The best books that make you want to be a pirate of the Caribbean

I must start, of course, with the quintessential pirate fantasy book.

Many might not be aware that the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film was loosely adapted from this 1987 novel by Tim Powers. Anybody who knows the genre and is asked for a pirate fantasy book most likely brings up this one first. It’s the clearest yet expression of a rarified genre, and something with few imitators.

Expect to be entertained with high-seas piracy, ship battles, jungles, dark voodoo, ghost ships, and zombies as you follow Jack Shandy on the quest for the Fountain of Youth. Blackbeard, played wonderfully by Ian McShane in the film, proves a foreboding antagonist with supernatural designs.

Long John Silver isn’t a novel but a graphic novel series.

Set twenty years after Treasure Island, and featuring the man himself, what follows is a dark, adventurous tale, an expedition to find a lost city of riches deep in the Amazon. For a series with relatively brief entries, the story takes its time, setting up sharp characters, a moody, tense atmosphere, and laying the seeds for future rivalries and betrayals.

The artwork follows these moods, rich or muted, sparse or dense as needs be, and some of the larger panels are truly impressive.
For an ominous, well-paced adventure, focused on its character work and simmering tensions, look no further than Long John Silver. Particularly recommended for fans of the superlative pirate show Black Sails (itself a pseudo-prequel to Treasure Island).

Due to the rarity of pirate fantasy novels out there (that is, if we aren’t including romance novels, which others well might), I’m going to cheat a little bit with this (instead of picking something more well-known like the superlative Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb).

There are no pirates in Cradle of Sea and Soil; I would instead describe it an indigenous Caribbean fantasy with a beautifully and uniquely defined colour-based magic system and exciting, monstrous elements of Lovecraftian horror.

I’m recommending this novel partly because it’s a wonderful story, partly because indigenous Caribbean-inspired fantasy is even rarer than pirate fantasy, but also, in the context of this list, to be a “pirate in the Caribbean” asks questions about foundations: that maybe the stories rest not just on the nature of the setting itself, but are tied up (though usually unacknowledged) with the existence (or once existence) of indigenous peoples like the Taino or Kalinago.

Pirate stories are almost exclusively presented as colonial, European-based in nature. I tried to slowly move away from that with my own India Bones series. Books like this one aided me in that ongoing journey. In Cradle of Sea and Soil, a strange, mystical paradise is corrupted by what seemed to me was a dark metaphor for colonialism.

So put up your feet on these beautiful Caribbean islands, tropical forests, and sandy beaches, and join its courageous and loving community. But watch out – there’s danger coming, and you might be asked to fight for your life.

Another of my cheat picks, but I feel they are both following the spirit of the list (and, more importantly, my own enthusiasm).

Here is a maritime fantasy set in a blustery region much colder than the tropical Caribbean. No, this is grim-up-north fiction – and I wasn’t surprised one bit to find the author is from Yorkshire.

The Tide Child series is a uniquely fascinating one, set in a dark, matriarchal world, dense with rotting pink and purple plants, where the “corpselights” of sacrificed children hang from ships built from the bones of sea dragons, where slavery is rife, and the faces of crews are scoured by wind and freezing brine.
Don’t expect a great deal of joy in these books. But they are nonetheless adventurous, fantastical, and exciting. I just wish they’d get a bit warmer... brrrrr.

I know, I know. But this is essential stuff. The grandfather of the genre.

There might be no truly fantastical elements here, but the list doesn’t demand it – what we have is an iconic pirate adventure, such that spurred the imaginations of generations, as well as all those books, films, shows, and games we’ve come to love.

Give thanks to Treasure Island for Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, and Black Sails, and the legendary... Muppet’s Treasure Island.

If you haven’t read it, then please do explore this incredibly influential tale of buccaneers and buried gold. Treasure maps dotted with an X? A parrot on the shoulder of a man with one leg? It all starts here. Yes, it’s an old book – but that means little, and you probably won’t even notice much difference to modern-day stories. It’s timeless.