The Ghost Pirates (Standalone) 3Stars

 

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Title: The Ghost Pirates
Series: Standalone
Author: William Hope Hodgson
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Adventure
Pages: 179
Words: 50K
Publish: 1909

Long, slow and with barely a supernatural menace until right at the end. Of course, the end ends with the ship being dragged under the sea by ghost ships while the crew is murdered by either ghost pirates or transdimensional pirates. So it ends with a bang!

Lots of little things happen on the ship leading up to that, but it could all be chalked up to nerves or accidents. Except our narrator, and one or two other sailors, have seen insubstantial man shapes at various times at night. I guess this would be called a “slow burn” horror story and boy howdy, is it slow. At least with The House on the Borderlands we had the scary pig things almost from the get-go. Here it is just hints and little bits of unnerving happenings. Not nearly enough in my opinion.

I can see why Hodgson has been forgotten over the years. His writings were fully of his time and did not, and have not, transcended into that timeless realm that we associate with The Classics.

The cover here is pretty good. It represents the ending of book unfortunately. Something this scary should have been the foundation, not the widow’s walk.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

The novel is presented as the transcribed testimony of Jessop, who we ultimately discover is the only survivor of the final voyage of the Mortzestus, having been rescued from drowning by the crew of the passing Sangier. It begins with Jessop's recounting how he came to be aboard the ill-fated Mortzestus and the rumors surrounding the vessel.

Jessop then begins to recount the unusual events that rapidly increase in both frequency and severity. In the telling of his tale, Jessop offers only sparse interpretation of the events, spending most of the time relating the story in an almost journalistic fashion, presenting a relatively unvarnished description of the events and conversations as they occurred.

He describes his confusion and uncertainty about what he believes he has seen, at times fearing for his own sanity. He eventually hears other members of the crew speak of strange events, most of which the rest of the crew pass off as either bad luck or the result of the witness being either tired or "dotty". Jessop only offers brief personal interpretation; he states that while he cannot discount the idea that the beings plaguing the ship may be ghosts, he presents his theory that they may be beings from another dimension that, while sharing the same physical space as theirs, are normally completely separated to the extent that neither dimension is aware of the existence of the other. He offers only vague, superficial suggestions as to the cause of his theorized dimensional breach.