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Pirate Freedom

3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 · rating details · 395 ratings · 71 reviews

As a young parish priest, Father Christopher has heard many confessions, but his own tale is more astounding than any revelation he has ever encountered in the confessional . . . for Chris was once a pirate captain, hundreds of years before his birth.

Fresh from the monastery, the former novice finds himself inexplicably transported back to the Golden Age of Piracy, where a...more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published November 13th 2007 by Tor Books

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Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Pirates!

71st out of 252 books — 297 voters

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Best Books of 2007

172nd out of 439 books — 514 voters

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Mar 17, 2008 Res rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sff

The one where Chris is a novice in a 21st-century Cuban monastery until suddenly, in the night, he's thrown back to the age of piracy. The book takes the form of a memoir which a present-day Chris, now a priest, is writing as he plans how he can get back to the past and to the woman he loves.

Gene Wolfe or no Gene Wolfe, I didn't think much of this.

Chris's voice sounds really just like the writing voice of a person who doesn't write; it's straightforward to the point of being simpleminded, and it...more

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Dec 24, 2007 Nadine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi

Gene Wolfe is my favorite sci-fi author, and this book has his distinctive voice. All of his protaganists are tall, handsome (but don't think they are handsome), skilled (but don't think they are skilled), successful in strange ways, and they all follow a rather unexpected & tortuous path through life, they have amazing memories, and in general the story is told as a memoir. I wonder how close or far this description is from the author himself. This was slow to start, and not quite as engros...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not really one of my favorites of Wolfe's, but still has the merits of some of the others. A young priest, Chris, is inexplicably transported from modern day Cuba to the time of Buccaneers and thievery on the high seas of the Carribean. Chris wastes little time in getting wrapped up in the life of a pirate, using his education, talent, language skills, and savy to rob the Spanish at every turn. As with other Wolfe books, he makes you meet him half way by not spelling everything out. To pick up o...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Christian Fredrickson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I greatly enjoyed this. I'm not sure what point the supernatural aspect played in this, other than to introduce a twist, as the story could've stood without it. Perhaps it was needed to underscore the contrast between the narrator's former life and his present one. Either way, I'm not one to tell Wolfe how to write a book.

Anyone who thinks they're into pirates, whether it's sporting a Jolly Roger on your car/jacket/courier bat or showing up for each Pirates of the Caribbean premiere, owes it to...more

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Nov 16, 2010 Carolyn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, science-fiction

It's not everyday you read about a time-traveling ex-pirate priest, but despite the intriguing premise, Pirate Freedom is disappointing. Like Gregor's transformation into a giant insect in Kafka's The Metamorphosis, the priest-pirate narrator is transported back in time without his knowledge or volition, yet appears unconcerned with returning to the way things were. Penniless, his hunger chips away at the narrator's resolve to live the Christian values he has been taught at the monastery where h...more

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Sep 17, 2010 Meg rated it 1 of 5 stars

Worthless. Top complaints:

1. Poorly written. Every couple of pages the narrator says things like "many other things happened that day, but it would take too much time to list them here now." Stop telling me about all the things you aren't telling me! It happens over and over again. Unbearable.

2. Misogynist drivel. The only two female characters are (of course) both madly in love with the main character. He tries to paint the main lady as a feisty she-pirate, a spirited adventuress. According tho...more

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May 10, 2010 Norbert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who loves a great, thoughtful story

There was so much that was great in this story it's hard for me to figure out where to begin.

This is the tale of a boy studying in a Cuban monastery in the late 2000's who becomes a pirate in the late 1600's, told by that same boy, years later, when he is a priest. Right there that ought to tell you about the level of character development here. Like all Gene Wolfe books, you have to contend with the unreliable narrator, meaning you can't necessarily trust what you're being told, only that it's...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Kevin Farrell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Based on dozens of other reviews I can see that you either like this or hate it. I liked it very much. I believe the problem for some is the tone of the narrator who is an ordained Catholic Priest. He is writing his memoirs while serving as a priest in a small parish. His tone is reflective and is (in my experience) consistent with a man who has committed himself to serving God. He is very non-judgmental and completely un-appologetic for the many terrible things that he has witnessed and done. H...more

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May 23, 2011 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

A wonderful book. Probably the most reader friendly book I've read of Wolfe's, though I think that might contribute to the lack of a fifth star from me. There are certain things one comes to expect from Wolfe, and the need to sit down and analyze what the hell you just read is one of them. Aporia is one of Wolfe's most skillfully leveraged tools, and Pirate Freedom is (relatively) straight forward.

