Avast! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, a day o’ rejoicin’ an’ rum drinkin’ for all pirates everywhere. On such a day we be needin’ to set sail on the high seas to spread the word o’ somethin’ tha pulls us all together with it’s piratey goodness! Cap’in’s Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails, published by the fine sailors at Night Shade Books and smuggled to all th’ corners o’ the earth by Amazon. The tome, fer those wi’ the cunning t’read it, is packed like a barrel o’salt pork ready fer a month at sea wi’ tales o’ our fine people set in fantastical an’ science fictional places.
Fast Ships, Black Sails is penned by a fine collection o’ landlubberly scribes like Kage Baker, an’ Elizabeth Bear. Fine tellers o’ tales they be, some o’ the best!
Inside this tome ye can find:
“Raising Anchor” – Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
“Boojum” – Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
“Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake” – Naomi Novik
“Avast, Abaft!” – Howard Waldrop
“I Begyn as I Mean to Go On” – Kage Baker
“Castor on Troubled Waters” – Rhys Hughes
“Elegy for Gabrielle, Patron Saint of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves” – Kelly Barnhill
“Skillet and Saber” – Justin Howe
“The Nymph’s Child” – Carrie Vaughn
“68˚06’N, 31˚40’W” – Conrad Williams
“Pirate Solutions” – Katherine Sparrow
“We Sleep on a Thousand Waves” – Brendan Connell
“Pirates of the Suara Sea” – David Freer & Eric Flint
“Voyage of the Iguana” – Steve Aylett
“Iron Face” – Michael Moorcock
“A Cold Day in Hell” – Paul Batteiger
“Captain Blackheart Wentworth” – Rachel Swirsky
“The Whale Below” – Jayme Lynn Blaschke
“Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe” – Garth Nix
Fine tales, to be sure, from fine scribes, new an’ old. If yer in a piratey mood, pillage yeself some dubloons and buy it. Night Shade Books has some mighty fine tales fer sale, an’ they’re a small press, so buyin’ their tomes helps them keep their ship afloat!
So, matey, find yeself a bookseller and hand over those dubloons, or ye might find yerself walkin’ the plank! Arr!
(Thank to Capt’n Bourneville fer translatin’ me landlubber speak into th’ true tongue!)
6 Responses
Arr. I be havin' thaat on me bookshelf already but Oive been too busy plunderin' an' wrestlin' sea beasts to read it.
Arr, that be good, cap'n, but ye must read it, savvy?
"Savvy"? Savvy? Ye're stealin' the trademark o' a fine pirate, there, matey. The likes o' ye can't be pullin' tha' off.
In honour of the day, I'll be sure t'read it, bu then I 'ave to be gettin' back to Dreamsongs, or them scurvy rats at the library'll be makin' off wi' me swag.
I didn't steal anything. Savvy has been around since forever, thank you very much!
Aye, but ye can't be usin' it now, it be trite!
I'm sad that I no longer have an excuse to talk like this. 🙁 I always feel like I didn't make use of the day enough …
You need an excuse to talk like a pirate? You're a pirate…talk like one all the time.