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MY ⭐️ RATING: 3.5/5
Format: Kindle Whispersync
BOOK DESCRIPTION
The remarkable Tim Powers—who ingeniously married the John Le Carrè spy novel to the otherworldly in his critically acclaimed Declare—brings us pirate adventure with a dazzling difference. On Stranger Tides features Blackbeard, ghosts, voodoo, zombies, the fable Fountain of Youth…and more swashbuckling action than you could shake a cutlass at, as reluctant buccaneer John Shandy braves all manner of peril, natural and supernatural, to rescue his ensorcelled love. Nominated for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards, On Stranger Tides is the book that inspired the motion picture Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides—non-stop, breathtaking fiction from the genius imagination that conceived Last Call, Expiration Date, and Three Days to Never.
MY REVIEW
So when I decide to jump into this, I had no clue of the fact that Powers was inspired to write On Stranger Tides because of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland he had ridden as a child. Later, Disney went on to create the Pirates of the Caribbean films also based on the ride… then they used Powers book as the inspiration for the fourth film in the series, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. With all that being said, after reading this and re-watching the film, the only thing they took from this book was the title and the idea of the fountain of youth, that’s it. I didn’t go into this expecting a Pirates of the Caribbean story so that didn’t bother me, but after I rewatched the film, I really questioned why anyone would say this inspired that particular film.
I had some issues with this novel, with this story being mostly plot driven, the plot was where I had most of my problems. The story started off well and had me hooked, but at a certain point I realized I wasn’t near as invested as I was at the beginning because instead of a roller coaster of emotions, I was going through a rollercoaster of boredom to excitement. There were times where it was good, but it was sandwiched in between times where I was bored and disinterested in what was happening, causing me to take breaks away from it. The 3rd and final part of the story was probably the worst of it, I wanted it to finish strong, but it fell completely flat. I think there is a lot of ideas in this story that were good, but unfortunately they were all surrounded by a lot of areas that just didn’t mesh well.
“Whispering “John Chandagnac” over and over to himself, for with a new name assigned to him he could imagine forgetting the old one, out here in this world of murder and rum and small, vivid islands”
The very best part of this experience was Bronson Pinchot, who you may know Pinchot from films such as Perfect Strangers, Beverly Hills Cop & Risky Business. I usually say this is narrated by, but this is not just a narration, this is a professional actors performance, and what a performance it was! He knows just how to get into a characters mind and understands how to deliver a scene as if it was for a show or movie. I say the very best for a reason, because if not for his narration, there’s a chance that I may have DNF’d this, I kept going because I wanted it to be better and his narration carried it further.
I will say that there was some good to this, it was funny at times, and had some pretty intensely fun scenes of pirate fights and everything you’d expect to see with pirates, including pirates we all know, like Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet and Anne Bonny with adventures of the supernatural and dark magic. This story boasted a wide range of diverse characters, some more interesting than others and had some had very good development to them, like the main character of John Chandagnac, also known as Jack Shandy who has to join the crew of Pirate captain, Philip Davies, to survive, then of course, there’s the very mysterious Dr Leo Friend. All in all, this wasn’t a bad novel, but it has more misses than hits and I’m not quite sure I’d recommend it despite it being somewhat enjoyable.
Wolfmantula.com 