Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Latitudes piratas by Michael Crichton Pirate Latitudes - Michael Crichton. From one of the best-loved authors of all time comes an irresistible adventure of swashbuckling pirates in the New World, a classic story of treasure and betrayal. The Caribbean, 1665. A remote colony of the English Crown, the island of Jamaica holds out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, its capital, is a cutthroat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses. In this steamy climate, there’s a living to be made, a living that can end swiftly by disease - or by dagger. For Captain Charles Hunter, gold in Spanish hands is gold for the taking, and the law of the land rests with those ruthless enough to make it. Word in port is that the galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is awaiting repairs in a nearby harbor. Heavily fortified, the impregnable harbor is guarded by the bloodthirsty Cazalla, a favorite commander of the Spanish king himself. With backing from a powerful ally, Hunter assembles a crew of ruffians to infiltrate the enemy outpost and commandeer El Trinidad, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloodiest tales of island legend, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he even sets foot on foreign shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry stand between him and the treasure…. Pirate Latitudes is Michael Crichton at his best: a rollicking adventure tale pulsing with relentless action, crackling atmosphere, and heart-pounding suspense. Latitudes piratas by Michael Crichton. From and To can't be the same language. That page is already in . Something went wrong. Check the webpage URL and try again. Sorry, that page did not respond in a timely manner. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Something went wrong, please try again. Try using the Translator for the Microsoft Edge extension instead. Latitudes piratas by Michael Crichton. From and To can't be the same language. That page is already in . Something went wrong. Check the webpage URL and try again. Sorry, that page did not respond in a timely manner. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Something went wrong, please try again. Try using the Translator for the Microsoft Edge extension instead. Swords & Spectres. Book and audiobook reviewer to the fantastic, the spooky and the far-out. Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton – A Book Review. An irresistible tale of swashbuckling pirates in the New World from master storyteller Michael Crichton – now in paperback. Jamaica, in 1665 a lone outpost of British power amid Spanish waters in the sunbaked Caribbean. Its capital, Port Royal, a cuthroat town of taverns, grog shops and bawdy houses – the last place imaginable from which to launch an unthinkable attack on a nearby Spanish stronghold. Yet that is exactly what renowned privateer Captain Charles Hunter plans to do, with the connivance of Charles II’s ruling governor, Sir James Almont. The target is Matanceros, guarded by the bloodthirsty Cazalla, and considered impregnable with its gun emplacements and sheer cliffs. Hunter’s crew of buccaneers must battle not only the Spanish fleet but other deadly perils – raging hurricanes, cannibal tribes, even sea monsters. But if his ragtag crew succeeds, they will make not only history … but a fortune in gold. Author: Michael Crichton Publisher: Harper Collins Genre: Historical Fiction Pages: 400 Release Date: 01/04/2010 My Chosen Format: Paperback My Rating of ‘Pirate Latitudes’: 2 out of 5 Purchase: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Audible UK, Audible US. Review: I had high hopes for enjoying this as I love historical fiction, even more so when it features pirates. Sadly, although it was a good, and even exciting, story. It was not a good book. That sounds a tad contradictory. What I mean is, it’s the sort of action-packed story that would be the perfect tale of adventure to tell by the fireside, or that could be made into an exciting film/tv series. But, as a book, it’s too predictable and just falls a little flat because of it. My main gripe with Pirate Latitudes is that the characters never feel like they’re in any danger. Horrendously bad things do happen, but to characters you didn’t know or care about. So it feels too distant to ever really hit home. Regarding the characters; they almost feel super-human at points. It got to the point where, if James Hunter was forced to headbutt his way through a meter-thick brick wall, he’d have done so. And he’d have come through the other side without a headache or a hair out of place. Impossible just wasn’t a concept that existed in the world of Pirate Latitudes. And how he gets everyone to just go along with what he says is laughable. Nobody ever really gives a valid reason for joining up. All voice their concerns that what is being proposed is impossible and should, under no circumstance be attempted. But, all Hunter needs to do is say ‘go on, you know you want to.’ And they go. I actually got to within 40 pages of the end and stopped reading for a week or two. The author wanted me to believe all was lost, but I couldn’t suspend my disbelief quite that far and the prospect of our perfect characters failing never felt real enough to keep me interested. But, I did come back to it and soldiered on to the ending, which is another sore point for me. It felt rushed. Painfully so. The continuity just wasn’t there either. One sentence stated that a person was out of range from all angles for a pistol shot. The next sentence has said target getting shot by a pistol … I suppose when logic was thrown out of the window early on, the laws of physics were next for the chopping board. I really enjoyed the epilogue, though. It made the entire book feel like it could have been real and that the characters within were flesh and blood rather than ink on a page. I actually felt the epilogue went some small way towards redeeming the pages that preceded it. Pirate Latitudes. For many years, Michael Crichton's name was a byword for intelligent, cutting edge fiction, frequently utilising striking new developments in science as the basis of his narratives, or (most famously in 'Jurassic Park') extrapolating scientific possibilities into highly exciting (if implausible) tales of adventure. After his recent death (at a relatively young age), it was salutary to remember that his writing career had been a very long one - so that when he took a concept that he might have used before (i.e., high tech amusement park goes disastrously wrong with fatal consequences for visitors) he could ensure that there was a lengthy gap so that people barely noticed (look at the plots of 'Westworld' (1973) and the aforementioned 'Jurassic Park'). And now we have his final book, published posthumously, 'Pirate Latitudes'. For once, though, it looks as if Crichton were following the pack rather than leading it - but things are not that clear cut as they might initially have seemed. 'Pirate Latitudes' takes the reader back to 1665, when Charles IIs Jamaican colony is under serious threat, besieged on every side by the voracious Spanish empire. At the centre of this troubled outpost is its crowded capital, Port Royal, a lively (if festering) hangout for criminal dregs, who inhabit its taverns and brothels. This is the time of the privateer, when (with tacit royal sanction), ship's captains could make sorties against Spanish ships and outposts, plundering at will - just so long as the Governor and King Charles are taken care of. Michael Crichton's protagonist in this colourful mix is Captain Charles Hunter, educated at Harvard and a man with keenly developed survival instincts. He is made aware a treasure galleon, which is at anchor in the heavily fortified Spanish island of Matanceros, and Hunters interest is piqued - not least because this means he will be able to take on Philip of Spain's most ruthless enforcer, Cazalla. The stage is set for what will either be a glorious bit of naval smash-and-grab or that will end in the ignominious death of Charles Hunter and his motley crew. All of this, of course, suggests that Crichton (always a man aware of the commercial possibilities of any material) had been looking at the phenomenal success of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' series of films, and there is no doubt that some of the spirit of fun to be found here echoes that of the Johnny Depp-starring movies. But Crichton clearly remembered an earlier era, and the swashbuckling style of the (less parodic) Errol Flynn adventues is actually the template here (you'll notice the comparisons drawn here are cinematic rather than literary - but Michael Crichton always straddled the two fields, and was a successful film director as well as novelist). Perhaps 'Pirate Latitudes' isn't the final triumphant legacy we might wish for from Crichton, but (taken in the right spirit) it's uncomplicated, fast- moving fun. - Barry Forshaw. ‘Pirate Latitudes’ by Michael Crichton. When it comes to popular entertainment, the late Michael Crichton was about as successful as any writer could hope to be.