Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

When Michael Crichton passed away last year they found in his study a complete manuscript which came to be his first post-humous and penultimate publication: Pirate Latitudes. There's another one that is set to be published in 2012 I'm informed (wikipedia... if you trust it). I bought this book a few weeks after he died and only got round to reading it lately.

The book starts out in Port Royale where a privateering expedition, headed by a captain Charles Hunter, is requested to punish the infamous Spanish pirate captain Cazalla and make a profit from the booty. The captain hatches a plan to raid the pirate stronghold on the Island of Matenceros and he picks the best men (and a gender-confused woman) for the job. Thus begins a great adventure.

Perhaps it was the theme of pirates that didn't really appeal to me and caused me to not like this book as much as his other works, but Crichton does a great job of keeping the reader interested and even though it doesn't match to the best of his other novels, it is still quite good. Sometimes the way he words things, descriptions and specific terms seem a little queer and don't fit in with his regular style - I put that down to not having lived long enough to perfect this novel. And the story isn't as thrilling as I'd like, but this is a really good book - I read it to the end and enjoyed it, and in some sections I physically laughed out loud.

Some of Crichtons previous have stories sent me to sleep and I dropped them mid-sentance and others kept me riveted and I've since re-read them, but this one is in the middle and was good enough to keep me reading it through to the end. Thus I recommend it and give it a 3.5/5 rating.

Two books read

I read two books in my spare time but have not blogged about them for different reasons.

The first book was Next by Michael Crichton. What a brilliant book, especially for biologists, albeit it has one or two technical errors which I will blog about on a later date. Its content might be a bit complicated for the layman, both in subject matter and in keeping mind of the vast array of characters and their sup/sub-plots, but it is a stunning piece of science fiction (or is some of it hidden science-fact?). It has so many choice quotes and articles in it that if I kept posting favourite quotes then I would have posted half the book on this blog! It's a great novel; Read it!

The next book I read was K-PAX IV by Gene Brewer. In the story, Prot has long since gone, Dr Brewer has retired and is sat at home when he suddenly gets a knock on his door and who is there except a friend of Prot who has decided to visit. Fled is a female ape-resembling creature that is very different in personality to Prot and I found it difficult to relate to that personality (no surprise) and thus it made the reading experience not as good as with the first three books. There is a lack of choice quotes from this book, but the book is worth reading nonetheless and a good addition to the series albeit it will surely be the last in the K-PAX series (I hope it will be). You have to get this book if you're a fan of the K-PAX series, not just for the sake of completing the series, but because it's a reasonably good book too.

I must admit that after reading Michael Crichton and then starting to read Gene Brewer I noticed the significant difference between their styles and truly, Crichton is a master. Brewer needs time to mature but is well on his way.

Prey by Michael Crichton

I bought three books in one day, all written by the late Michael Crichton: Prey, Jurassic Park and Next. I've read Jurassic Park before and it was brilliant but I just want to have this in my collection and maybe I'll re-read it in the future.

I'm currently reading Prey. It's a good book - not his best work but there's little chance of going wrong with a Crichton book. It's not surprising that most of his books have been made into films.

As usual, I will be posting select quotes as I read through it.