Pirate Latitudes
First edition cover
|
|
| Author | Michael Crichton |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction, Adventure |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
|
Publication date
|
November 26, 2009 |
| Pages | 313 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 318430694 |
| Preceded by | Next |
| Followed by | Micro |
Pirate Latitudes is an action adventure novel by Michael Crichton, concerning 17th century piracy in the Caribbean. HarperCollins published the book posthumously on November 26, 2009. The story stars the fictional privateer Captain Charles Hunter who, hired by Jamaica's governor Sir James Almont, plots to raid a Spanish galleon for its treasure.
Crichton's assistant discovered the manuscript on one of the author's computers after Crichton's death in 2008, along with an unfinished novel, Micro (2011).
According to Jonathan Burnham, a publisher of a HarperCollins imprint, Pirate Latitudes had been written concurrently with Crichton's then most recent novel, Next (2006).
According to Marla Warren, however, there is evidence that Crichton had been working on Pirate Latitudes at least since the 1970s; to substantiate her position, she quotes a statement by Patrick McGilligan in the March 1979 issue of American Film that Crichton was aiming "to complete a long-standing book project about Caribbean pirates in the seventeenth century."
Additionally, in 1981, Crichton said he was working on a pirate story, and he mentioned the project in his non-fiction book Travels (1988).
Alan Cheuse said, in review for NPR Books: "It builds on an actual event in maritime records, when a crew of English pirates out of the Caribbean port of Port Royal attacked a fortress on a Spanish island in order to plunder - I like that word, and it's what pirates do, they plunder - a ship filled with new world treasure."
Though reviewers have compared Crichton's novel to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, the Historical Novel Society notes: "Crichton’s portrayal of Port Royal and its inhabitants is far more grounded in reality than Disney’s portrayal. Crichton does not gloss over the slavery, addiction and brutality of colonial Jamaica, nor does he endow his characters with abilities beyond their training or station in life."
...
Wikipedia