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The Pyrates

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The Pyrates

By: George MacDonald Fraser
Narrated by: Mike Grady
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About this listen

Now available in ebook format, ‘The Pyrates’ is a swashbuckling romp of a novel.

The Pyrates is all the swashbucklers that ever were, rolled into one great Technicoloured pantomime – tall ships and desert islands, impossibly gallant adventurers and glamorous heroines, buried treasure and Black Spots, devilish Dons and ghastly dungeons, plots, duels, escapes, savage rituals, tender romance and steaming passion, all to the accompaniment of ringing steel, thunderous broadsides, sweeping film music, and the sound of cursing extras falling in the water and exchanging period dialogue. Even Hollywood buccaneers were never like this.

©2015 George MacDonald Fraser (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Mystery Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Romance Romantic Comedy Tie-in Comedy Adventure

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Critic reviews

‘Its all there right down to a Dead Man’s Chest, cleavages that are everything they should be and characters in sea bootswho say nothing but “Arr!” and “Me Hearty!” in a plot that is wonderfully absurd.
Financial Times

‘Fabulous…you’ll want to stay up all night reading this one.’
Washington Post

‘The most wonderfully idiotic lovesong to swashbucklers ever set to Korngold trumpets. Fraser again proves himself the master.’
New York Times

Praise for ‘Black Ajax’:

‘Mr Fraser is a great historical novelist and in Black Ajax he is at the very top of his form. Damme if he ain’t.’
Christopher Matthew, Daily Mail

‘This is not a flashy novel, wearing its learning noisily. It’s rigorous, intelligent, meticulously horrifying. Wonderfully well done.’
Nicci Gerrard, Observer
All stars
Most relevant
Don't expect Good Ole Flashy........ a swashbuckling adventure in the vain of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett all wrapped up in a wonderful world created by the great George MacDonald Fraser.

Swashbuckling tomfoolery

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just brilliant, very cleverly written . hilarious at every turn of the page and brilliantly read
lookeeee!

possibly the funniest book I've ever read .

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Up there with the best of the Flashman novels as regards entertainment- there can be no finer praise than that.
Brilliant narration by Mike Grady
Go on treat yourself, you will not be disappointed

Superb, GMF at the top of his game

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If you're familiar with George McDonald Fraser’s Movies (Royal Flash, Three Musketeers, etc) then you will love this. Written and read as if the reader is doing a running commentary. The tongue and cheek throw away 20th and 21st century witty injections are a lovely touch. Something even the kid could listen to. Overall I found it a wonderful change to his Flashman books (which I also strongly recommend listening to). Done in the style of an old comic strip story. Plenty of laugh out loud moments in each chapter.
.

Not a Flashman book, as this is akin to a comic

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A Ripping Yarn from the brilliant George MacDonald Fraser author of Flashman, from which I've learnt all 19 th century history that's worth learning, also Quartered Safe Out Here and the splendid McAuslan. All deserve Five Stars. At least.

Great fun. Superb narration

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A masterful work of writing.
I have read and listened to this story more times than I should and will continue to do so.
Thankyou GMF

One Pirate story to rule them all

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imagine a cross between "'Allo 'Allo", "1066 and all that" and "Dad's Army" and you would be about there. The repeated jokes that set the anachronistic juxtapositions with the 1970s stereotypes of women, foreigners, etc .. got really annoying after a while, not helped by the hammy accents in the performance. I really like GMF's Flashman series and 'The American' but this was a pale imitation of those. Even if GMF was trying to be ironic, it just didn't work for me. I stayed with it until the bitter end, but I couldn't wait for it to be over.

Dated and puerile

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boys own comic swashbuckling adventure. no good for a book club read. did not enjoy.

boys own

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Downloaded this having rediscovered the excellent Flashman books, which I first read as a teen and have always loved. I really, really wanted to like it, I was all set to enjoy a first rate ripping yard. But it's just no good. I suspect that the reader doesn't help, he doesn't seem to have realised that it's supposed to be fast and funny, but the book just doesn't work, it's not funny and it's not exciting. It just goes on and on, with the occasional trite anachronism bunged in every twenty paragraphs or so for "laughs".

If George had written the same plot but in the inimitable style of his Flashman books and without all the knowing winks and stupid nods to the reader it would have been great. But he didn't so it isn't. Returned.

I love Flashman but this is terrible.

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This is a book I can read over and over again, and have done for over 30 years. So I was looking forward to the audio book, as, despite being very familiar with the text, I thought it would be equally fun to listen to.

Unfortunately not.

The narrator manages to take a fun, swashbuckling, absolutely hysterical story, and make it dull as ditch water. He doesn't seem to understand any of the humour, the stresses are wrong and the accents are terrible. It's a mystery to me how he managed it, but somehow he did.

Consequently, a book I have loved for many years is spoiled in the audio format. Fortunately, I can still enjoy the original text.

one of my all-time favourites - ruined

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