Again, not that that's a bad thing. If you're new to Wolfe, and not used to texts as puzzles, this...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Wm rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction-and-fantasy

You know that Wolfe is going to deliver fine prose and solid characterization so the question always becomes: how is the plot? The answer: pretty good, but it didn't blow me away. It was both way too straightforward (in the straightforward pirate parts) and rather confusing (the frame story* as well as the initial Novia/Estrallita storyline). Also: if you aren't thrilled with how he writes female characters, this isn't going to change your mind about Wolfe at all. In fact, I found it quite annoy...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Stefan rated it 4 of 5 stars

It’s hard not to approach a Gene Wolfe novel with high expectations. After all, the man is responsible for some of the most brilliantly mind-bending science fiction and fantasy written in the last few decades. Such high expectations can make it hard to write an objective review (if such a thing is even possible) when the new book in question is quite good but just doesn’t blow you away like, say, his Book of the New Sun or The Wizard Knight. Make no mistake: Pirate Freedom is a great piece of fi...more It’s hard not to approach a Gene Wolfe novel with high expectations. After all, the man is responsible for some of the most brilliantly mind-bending science fiction and fantasy written in the last few decades. Such high expectations can make it hard to write an objective review (if such a thing is even possible) when the new book in question is quite good but just doesn’t blow you away like, say, his Book of the New Sun or The Wizard Knight. Make no mistake: Pirate Freedom is a great piece of fiction, but in terms of Gene Wolfe’s body of work, it just doesn’t rank as high as I’d hoped.

Our narrator, Chris, is an American who, as a boy, moves to Cuba with his father and is enrolled in a religious boarding school. Eventually he becomes a novice in the monastery, but as time passes, he realizes that he is not cut out for the life of a monk. When he leaves the monastery, he gradually becomes aware that Havana looks quite different from when he last saw it: somehow, he has been transported to the 17th century. To earn some money, he signs on as a sailor, and before long, he becomes a pirate, prowling the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy...

As is often the case in Gene Wolfe novels, the protagonist narrates the main events from a later stage in life, and there are lots of interesting connections and contrasts between the framing story and the meat of the novel. In this case, adult Chris is now a Catholic priest, back in modern times and reminiscing about his time as a pirate. As a result, Pirate Freedom frequently deals with questions of morality. After all, Chris-the-pirate swings from being ruthless to compassionate: when he just exits the monastery, he feels bad about stealing some bread, but eventually he becomes a feared pirate, with all the raiding and stealing that entails. By the end of the novel, we’ve seen him risk himself to free slaves, but Chris also seems to feel that torturing someone for gold is more justified than torturing for sport. This tension, between Chris as a Catholic priest and Chris as a feared pirate, is the most interesting aspect of Pirate Freedom.

Most of the novel, however, focuses on the actual adventures of Chris and his band of pirates in the second half of the 17th century, looting and raiding their way across the Caribbean. Gene Wolfe is obviously very familiar with the historical period and with sailing terminology, resulting in a story that feels much more authentic than your average Pirates of the Caribbean-type yarn. However, it’s hard be to completely immersed in the (occasionally very exciting) pirate adventures because “modern Chris,” the Catholic priest, tells his story in the most straightforward, plain-spoken way possible, and frequently interrupts the story to relate events of his current life, e.g. his work at the church or the community center. While this highlights the moral ambiguity of the main character, it also takes away from the excitement of the pirate story — which takes up most of the novel.

As so often with Gene Wolfe, the narrator is writing the story for himself, not for the reader, and as a result he doesn’t always bother to explain those things that are obvious to him — such as his full name, his origins, his environment, or even his true emotions. As a result, the reader has to puzzle the picture together from details scattered throughout the text. There are a few almost casual references that seem to indicate that the framing story is set in the near future, or maybe even in a parallel dimension, on an Earth that’s slightly different from ours. For example, Chris briefly mentions that he was “genetically engineered” to be tall, and he occasionally refers to monorail transportation that doesn’t seem to fit into our current time — and that’s not even mentioning Cuba’s political situation in the book. It’s hard to shake the idea that the story of “modern Chris” might be just as interesting as his pirate adventures, but because Chris wants to talk about his time as a pirate, we’ll never know. As a matter of fact, this involuntary self-editing also pops up when Chris is relating his exploits as a pirate: some events are only hinted at, because he is embarrassed by them, or doesn’t feel like describing them, or because he just doesn’t think they need to be explained further. The occasional “That’s all I’m going to write about that” hides what could be some of the most gripping material in his story.

