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Pirate Month III: The Pirates! In an Adventure With Whaling! (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Ahoy all you happy people and welcome back to Pirate Month! As we wind it down, it's time once again for our yearly look at Gideon Defoe's pirates series. We started with Aardman's fantastic adaptation of his work, went on to the first book and now where we are at The Pirates! An Adventure with Whaling... or Ahab if your in the US like me... or Moby Dick for the reprint for the 2012 uk reprint.

For those just joining in pirates is a series of comedy novels by british author Gideon Dafoe. The first book, and parts of this one and possibly others but we'll get to that, was adapted into a movie by Aardman Animation. I'd seen that film but now kev has me reading the books as he's a fan too.

Last year I read the pirates first adventure, adventure with scientests where our heroes casued a lot of black comedy deaths, halfheartedly helped Charles Darwin on his adventures, wore dinosaur masks, picked up a new crew member in Jennifer, met a humanpanzie and other nonsense i've likely forgot. I also found out the film was a great adaptation as while it didn't follow the book to the letter it captured the spirit of these books fantastically.

I did have one worrying question in the back of my mind going into the second one: Would the books keep up the momentum or lapse into the formula of "the crew meets and teams up with a historical figure, wackiness ensues" i'm delighted that while that's technically true, Adventures With Whaling ups the ante, tightens the plot and is still gut busting all the while. It's a nice evolution of the series that makes me excited to keep sailing with the other three books eventually. To see what I mean join me under the cut for whale puppetry, mobs of cowboys in las vegas, and severe crippling debt.

So to start us off Adventures with Whaling has a tighter plot. Like Scientists, the plot is largely a loose frame to work jokes in but unlike Scientests, where the pirates really barely cared about Charles Darwin's plight and only needed his money, here the stakes are a lot more personal and are the reason for all the wacky nonsense we know and love.

This time Pirate Captain makes a mistake i'm sure many has and overspends. With the pirate's unamed boat falling to bits their fearless leader Pirate Captain takes the crew to Nantucket, insert your own dirty limerick here, intending to get the boat fixed by Cutlass Liz

Yup to my plesant suprise Cutlass Liz was also in the books, having a bigger role that likely could've come up , and still could come up, in any sequels. I'm seriously hoping now Aardman is on steady ground with netflix we get a sequel. And reading through the jackets of the future books it seems like the pirate of the year compettion is directly taken from Adventures with Napoleon. The Aardman Film simply took a bunch of neat bits and pieces and the basic characters and reconfigured them into it's own mostly original plot about charles darwin badly wanting to get laid. Not something i'm against mind as it worked well and like i've said it gets the spirit of the books down perfectly.

Here instead of just another rival pirate and the object of Pirate Captain's affections for one fantasy sequence, Cutlass Liz is an infamous pirate who runs a boat yard and enters the book killing a pirate who couldn't pay her while terrifying the crew. So naturally.. the Pirate Captain gets into massive debt with her due to a combination of trying to impress her and his oldest foe, Black Belamy.

Yes to my delight Black Belamy is back, having set off the previous book by setting our heroes on Charles Darwin. He's also not voiced by jeremy piven, another well worn plus. He has a bigger role this time out, not only setting off the plot AGAIN, but also coming back twice to bedevil our heroes. He's also one of the few things the film didn't do better as rather than just a broish bully he's the kind of bully who pretneds to be your friend while mocking you and is far more cunning. While he generally just meant to insult pirate captain here, his later two schemes show a nicely petty and manipulative streak.

To start he just mocks the boat Pirate Captain was going to buy and Pirate Captain's own ego does the rest, instead buying the biggest boat possible. Thankfully Bellamy leaves before he gives a bs excuse about his treasure he bragged about to impress Liz but still for some reason agrees to still buy it.

Liz is at least.. sorta forgiving and agrees to give him a few weeks to pay it off .. or else. SO our heroes with low suplies, less money and a threat to cut off the captain's luxioruus beard set off.

This elevates the book as rather than the adventures mostly being disconnected, with the very loose goal of we need money , we have a firmer goal: We need money or we're all gonna die horribly.

