Here is an excerpt.

Swords and sorcery are a staple of fantasy novels. Add pirates to the mix, and you’ve got the potential for a winning combination.

If, that is, if the author can pull it off in a successful and entertaining manner, and with Mad Kestrel, first-time writer Misty Massey has a good start to what promises to be a fantastic career.

Misty is presently working on a sequel to Mad Kestrel (it is presently mid-summer 2008). Hopefully Tor will be as excited about this one as they were about the original story.

The Jolly Roger is a skull on or over a pair of crossed bones.

How the name for the pirate flag the “Jolly Roger” came to be is lost to history but there are a variety of stories floating around that sound plausible.

One story goes the French buccaneers original flag of terror was a red cloth. Instantly recognizable, the “bloody flag” told all that no quarter would be given. (no quarter meant the target ship should surrender without a fight. If the ship surrendered without a fight then all lives would be spared. If there was resistance then potentially all on board could be killed.)

The French phrase joli rouge meant pretty red. So it is thought that the English ended up bastardizing the phrase to Jolly Roger.

Many pirate captains took this basic symbol of fear and made it their own.

Emmanuel Wynne used the pirate flag above showing an hour glass. The hourglass was meant to represent time was running out.

Most pirates flew some variation of symbols that included skulls, bones, hourglass, skeletons and weapons.

All pirate flags were intended to convey a message of fear and death to the intended targets so that their victims might easily give up without a fight.

If you are interested in pirates then we have tried to make it easy for you to see any pirate video you might have an interest in.

Pirate Videos

You could probably find most any Pirate of the Caribbean movie or Pirate of the Caribbean video you could ever possibly want.

How about some Crimson Pirates, or a video from a pirate festival?

Enjoy!

The rules and punishments may have varied slightly from ship to ship but before setting sail every pirate voted or had a say in the drawing up of these articles or codes that each one of them would live by while on the journey. Everyone was required to sign or place his mark upon the articles parchment and then the deal would be sealed with an oath over a Bible or a weapon and possibly a swig of rum mixed with gunpowder.

Pirates are known for creating the first true individual democracy in which every man had a vote or say. The buccaneers established this code in rebellion against their harsh treatment from former countries. Breaking agreed upon rules was dealt with harshly as a means to enforcing their own laws or code.

After some time some captains began writing their own articles instead of an open voting system.

Off the North African and Mediterranean coastal waters Muslim pirates called Barbary Corsairs. The French considered them pirates but the local people and Islamic governments considered them privateers, as they tended to raid only non-Islamic people.

Pirate is now the common term known round the world for a person who engages in a variety of misdeeds on the oceans.