A final aspect of Pirate Freedom that needs to be highlighted is the religious one. One of the reasons why I’ve always admired Gene Wolfe tremendously is his ability to infuse his religious beliefs into his stories in a tasteful but highly meaningful way, without becoming preachy or offensive to non-religious readers. Because his main character is a Catholic priest, you’d expect religion as a theme to pop up again in Pirate Freedom — and you’d be correct, because there are many religious references and symbols to be found throughout the novel, some more obvious than others. One of the strongest themes running through the novel is that of absolution and forgiveness, with Chris reinstating the practice of taking confession in his church, occasionally rationalizing his own sins away, and dealing with the betrayals and mistakes of his companions. Taking things a step further, the entire novel could possibly be seen as a confession, with Chris seeking absolution by recounting his past misdeeds.

Related to these religious themes, there’s one brief section focusing on abuse by Catholic priests that may cross the line for many people: Chris seems to feel that boys should be able to fight so they can protect themselves from being molested by priests and so they can defend girls. Or as Chris writes: "The boys were the victims of those priests, I am not arguing they were not. But those priests were the victims of the people who had taught the boys that even a little bit of violence is the worst thing in the world. The priests had only one victim, or that is how it seems to me. Those people had two, because the priest was another." Whether this is Gene Wolfe’s opinion or just something Chris feels (which would be marginally more understandable, given his background and what happens to him early on in his sailing career), it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

In the end, Pirate Freedom is another solid and intriguing novel by Gene Wolfe, and a book you’re guaranteed to think about for a long time after turning the final page — especially because the end provides a mind-bending twist, which admittedly is almost par for the course with this author. While Wolfe deftly uses his narrator to add several meaningful layers to the story, making this much more than just another pirate novel, it’s a technique I found admirable more than enjoyable. Still, despite occasionally feeling annoyed while I was reading the book, I kept going back to it, pondering the many subtleties and their implications that only hit me days after I finished reading. When weighed against the rest of Gene Wolfe’s works, I doubt many people will consider this one of his strongest novels, but nevertheless it’s still a unique, thought-provoking and elegantly written story. Recommended for Gene Wolfe fans (and pirate enthusiasts of course), but if you’re new to this author, try The Book of the New Sun or The Wizard Knight.

(This review was also published at www.fantasyliterature.com on 1/12/2010)(less)

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Jun 20, 2011 Beth Fisher rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Having never read a Gene Wolfe book I didn't know what to expect besides hopefully a good Sci-Fi story. Although the book itself wasn't too bad it seemed to me that the main character was bouncing back and forth between the present (being a priest) and the past (being a pirate) without ever explaining how he was doing the time traveling. Reading other reviews people said that Chris (the main character) was writing about the pirate days as a memoir. I didn't take it that way. He seemed to be movi...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Ryn rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: couldn-t-get-through

This is so out of my league, I don't even. Apparently this author is well beloved by fantasy addicts. I couldn't make heads or tails of his writing. Seriously. It was the most bizarre thing. The main character talked about everything in such a calm, non-caring manner that read half the book without even realizing it. I kept thinking, "Oh, well, this is just the introduction... It'll get better." But it most certainly did not. For example, I believe Chris (the protagonist) goes back in time a cou...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Marion Hill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

Pirate Freedom is a story about Father Christopher, a Catholic priest, who has heard many confessions from his parishioners. However, he decides to reveal his past as a pirate and how his own confession made him become a man of the cloth.

His adventures as a pirate made this novel akin to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson or the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O’Brian than a traditional science fiction novel or the science fantasies that Wolfe is known for.

Moreover, Wolfe is known for hav...more

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Dec 24, 2010 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had a little trouble in the midsection of this novel with a subplot involving two women, two men, and the narrator. Nobody broke from character, but their motivations were sometimes obscured by my own failure to keep narrative threads straight.

