Greenbeard_cover_medGreenbeard

by Richard James Bentley 

Price: £9.37

 

 

 

 

Description:  Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.


Extract: Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges was growing his beard, which was to say he was idling and drinking rum. If someone should ask him “What are you doing this afternoon?” he would say “I think I shall just sit and grow my beard.” Growing his beard would necessarily involve the drinking of rum, of course. And a fine beard it was, too! Lustrous and as yellow as Spanish gold, it reached nearly to the belt that cinched the black broadcloth of his coat over his hard flat belly. The belt from which hung his heavy cutlass in its black leather scabbard, the wide black belt that had three knives and two flintlock pistols thrust into it, easy to hand, for Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges was a pirate….

About the author: Richard James Bentley, who happens to look the part of a salty English sea captain, has trodden many paths and worn many hats. From his early work as a dealer in dodgy motorcars, he progressed to being a design engineer on a zeppelin project. Computers then caught his attention and he authored a number of incomprehensible technical manuals before turning to fiction. He has lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands and now spins yarns in the north of England.

Reviews:

4.0 out of 5 stars Patrick O’Brian meets Philip K Dick 30 Jun 2013
Format:Paperback
A very funny and extremely erudite fantasy. It takes a while to get used to the pirate argot, wi’ a wannion! But after the first few pages that and the weird pirate names become like old friends. The dissertations on the nature of space and time are amusing, and strangely factual. There are also innumerable puns and red herrings that send you off Googling things you’d never otherwise have contemplated, which is satisfying as you’d hardly expect an eighteenth century pirate sci-fi romp to extend your knowledge. The references to obscure subjects like the writings of H.P. Lovecraft are entertaining – Miss Lulu Cthulu indeed sounds like a hoot!
4.0 out of 5 stars Greenbeard 20 May 2013
Format:Paperback
Lighthearted, imaginative and witty, with historical references, both obtuse and direct, peppering the pages. I found myself chuckling out loud in parts, but was sorry the “final ribald sea-chanty” was missing from the ‘Postscriptum’. The end was quite abrupt….did the author run out of time? Captain Sylvestre De Greybagges would have been horrified! An evening allocating tunes to the songs, doggerels and poems included, with a bottle of Yo-ho-ho, could prove most diverting on its own, however! Congratulations on your first novel, Mr B, lets go again!
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