It's not the only connecting bit too as while Liz is the looming threat that sets the plot off, well that and Pirate Captains fragile ego but that's the kind of threat you can nevery truly beat, there's another figure we see throughout the first half. While the Pirate Captain is having some drinks he runs into Moby Dick's Captain Ahab. I haven't read moby dick but thankfully this book just really requires you to know he's a grim old man whose leg got bitten by a whale and he's been trying to murder it ever since. Ahab pops up once or twice before becoming the center of the last act. It's small stuff sure but it helps make the silly story feel all the more impactful by the end: tying together these loose bits into one uprorarus set piece

Before we get there we have some smaller set pieces: the pirate captain's old mentor mails him a treasure map... that turns out to be a child's smile.. which they try to grin and bear but throw into the ocean because what the fuck man. I mean.. it's not a bad lesson but come on.

Since that fails the next one and one that made the book jacket is VEGAS BABY. Which I was so excited for and it did not disapoint. It's filled with kitchy landmarks, gambling and naturally our heroes loosing what little money they had left gambling. For once it's not even pirate captain's fault as he warned the crew. He runs into Ahab again who was told the whale was in the casino. And now I just want a version of Ocean's eleven where Ahab is one of danny's crew. I mean.. we're getting Godzilla vs the Great Gatsby and the rest of western literature this year, it's no longer impossible.

The Pirate Captain's real plan and reason for going is simple: Showbusiness! Vegas is all about those big flashy shows and this series has no concept for time or accurate history so the Pirate captain puts ona bit peformance. Antecdotes! Knife Throwing! An Albino Pirate! all the usual stuff.

To my shock given the title isn't adventures in vegas though given my love for vegas set stories I badly wish it was, it works. THey get a decent if not nearly enough pile of money scare a child who dosen't know the albino isn't a ghost, and have the child fead the albino merunge to show he's not threatning. All sentences I just got paid for recapping, all so over the top as not to be offensive

Sadly this dosen't pan out as Black Belamy, the bastard swoops in with a better show and the pirate captain's attempts to have a lymicrk battle with him result in him insulting an audience of cowboys and having to run for their life. A once an adventure staple, but not exactly good.

Our heroes seem to be at a dead end, depressed about their possible death and lack of success on the stage. I love how pettily angry the pirate captain is about how little they appricated his work. Such a good character. He stays largely the same this time, a bit of an ass (the bit about him trying to go into the showers while jennifer there has aged like fine mlik on a sidewalk but thankfully he clearly never got away with anything), an egotistic and a layabout, but a guy who genuinely loves his crew.

Well.. MOST of them. There's one exception introduced this book and he is a delight, the only pirate beyond Captain's #2 pirate with a scarf, the albino pirate and jennifer to really get much of a personality: The Pirate in Red. The Pirate in Red is a sarcastic bastard who freqnuently makes jabs at the Pirate Captain's expense, only stopping when the captain gestures to his cutlass. He's the only one besides pirate with a scarf who seems to have an idea what he's doing and unlike Scarf Pirate, will actually point this out.

While Pirate Captain DEFINTELY wants to kill him he either defintly knows...

Or more likely it's a sign of a change between books: Scientests relied HEAVILY on black comedy, lots of casual murder and death. This is still present in Whaling, Liz's plans ot kill our heroes are repsented by a threatning greeting card reminder and several people still do die, but it's tone down a bit, more in line with the eventual movie. There's still racy jokes, some that work like PIrate Captain not wanting his beard to get hurt as it'll hurt their gay following as he's known as a bit of a bear, and some age like fine milk left inside a monster truck in a hurricane, like the mention of thiland's "Ladyboys". Bleh. But most of the humor has held up perfectly and it's leaning a bit more into the nonsense, while keeping some casual deaths and murder for funsies. IT's a better ballance. I also got a rather large chuckle out of both times the inventory included the acordian pirate who died last book still stuffed and and mounted after his death.

So while Pirate Captain is loathe to agree with Pirate in Red, he finds his suggestion to... do some fucking pirating for a change actually has merrit. We get them boarding a leper boat an da school trip, both jokes that would be used in the movie. Both are pretty funny with the lepers giving them used bits and with the kids after getting what little money they had they just.. hang out. They build frankestines out of the leper parts, which is fucked up but man if I didn't giggle and Pirate Captain dosen't take them with him as they have moms to think about. Awww

Eventually though they find a whaling vessle and Ahab. Once again the rest of the plot is kicked off by a bad bit of piracy.. but it works largely because rather than someone they barely know.. it's a casual aquantince and it's hilariously awkward, with PC having run through his first mate and Ahab being angry as hell. I just love how it comes off as if you ran into a friend while doing something embarassing and having to make that awkward small talk. And invite him to dinner which is also awkard.