That said, this is a surprisingly thoughtful and genre-bending tale. Gene Wolfe writes credibly about both pirates and priests. Where other novelists would content themselves with characters who were one or the other, Wolfe uses time travel to successful...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Eric Bourland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recently read and enjoyed: "Pirate Freedom" and "An Evil Guest", both by Gene Wolfe. What can I tell you that will make you want to read these books? They can be dismissed as genre fiction. They are also finely-crafted page-turners you dreamily fall into and come up from blinking. A few days ago someone in a café actually had to speak loudly to me, twice, to divert my attention from the Gene Wolfe book I was reading. I smiled and begged her pardon of course, and passed the sugar bowl. Both books...more

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Feb 13, 2013 CJ Bowen rated it 3 of 5 stars

In my reading, Wolfe's easiest and most accessible book; which has costs in profundity and power. Still an enjoyably weird Wolfe-ian story: a young almost-priest walks out of the monastery into the past, and becomes a pirate, with much swashing and buckling, and a confusing array of women who throw themselves at the poor fellow. (Actually, that last repetitive element may have been the most swashy part, and cost Wolfe a star.) The cognitive dissonance between the two professions could have been...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Paul rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Gene Wolfe's reputation is overblown. I loved The Fifth Head of Cerberus and enjoyed the collection of short stories in The Death of Doctor Island. But his longer fantasy fiction always put me off, in the same sense that being invited to play Dungeons & Dragons with a pack of socially awkward teenagers might put one off. I threw Pirate Freedom across the room halfway through, when Wolfe abandoned the effort of storytelling and simply had his time-traveling priest/pirate sit on his ass and ex...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Admirer's of superior, morally challenging ripping yarns.

A ripping good yarn from Wolfe, beautifully written in his sparse, latter-day style, but an ethically ambiguous one which has still got me scratching my head some time after finishing it, to the extent that I am beginning to have serious doubts about Wolfe'e worldview now, or at least my perspicacity in unravelling it!

Father Chris is an American priest of Sicilian descent whose father was a gangster. As a youngster he was schooled by monks in Cuba where he magically steps back in time to the 17t...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Carl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasysci-fi, adventure

[Edit: You might want to check out my blog post about Gene Wolfe's Wizard-Knight duology. I mention this book there, and got some good comments about this book and the others from another fan. http://vikingsbooksetc.wordpress.com/... ]

Actually finished this over a month ago, along with a few other books, but with illness and teaching and other things I just haven't been able to get things posted on goodreads lately. Not much time now, but I will say that this book feels very similar to the Wizar...more [Edit: You might want to check out my blog post about Gene Wolfe's Wizard-Knight duology. I mention this book there, and got some good comments about this book and the others from another fan. http://vikingsbooksetc.wordpress.com/... ]

Actually finished this over a month ago, along with a few other books, but with illness and teaching and other things I just haven't been able to get things posted on goodreads lately. Not much time now, but I will say that this book feels very similar to the Wizard-Knight duology. It is very difficult not to conflate the perceived innocent naïveté of the narrator with the author- or rather, the book just feels "clean" and straightforward b/c it is so easy to perceive the narrator in that way. Never mind that he confesses to many things that a not exactly shining examples of virtue, though I will also say that we seem to be invited to learn, with the narrator, to tolerate the sins and failings of others through our acceptance of our own fallenness. The plot is... Hard to describe. Straightforward first person pirate story, except in this wonderful voice , again comparable to that of the Wizard Knight, and except for the twist at the end which may be a bit abrupt for some people (like the end of a Miyazaki film), but which is also, in retrospect, that which undergirds the entire narration and so "fits" despite the abruptness of the revelation. Well, hope I articulated that alright. Hard to do this in a hurry. Overall, feels simple on one level, but open to various levels of reading and rereading. This and Wizard Knight are so different from the other Wolfe books I've read- well, there are strong points of contact, but Fifth Head of Cerberus is certainly a little more daunting from start to finish, however complex the deeper levels of each of these works.

Original review below.

