Wait! So, nobody knows there are Pirates of the Caribbean books?
So, a week ago I learned that... really nobody bloody knows about those books? Really?
I knew that Disney really had not done their part in advertising those books, only to then be very surprised to learn that the books did not sell. Like, duh, Disney, in a pre-tiktok world, you cannot just assume that people will find out about those books you publish, if you do not tell anyone about it. Unbelievable, isn't it?
But yeah, indeed. There are a couple of pirates of the Caribbean books. Now mind you, most of those books - or rather: all but one - are "young reader" books, so they are not particularly challenging in terms of language, or story. They have been released under Disney Press and mostly have been marketed through Scholastic back in the day. (As such, it will not surprise you to learn: None of these books ever was translated into any non-English language.)
Only one book I would actually call GOOD. The one that was not targeted at kids. However, I will say: I had fun with all of the books back in the day. They were fun books, that often did immitate the voice of the characters rather well, and gave some nice interesting background to the universe as a whole. So... Let me talk about the books a bit.
The Jack Sparrow series is the longest series among the Pirates of the Caribbean books, that basically go into Jack's life as a teenager. Long story short: Growing up as Teague's son, he kinda rebels against his father a lot. Thus, he runs away as a young teen and finds his own pirate crew. Most notably among them of course a certain Bootstraps Bill.
There are a couple of other characters in this. We see for example the young Annamaria, and some other background characters from the movie as crewmates. We also see his first meeting with both Norrington and Gibbs in those books.
Additionally these books (again, this is a fairly long series) go a lot furhter into the Nahua gods and how they cursed Cortez, as Cortez's ghost is a recurring villain in those books. And yes, this quite clearly says: Jack knew the gold was cursed. He knew from the beginning, but it is one of those common themes: Nobody ever listens to good old Jack.
It should be noted: These are books for fairly young readers. Meaning: The prose is fairly simple as it is aimed at a very young reading level. Meaning, too, that the books are fairly short. For the books of this series I usually needed about two to three hours per book to read it from beginning to end. I would guess most of these books are about 30-40k in length.
Now, compared to the other books, these apparently did not sell that bad. I would argue that this mainly is because even if the kids who found those books at Scholastic did not need to be very invested in the franchise to read those books. They were fairly nice child friendly Pirate adventures.
The Tale of Billy Turner and other Stories (anthology of the side characters of the series and what they do after the end of the series.)
Now, the books are technically out of print by now. Though I think these are fairly available in libraries still - and go for fair prizes on used book portals. So these are probably the easiest books from this list to get.
Now, chronologically the next books that came out for Pirates of the Caribbean, is also the one actual adult novel. The Price of Freedom. If you wonder where you know the name of the author from: A.C. Crispin is fairly known for her writing of extended universe material. Most notably she has written the Spock series for Star Trek and the Han Solo trilogy for the Star Wars books, though I guess those are among the "Legends" now.
This is actually written as a proper novel - and a long novel at this. The book has more than 600 pages.
This story starts out with Jack Sparrow having joined the EITC. Having worked for them for a couple of years now, he is by now the First Mate on the ship The Wicked Wench. When the ship gets attacked by pirates, the current Captain suffers a heart attack and dies, making Jack finish the trading route on his own. Eventually he makes port in Africa, where the current overseer of the EITC hears of this: Cuttler Beckett. He invites Jack to his mansion, realizing the two of them have much in common. Most notably, they both believe in the magical things out at sea - and that there is indeed a magical island somewhere out there.
Now, Cuttler Beckett has two slaves working on his estate, that he suspects of stemming from that island, and he has a plan: If Jack saved those slaves, they might be willing to tell Jack about that magical place - and if Beckett then is able to find the island, he could not only proof his family, that he is not insane, but also gain the Lord title, he has been trying to get for so many years.
As I said: This book is actually really good. Like, sure, some things in it have not aged perfectly, I generally have to say it still aged fairly well. Most notably for a book that came out in 2011 is that the main relationship in this book is a polyamorous relationship between Jack and two non-white women.
(It should be noted: It is fairly clear in the books that Jack is mixed race and at the very least quarter-Black. Think of that what you will. This is not really white-washing of a character, given that indeed the authors of the screenplay wrote him as white - but books then gave his mother African ancestry.)
Sadly, nobody fucking knows that this book exists, because Disney has not marketed this back when it came out AT ALL. This book's release was so underadvertized (even though it released basically at the same time as the 4th movie), that several book logistics companies had not stocked this at all. So, obviously this book did not sell at all, and never got a second print, making it expensive as fuck. However, you can borrow it in several libraries still.
Due to the bad sales and the fact that Crispin was diagnosed with cancer not long after the book came out and died of it, we sadly never got a sequel to this book, which means that we also do not know how the story of certain characters end.
The Legends of the Breathren Court
Rob Kidd, who wrote the young Jack Sparrow books, was also hired to write another series of books that were once more aimed at young readers.
The plot is basically like this: Jack had gotten himself a curse - which is bad. But there are even worse news: He needs the help of the other pirate lords to safe himself. The only good news: He has the Pearl now, the fastest ship in the Caribbean, thanks due some minor magical upgrades. But it is not going to be easy to convince the other pirate lords to help him.
Now, I should say: This series sold by far the worst. I would argue the main issue is, that these are kids books, but take place when Jack is in his 30s. While the Jack Sparrow books could be easily understood by kids, who had nearly no idea about the plot of the movies, you do need to understand the movies for this series rather well. So yeah. The book series was cancelled halfway through, though Robb Kidd did those fans of the series a solid, by convincing Disney to allow him to at least provide the last few books as epubs on his website. :)
Still, the series was cut down due to the cancellation. So the ending is a bit... chaotic.
The series is made up of the following books:
These books are usually available easily online. Not to buy, but, you know... Through other means.
I am honestly kinda sad, that the entire thing with those books never went anywhere. Disney did want at some point to get an extended Universe going for Pirates of the Caribbean, with more lore and everything. Back in the day there was also a game in development, that was supposed to be a AAA single player experience - but basically they cancelled it pretty much last minute. :/ And it is kinda sad.
I do think that this franchise could have been very interesting - if Disney did not rely too much on Jack Sparrow as a character. Now outside of Depp being a misogynist pig who needs, but refuses therapy, I do think that generally speaking the franchise would have been stronger, if they did not construct everything around this one character. Because fun fact: We do not have a whole lot of seafaring fantasy stuff out there and the worldbuilding in those books is really super interesting.
Some part of me wants to write a sequel to Price of Freedom - but I doubt that anyone is ever gonna read that, based that nobody knows the book xD
gummygunk
stormborns
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
2087
