Book Review: The Time Pirate

Dear Readers,

Today, I will be sharing with you a book entitled “The Time Pirate” by Ted Bell.

In this story, the protagonist is a twelve-year-old boy called Nicholas McIver, who lives on one of the Channel Islands which belongs to the English empire. This story is set in 1940, when the Nazis were attacking England, and began bombing the Channel Islands. Being a courageous, patriotic and hot-blooded boy, Nicholas offered to aid in the defence of his homeland. Despite his young age, he was granted permission by Lord Hawke, who is the governor of the island, Baroness de Fleur as well as his parents. After being taught how to fly a plane, he aided in the bombing of the German bases. He had a close shave with death, when the plane malfunctioned, but survived miraculously. Upon returning home, he realised his sister had been captured by William Blood, a notorious pirate who yearned to possess the other half of the time machine which Nicholas had. With the two halves of the time machine, William would have absolute power over the world. Nicholas, with the help of Lord Hawke and Hobbes, managed to create a replica of the half and exchanged it for his sister’s life. When they returned home, Nicholas realised that the only way to defeat the Nazis was to have an America, which did not exist then because Washington failed to defeat British general Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown during the American Revolution. In order to do so, he whizzed back to the time of the Revolution and aided Washington and French general Lafayette in the mission to defeat the British. The plan succeeded, and upon whizzing back to the year 1940, the Americans came to the aid of the British, saving them from the hands of the Nazis, causing the Nazis’ eventual defeat.

I personally did not really like the story, for I found that the negative points outnumber the positive points. Let me explain what I mean.

Self-contradictory in itself, this story has shown that since Nicholas was able to time-travel, why is it that he is unable to prevent the World War Two from happening in the first place? For if he was able to do so, nothing of this sort would have happened. The story stated that Admiral de Grasse was only able to converse in French, giving rise to the need for Lafayette to tag along and join Nicholas on his journey. However, it turned out that de Grasse talked to Lafayette and Nicholas in English, aggravating the situation of the contradiction of the book.

Spelling and grammatical errors are also plentiful across the entire book, whereby General Lafayette’s name morphed to become Layfayette and even Layafette, which I personally found rather ridiculous and disrespectful to the French general who was a real character during the war of American Independence. Words like “encourgaged” also dotted the book. Such mistakes will definitely put off readers.

There were also plenty of French embedded in the dialogues in the story, with no translation provided, making readers guess what the words meant. An example would be avec le pamplemousse, which I had to use Google Translate to comprehend its meaning.

Nonetheless, this story has indeed given me some valuable insights and inculcated some values in me. It taught me that age means nothing, for if we have the determination to do something, we should not be restricted by our age. This is evident from the twelve-year-old Nicholas who embarked on such a dangerous and life-threatening attempt. It also showed me the power of patriotism which could counter all odds, as shown by Nicholas’s love for England and his homeland.

I also learnt some beautiful descriptions of the scenery, which I will try to add into my subsequent essays, when applicable.

All in all, with all due respect to Mr Ted Bell but I do not recommend this book, as this story revolves around a self-contradictory storyline. Therefore, I feel that this book is not really worth a read and will leave a bad and poor impression of fantasy stories, even for me, a fantasy-lover.

Readers, what do you think about this book?

Best Regards,
Nathan :)