Got this book for my pirate loving little sister, and decided to buy a copy for myself too (I almost kept her present, actually). I won't guarantee everyone will like it, but I'm a fan of Gene Wolfe and really wanted to read this. I haven't read too much of his-- most of the Book of the New Sun, the Wizard Knight duology, Fifth Head of Cerberus, and some of his short fiction. Out of all these, I feel like Wizard Knight has most in common with Pirate Freedom-- both have a first person narrator with a very plain, naive-feeling voice (not sure naive is the best way to put it-- and in any case, it at times feels like a duplicitous plainness, though maybe that's me being suspicious b/c of what I've heard about Wolfe's writing), writing a letter to explain what has happened to them to someone else. Wolfe is known for using unreliable narrators-- in these books, that seems to manifest itself in how things are told and what is told, rather than any far reaching duplicity-- at least that's in my reading so far, and I do feel like I'm probably missing something (Fifth Head of Cerberus has a much more extreme bit of duplicity, where one narrator is apparently a shapechanger who believes he is the human whose shape he has taken). Certain things which would take up a lot of room as action-oriented scenes are glossed over in this book, and the narrator often insists that he can't remember certain bits, but other bits are very clear-- whether these count as "unreliable narration" I don't know, but they certainly bring the perspective of the narrator, with all its limitations and biases, to the forefront, rather than taking the idea of the narrator as a barely acknowledged conceit to justify our access to the story-- in other words, the narrator is understood as a real character in the frame narrative. That said, the story doesn't drown in a reflexive focus on the one telling the story, and, with Wizard Knight, this is the Gene Wolfe book I would most recommend to more casual or escapist sci-fi/fantasy readers. Well, you may not like it still-- I think "good" or "productive" books (or "transformative") tend to subvert our escapist tendencies to some degree (see CS Lewis' -Experiment in Criticism- for one take on this phenomenon)-- but still, I think most people will enjoy this, even if Wolfe's books tend to take multiple readings to drain every last drop out of them.

One note about the title-- early in the book the narrator equates Freedom with Money/Gold, so that the title might be interpreted "Pirate Gold"-- a much more standard, swashbuckling title. Considering Wolfe's reputation as a subtle and thoughtful writer, I'm inclined to take this as intentional. At the very least, "Pirate Freedom" is a bit of an odd title, and I'm assuming that the topic/problem of "freedom" will be very pertinent in understanding the book.

I've got to say, this book feels like a perfect one to teach in a Reading and Composition course-- it is a good length, it is fairly accessible, but there is a lot going on and it provides a great opportunity to discuss narratological levels (at the very least the distinction author/narrator/character) etc. I'm always stuck teaching Medieval lit, b/c, oddly enough, it seems easier for the students to figure out what the conditions for an adequate thesis are when they are exploring multiple texts within a relatively alien culture. But if I were to teach the A level again, with no research requirement, I would be tempted to teach a broader range of texts, including this one-- maybe with the overall topic of "Adventure Stories", which would let me cover some sagas, maybe Bernard Foye's Third Castling, and some things by Astrid Lindgren, to cover the Scandinavian side of things, plus some non-Scandi books like... Pirate Freedom. And others-- maybe Treasure Island, to give an earlier pirate story (and of course, any saga that has a lot of Vikings would technically be about Pirates too). The Hobbit would fit this category too.

[Note-- this last part below is a bit of an unfair rant, due to some issues I was dealing with in the Reading and Comp class I was teaching-- if someone doesn't like how a narratological conceit is executed, then they have a perfect right to dislike a book. Ah well.]

I'm looking over other people's reviews of this book-- it seems like the bad reviews are upset over the "writing", meaning, the voice of the narrator-- I think the point would be that the awkward way in which the narrator narrates, or represents himself, is PART of the story. The narrator has his own agenda, and it is because of THAT that all the women are the same character (one person calls the book misogynist)-- b/c for him, they ARE. In other words, it feels like the critiques of the writing are conflating "real author" with "narrator" and blaming Gene Wolfe for what his character says. And I have to admit, this is the sort of problem students have in my R&C courses a lot-- for some reason I just could NOT get some of my students to understand that they were supposed to write about the characters in the story as representations of people, not as REAL people-- you don't treat Beowulf on his own terms as a real person, dammit, you treat him as part of a text with an agenda of its own. One student even talked about Beowulf as the author of the poem. Blegh. >:[(less)

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Aug 13, 2009 Eric Wisdahl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, sci-fi

Pirate Freedom revolves around the memoirs of a present day priest about his life as an adolescent acolyte in a modern day monastery who through some never quite explained fluke is thrown back into the golden age. Soon the protagonist is put into many situations where he experiences many situations of highs and lows, moral dilemmas, lust, love, internal strife, betrayal and forgiveness.

