A.C. Crispin is Savvy to Jack
Ann Crispin tells the story about how she got the gig writing the first Pirates of the Caribbean original novel. It involves the following math:
Jack Sparrow ≈ Han Solo
Han Solo + back story = A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo trilogy
A.C. Crispin = Jack Sparrow back story writer
And it’s a good thing, too. I’m not sure too many writers are the type who can walk into an existing universe and create a history that not only fits the character, but also the established continuity.
The Price of Freedom came out just after the new movie, On Stranger Tides, hit theaters. And the one-two combination was a good stroke of marketing smarts. It helps that Crispin has such an appeal among fans. After breaking into fiction with an original Star Trek novel (back when just anyone could submit…), she’s gone on to become a prolific writer and advocate for new writers. So the choice of Crispin as author of Jack Sparrow’s back story makes perfect sense.
Freedom takes place several years before the first POTC movie, and follows mid-twentysomething Jack in his days as a sailor in the employ of the East India Trading Company. When trading ships start to fall victim to rogue pirates flying the flag of “no quarter” – meaning they take no prisoners and leave nothing intact – Jack has to wrestle with his conscience as well as his memories of five years prior, when he had to deal with these very same pirates at Shipwreck Cove.
In the meantime, Jack has been ordered by our dear Cutler Beckett to scour the seas for an ancient magical island Zerzura. And to help find it, Sparrow takes on two refugees from there. Only one of the refugees is actually the princess of the people of Zerzura, searching for her long-lost brother, who was taken into slavery and sold to a plantation in the New World. Jack’s life quickly gets complicated.
Further complications arise when Jack encounters Esmerelda, the granddaughter of the Spanish Pirate Lord. Now a captain herself, Esmerelda gets caught up in the intrigue and schemes of today, realizing as things progress, that events of now are connected with events of five years ago, when she and Jack were at the heart of discovering treachery amongst the pirates.
While many will make comparisons between Esmerelda and Angelica from Tides, the two are different enough that you accept Jack having two Spanish maidens in his past. (Unless in some future story, Esmerelda decides she needs to change her name for some reason…) She’s smart, plucky, and just dangerous enough to keep Jack on his toes. And of course, the romance between the two has to be complicated by the fact that Jack ends up ousted from Shipwreck Cove, looking like he’s a part of the Rogue Pirates.
This is also the first meeting between Jack and Hector Barbosa, with some deftly handled winks at their established movie history peppered throughout.
(And don’t blink, or you’ll miss the mention of another Disney pirate, one who has an unseemly fear of small boys…)
A.C. Crispin is one of those rare writers who gets character voices right almost every bit of the time. Whether it’s Han Solo, Kirk and Spock, the evil Diana in her V novels, or Jack Sparrow, she has an ear for the actors’ voices and speech patterns. And she puts it to good use here. The only bone to pick I have is the rather heavy use of the word perforce, along with what may be an overuse of Sparrow saying “Savvy”. Besides that, the pace is good, and the plot thickens in just the right places.
Overall, it’s a nice read, even though it’s a hefty tome. It took me a while to read it, but I blame that on the whole “real life” and “day job” and such… Of course, there’s the requisite supernatural elements, fitting right in with the tone of the movies. It’s the first of what may become a series of titles, assuming this one sells enough copies and wins the hearts of Jack Sparrow fans. It should be well on its way to doing just that as you read this. There are plenty more stories to tell of Jack Sparrow — er, Captain Jack Sparrow — and A.C. Crispin is one of those solid writers who can deliver.
Savvy?
