Pirates of Pensacola

The Cooke and Hood families have been at each other’s throats since the Spanish Main days. The latest chapter in their piratic rivalry takes place in present day, when an old treasure map turns up. None of this seems to matter to Morgan Cooke, a cowardly, landlubbing accountant entirely ignorant of his heritage until his estranged father, Isaac, in need of crewmen, kidnaps him and thrusts him into the fray. When Morgan wakes up on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean, he learns that piracy still flourishes, albeit with far more discretion than in the old days—pirates disguise their fast boats as shrimpers or tugs—but with no less bloodshed. Judging even a shot at riches vastly preferable to a return to his lonely, fluorescent-lit workstation existence, Morgan sets sail for glorious adventure.

Hard to follow AI, okay story

The AI at times was rather decent, and at other times felt like a 3rd grader unsure of how to say words and how to read aloud with proper phrasing and pauses at the appropriate punctuation. This really made some parts hard to follow. It’s a very monotonous monotone read with absolutely zero characterization, something I’d think easy for AI to accomplish. But it’s about as bad an AI performance as one would expect.

The story was also a problem. Quite confused and convoluted at times. The book felt like someone wrote this book with a series of different inspirations, most all being movies, and tried to replicate multiple characters and movies into another script, that hasn’t seemed to have been enjoyed by Hollywood, yet. Then there’s the voluminous break for a history lesson on pirates, buccaneers and various characters and activities. Not like a movie synopsis. More like this mish-mash of Disney teen antics meets adult rom com meets Hart/Rock in Central Intelligence, meets Johnny Depp with the Muppets doing Pirates of the Caribbean. So from comedy and action you have this 30+ minute history lesson like switching to a Thomas Sowell history book, presumably being told by an uneducated pirate rather than a highly educated and intelligent Thomas Sowell.

Then it goes right by to silly romp and action like an overwhelming history lesson wasn’t just orated. Only the more you get in, the less of reality that is conveyed while still trying to appeal to some sense of modern reality. It’s just very difficult to follow.

When the action didn’t seemed like a contrived version of everything we see in movies, some of the writing and characters later on become decent, but keeping them all straight with the singular monologue of the AI was tricky. It became a lot of, “I don’t care, just got to finish.”

Once you get to the end you get a decent epilogue and some decent standard heart warming moments that actually reflect a decent book with a moral to a story.

In the end, not something I’d recommend.