It does provide our heroes an out though: Ahab blows up at the pirate captain making a whale with his mashed potatoes, but admits it's more because he's just fucking tired. So he offers bounty: the same 6000 dubloons our heroes need.

So the rest of the book, the bulk of it really is truly an adventure with whaling as our heroes have no clue HOW to actually do this. The schemes are fast, furious, and stupid with having a bunch of pirates pretend to be krill, dangling various pirates off the bow, and naturally loosing a bunch more to sharks, and the Pirate Captain reading his secret romance novel loudly, which the crew naturalyl enjoys but dosen't do anything.

Eventually in a turn I find neat that REALLY ups the stake the Captain gets obsseed: he works everyone harder, then does the unthinkable: his prized ham, which gets mentiond quite a bit gets nailed to the door for the winner.

I like how this emphasises how the crew works; Sure pirate captain's killed a few dozen of them, and is incompitent as hell.. but he makes the ship fun, gives them adventure and does love his crew. He's not a great leader but he's THEIR captain and him taking all that fun away makes them deseprate

So ... because rule of threes.. the turn to the devil himself: Yes Jennifer suggests the impossible: A few of them including her sneak out and ask Black Belamy. I'ts a genius turn I did'nt see coming: we've seen how clever he can be, and it's the exact worst thing.. but our heroes are short on time and actual ideas.

Belamy being his bastardly self is actually.. helpful, wooing jennifer with a dinner and to his credit not being a dick: he clearly IS trying to win her into bed with his fancy dinner, flirting and what not, btu when she just calls him friend and dosen't quite catch onto his intrest, he dosen't force it. It's a bare minimum but Bellamy is such a scoundrel it's neat to find out he has standards. And he agrees to help. Granted it's of course another scheme on his old school chum and arch enemy, but it's more of a solution than our heroes have

I love how Pirate Captain reacts too: he's mildly livid for a second.. but upon it being explained they were all worried about him, he's genuinely touched by their gesture and belamy giving them what seems to be THE whale in 20 minutes.

As I said though it' sonce again another classic Black Belamy prank. Honestly i'll be dispaointed if adventurees with communist doesn't have him pull some half assed con on our heroes at this point that only works because our heroes are a few barnacles short of a hive minded barnacle monster.

He painted a whale from the zoo white... and our heroes just run with it. Yeah for once his half assed scheme actually helps as they had no other plan so "Hope he buys it" is all they got. Pirate Captain naturally has to take it one step further and stupider: have someone puppet the whale from the inside and apologize. On his last fucking nerve with the guy, PC assigns pirate in red for the job.

So our gang plans to have the whale apologize and arrives to a sketpical ahab and cutlas liz for a GLORIOUS climax. I mean it this finale is just so damn good. It starts with Pirate in Red going off script to insult pirate captain who can't just point to his sword as he can't see him, one of my faviorite gags of the book. Lucky for them before Cutlass Liz can understandably kill them, Moby Dick himself shows up and starts destroying their boat thinking i'ts a lady whale. This is also a great callback as that was thier first scheme. So the book climaxes in pirate captain hanging on for dear life as the whale bats him around and destroys his nice new ship while everyone thinks he's a total badass, cumilating in him and his prized ham, which he ran back for while everyone else jumped ship, ending up in the whales blowhole.

With the newfound respect of their creditors and thier debts paid Liz gives the pirates thir old boat back and we get a pretty sweet ending as they all watch clouds as they did at the start of the book.. they didn't really gain MUCh from this adventure.. btu they learned something: don't get into debt to impress women. Also maybe whaling's not for them.

Adventures in Whaling is a perfect sequel: it ups the stakes, ties the plot together way better, ups the jokes nad in general is just a delight. I dont' knokw if I can wait a year for the next one, this one was pretty damn fantastic. Thanks for reading

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