You just have to love William Hope Hodgson…you’ve never
heard of him…never read any of his stories…in fact he’s fallen down the crack
of obscurity…but his writing and his stories are some of the best in the genre
of ghosts and horror…
The Ghost Pirates is a tight little story that keeps you on
the edge of your seat. It has fear, it
has tension, it has thrills, it has theories of inter-dimensional beings and objects…and
it has ghost pirates! This panalopy of literary
goodies is only outdone by Hodgson’s superb knowledge of sailing and seamanship…he
knows the ropes so to speak and it shows in his story, adding more to this
story’s air of authenticity.
The absolute best part of this story…it leaves much of the
scary stuff to the imagination. You
never really see what the ghosts are…you’re never told what they really are,
where they come from…if they’re ghosts of buccaneers from the Spanish Main, or
devils from the depths of Hell, or whatever…it’s really left up to you to
choose what scares or interests you the most.
Good luck on finding a scanned first edition on this book…I’m
still looking for one…but, being such a good story, I had to include it here at
First Edition Friday. I can offer you a
full audio version…and a text version, so you can at least read or listen to
it. Enjoy…may your sails always be full
of things that go bump in the night…
