will enjoy a taut psychological thriller whose outcome makes perfect sense. Highly recommended

The pirates! : in an adventure with scientists by Gideon Defoe has a humour based on a mix of slapstick,( pirates trying to use Jellyfish as a bouncy castle)Monty Python( pirates disguised as scientists disguised as women), Carry on( peering down on ladies missus) and Blackadder. The book is not aimed at children, as much of the humour relies on an adult appreciation of cliché and irony, though children may well enjoy it.

When they're not belting out a lusty sea shanty or arguing about the best way to prepare ham, there's nothing pirates like more than a rousing adventure. And this is what the Pirate Captain, (the best leader in the Pirate world because of his beard and rugged good looks but perhaps not the sharpest cutlass in the armoury) and his shipful of variously named pirates--the scarf-wearing pirate, the pirate with an accordion, the ill-fated balding archaeologist pirate are going get.

They are tricked by the dastardly Black Bellamy into scuttling the Beagle and so stop Charles Darwin from bringing a manpanzee back to defeat his evil rival the Bishop of Oxford. To make good their mistake the pirates decide to help further the cause of science, getting treasure and peering at girls from above and go to London where with a very loose historical accuracy the Pirates struggle to solve the mystery of the Circus Ladies nights.

It also only 130ish pages long in a hand size hardback so its not going to be a heavy long term read. Highly recommended first of series and according to Aardman Animations website, author Gideon Defoe is working with producer/director Peter Lord on the screenplay and with writers Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil Hyperdrive (TV series) to turn the first two books from the series into a movie.