It is a tale of pirates, of priests, of slaves and of the wealthy. But more importantly, it is a tale of the si...more

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Dec 01, 2007 Jeff Stevens rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Just about anyone

"Pirate Freedom" was remarkably good; much like virtually everything Wolfe writes. Based on his past work Wolfe has set a staggeringly high bar for himself; I now expect anything written by him to be insightful, ingenious, surprising, delightfully cryptic, staggeringly well researched, and poetic to boot. "Pirate Freedom" didn't knock my socks off by these standards, but it still shines like a jewel in the muck. It leaves you with the same feeling you get when you put down the Arthur Miller you'...more

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Jul 10, 2011 David Dines rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll confess that I'd like to be "better" at reviewing books; all I can say, a few minutes after finishing this book, is that Wolfe is becoming one of my favorite authors. It seems to me that his great fascination is with the assertion of righteousness as well as humility, especially from the perspective of a single solider within a larger war he cannot and does not really try to understand. I don't know; maybe that's it. Still, I very much look forward to whatever books or stories of his I read...more

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Mar 23, 2008 Psychophant rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history, historical-fiction, reviewed

Gene Wolfe is getting old. I hate to acknowledge it, but it is so. This book uses what is becoming an over-used plot, the same main character (basically) as The Wizard, The Knight and Soldier of Sidon, and puts him in the Golden Age of Piracy. Despite the opposing views of a priest and a pirate, he avoids most discussions of internal turmoil by the simple expedient of lying or "forgetfulness".

In the end, the excursions to the present distract from what could be a nice adventure romp, while addi...more

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Mar 03, 2009 Minoo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-science-fiction, fiction, history

Gene Wolfe is one of my favorite authors. He is a genius of narrative structure. True to form, this book is a bit of mind-bender, time-warp, wrapped in a very authentic historical pirate story. As a fan of pirate history, I've never read anything that's made the history seem so real. I recommend this to anybody that wants a cutthroat, no frills pirate story or to anybody that likes to read clever novels.

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Jan 24, 2009 John rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book had all of the familiar Gene Wolfe elements that the other reviewers have mentioned, except my favorite--the crazy, mind-blowing stuff that could only come from this man's bizarre imagination. Without that, all we have here is a fast-moving, somewhat pedantic narrative full of lots of mundane details. This is one of his lesser efforts.

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Nov 02, 2010 Jeff Cadoff rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book. Simple as that. I recommend it to fantasy readers as a departure from the norm. Gene Wolfe cannot help but ride the line between sci fi and fantasy, which is to our benefit. This is not an escapist novel, so bring your brain to follow the flow. You'll be glad you did.

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Aug 19, 2012 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is written as a memoire of a fictional timetraveling pirate. so the narration is very rough. It seems like Gene Wolfe really became the character to write this. Took a bit to get used to. However the lovely woven twist of this story was amazing. Master story telling!

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May 19, 2012 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Despite the title which almost put me off, I liked this a lot more than I expected. The post-Short Sun standalone novels I have been finding problematic. Though I am aware this might just mean I need to read them over a couple more times, this being Wolfe.

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Jan 23, 2011 Simon Gosden rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fine Pirate novel with a time-slip motif that I thought was a little unnecessary, still a gripping tale of derring-do set in the Carribbean and its environs. Full of action and adventure. Smashing stuff

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About Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic. He is a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the field.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is given by SFWA for ‘lifetime achievement in science fict...more

More about Gene Wolfe...

Books by Gene Wolfe

Shadow and Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)

The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun #1)

Sword and Citadel (The Book of the New Sun, #3-4)

The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun #2)

The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun #3)

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Quotes from Pirate Freedom

“That was when I found out that the best way in the world to make yourself feel better when you have hit bottom is to try to get somebody else to feel better. There are certain things in life that are truly worth knowing, and that is one of the big ones.” — 7 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703026.Pirate_Freedom?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312045737l/703026.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703026.Pirate_Freedom?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe[/url]

Pirate Freedom

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