Last week I described the Eddie Dickens Trilogy as “over-the-top farcical romps” for children; a mix of Dickens, Monty Python, and Lemony Snicket. Gideon Defoe’s The Pirates! adventure series is in many ways an adult version without the Dickens and with pirates instead.
I stumbled upon The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists at Half Price books. As I am always on the lookout for short, well packaged, and humorous reading material I picked it up.
It wasn’t very long before I was laughing out loud as I read it. And when I laugh out loud while reading my wife always makes me read the passage out loud to her (she hates to be left out). Soon I was practically reading the book to her. Luckily, the book was short.
The plot is rather hard to describe, but it involves The Pirate Captain and his band of merry men sailing the high seas arguing about shanties and looking for adventure. Led to believe that the HMS Beagle is full of gold bullion from the Bank of England the captain and his crew sail to the Galapagos Islands to attack the famous ship. But they are disappointed to find no gold but the young scientist Charles Darwin instead. embarrassed at having attacked the research vessel they agree to give Darwin a ride back to London. And soon find themselves embroiled in a battle with the Bishop of London.
One of the many twists involved, however, is that Darwin has a slightly different quest in the book then he does historically. Here is how he describes his important theory in the book:
In short, I believe that a monkey, properly trained, given the correct dietary regime, and dressed in fancy clothes, can be made indistinguishable from a human gentleman.
As this should make clear, the books are silly – even a little absurd. But I enjoy that sort of thing.
For more on this series click below.
