100 books like Cradle of Sea and Soil

In my humble opinion, this is the greatest adventure tale in the English language!

Robert Louis Stevenson practically invented pirates for the modern world, particularly his chief antagonist, the crippled but formidable Long John Silver. Highly intelligent, cunning, crafty, ruthless, yet somehow appealing, Silver set the standard for all pirate heroes to come.

Whenever I get bogged down studying pirates, I turn to Treasure Island to remember what it is to enjoy my subject!

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).

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.

This is an oldie but a goodie. There are not many accessible books about the earliest years of Spanish colonization, but this is probably one of the best. With a terrific narrative style, Wilson showcases the years of Columbus's leadership at the head of the earliest colonizing efforts, and the increasing dissatisfaction of Spanish colonists towards Columbus, who was seen by many as a tyrant. In addition to this, Wilson reads between the lines of Spanish documents, and with the help of archaeological evidence, provides the reader with insightful interpretations of indigenous life, actions, and motivations.

Taíno scholar José Barreiro uses fiction to illuminate what historical sources cannot: how Indigenous people reacted and adapted to Spanish colonization of the Caribbean.

Barreiro spent years researching the life of Guaikán, alias Diego Colón, a Loku Taíno youth briefly mentioned in several Spanish accounts.

By telling Guaikán’s story in the form of a journal written decades after Spanish arrival in the Caribbean, Barreiro vividly narrates the young man’s varied experiences, from his life in Guanahaní before Spanish arrival, to being taken captive by Columbus, to living in the Spanish colonial city of Santo Domingo.

Most importantly, Barreiro movingly conveys how such an individual may have felt about the cataclysmic changes that accompanied European conquest. 

Thomas King is one of my favorite authors so of course I think everyone should read all of his books, fiction and non-fiction. In The Inconvenient Indian, King shares an account of Indian—white relations in North America since the beginning. And he does it by chronicling official government Indian policy, pop culture, personal observations, wisdom, truth, and humor. He debunks stereotypes, recounts events accurately, and in spite of all the brutal truth-telling presents a way for Indigenous and those of the dominant culture to heal. My favorite King fiction work is Medicine River, which was made into a film (spoiler alert - he's in it!).  

I’m a loud and proud proponent of the magical nature of tiki drinks. In my opinion, it is utterly impossible to be sad or angry or frustrated when you are served a drink with an umbrella – and sometimes an orchid, a pineapple spear, and a swizzle stick – in it. Jeff Berry, aka  ‘Beachbumb Berry’, is one of the undisputed experts in the world of tiki culture, and Potions of the Caribbean is a vividly-designed, detail-packed adventure of a book. With Berry’s always thorough research and reflections, the book traces the origins of tropical drinks back 500 years eventually culminating in the tiki craze that took the United States, and later the world, by storm. Coupled with Berry’s in-depth history are vibrant, historical photos and juicy recipes that make your mouth water. To me, the happy-go-lucky tiki era embodies a sense of optimism, a time when a flaming, fruity… show more.

Although I captain my own lake boat, I knew very little about ancient nautical sailing and warfare when I began writing Fire on Dark Water. Benerson Little’s book, The Sea Rover’s Practice, taught me about different types of crafts, weapons, battle tactics, sea villains, ship routines, sailor superstitions, methods of stealth attack, treatment of prisoners, and even the types of food eaten on board ship throughout 1630 – 1730. It was a very valuable resource.

Set in a fictional town on Colombia’s Caribbean coast during the 1950’s “violencia,” this novella portrays the seemingly mundane life of an anonymous retired military officer and his wife. The aging couple struggles against poverty, government corruption, and an overwhelming feeling of insignificance. As the colonel’s life loses meaning, he eventually realizes that he has nothing left but the rooster that he is readying for a cockfight. I read this novella after training with the Colombian Navy in Cartagena, and it took me only a few pages to realize that García Márquez is a genius.