Review – Adventures Of The Steampunk Pirates – The Leaky Battery Sets Sail by Gareth P Jones

Wanted: Dead or Alive! (Or smashed into little bits and delivered in boxes.) Causing chaos wherever they sail, the robotic Steampunk Pirates are roaming the high seas, hunting for gold! But the evil Iron Duke has other ideas…He’s determined to capture the pirates in return for a handsome reward from the King. Can the mechanical marauders stay one wave ahead of their enemy? This hilarious new series from Gareth P. Jones, author of Ninja Meerkats, is sure to delight young readers with its madcap humour and larger-than-life robot pirate crew. Perfect for fans of Jonny Duddle’s The Ghostly Galleon and the Space Pirates books, looking for more swashbuckling action!

Publisher – Stripes Publishing

Date Published – 2nd February 2015

Pages – 160 pages

Format – Paperback

Category – Childrens / MG

Source –

I was originally approved on Netgalley for a copy of this book for my kindle, but I was then contacted by the wonderful Stripes Publishing and asked if I would like a hard copy of this book – to which I jumped at the chance!  This does not affect my review or my opinions in any way and am delighted to write an honest review.  Thank you to Stripes Publishing for sending me this book to read!

** Please note Tales Of Yesterday Reviews are written as spoiler free as possible**

“Surrender you English Mummy’s boy or we’ll fire up the cannons and blast more holes in your ship than you’ll find in a barrel full of Dutch cheese, so we will”

Wow!  Right you salty sea cogs!  I don’t normally start my reviews with a quote, but I felt it necessary for this one!  I am a huge fan of anything to do with pirates! So I was very excited to be asked to be a part of the blog tour to celebrate the release of this book.  I love pirate books, films (especially Johnny Depp), theatre productions…well mainly Johnny Depp…..I mean pirates really!  I love them and their swashbuckling ways and this book certainly did not disappoint and all with a slight twist on the “normal” type of pirates we meet *whispers not Johnny Depp*.

You see the Steampunk Pirates in this book are made out of metal and were created with the intention of being robot slaves!  Steam powered, self governing automatons created by the celebrated inventor Mr Swift to be precise.  One day a young girl called Penelope sets them free and they start their adventures on the high seas as pirates!

“Steampunk Servants no more” said Mr Clockhart.  “We be Steampunk Pirates!”

Wanted Dead Or Alive and lead by mutiny hating Captain Clockheart, he and his mighty crew, including First Mate Mainspring, Quartermaster Lexi, Mr Gadge and a robotic bird called Twitter soon make an enemy in the Duke and venture on a quest to find the man who can turn their rusting metal into gold – goldify them!  Yes goldify is now my favourite new word!  Although I have been warned….

“That’s what I call it, goldifying.  That’s my own word, too.  Any two-bit author who wants to use it in the future will have to pay me”

*The writer of this review would like to thank Mr Gareth P Jones for his kind permission for the use of the words goldify and assure his estate that the cheque is in the post*

(If you have read the book you will probably laugh at the above disclaimer…if you haven’t….well you probably think I owe the author a lot of money!  I hopefully don’t as the author may replace my brain with a bucket of mouldy seaweed if I’m not careful…but really you just need to READ THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY! 🙂

Now in fear of the Steampunk Pirates getting hold of me and dangling me by my bootlaces and offering me to the sharks I read this book in virtually one sitting!  Well that was mainly because I enjoyed it not out of pure fear really *gulps*.  Straight from the offset you get drawn into the Steampunk Pirate world with immediate action, with cannons firing and climbing aboard another ship Gareth P Jones introduces these fab characters with a bang and all with catchy pirate songs throughout!

Whilst I loved all of the Steampunk Pirates the English tea loving Duke gave me a few good chuckles along the way too with one memorable moment when the Duke and many men are in a small boat and he decides some have to go!  Into the sea!  He selects a large man, who stands up to give his last farewell speech….

“Tis a far better thing that I do now than  —- “

“Oh get on with it,” interrupted the Duke

“Yes Sir” The large sailor jumped off.

This book is full of humour which was right on my wave length!  The illustrations in the book are just beautiful and perfect and act as a source of humour also!  I especially loved the picture of Mr Goldman…oh how I would love to meet him in real life!  Even the pages of this book were wonderful with the page number surrounded in cogs.

I also loved the way the author takes time to speak directly to the reader often before writing a flashback to how the robot slaves became pirates or change of scene and then again speaking direct to the reader in a humorous way to bring you back to the action.  I’ve not read any other Gareth P Jones books (my son has) so I’m not sure if this is his normal style, but it really worked and just kept me entertained throughout.  I will definitely be raiding my sons book shelves for more Gareth P Jones books asap.

Although this 1st book in what I hear is a series details the Steampunk Pirate origins and is basically an introduction to them and their world I do not think this affected the action or plot of the book and the Leaky Battery, the Steampunk Pirates boat, definitely set sail in style!  The Steampunk Pirates learn that working together is the key and learn that it doesn’t matter what your made of everyone is the same on the outside …a beautiful message to send out to many children and adults that will read this book.

I would love to one day meet Captain Clockheart and his mighty crew again (I hear I will in May when book 2 is out!), but in the meantime I may take to the high seas and become Chelley The Pirate who everyone will fear!!!!  Hmmmmmm…… I think I have as much chance of survival as a rat who has made his home in the barrel of a cannon!

*Takes long walk on short plank and causes a very BIG splash!*

Extract

I am honoured, with the publishers permission to be able to share a fab extract with you which highlights the fab illustrations, the beautiful cogs as the page numbers, the humour and of course gives a fab insight into the world of the Steampunk Pirates!  Enjoy!

Don’t forget to check below the extract for the Tales rating of this book!

I award this book 5 out of 5 Tales Of Yesterday books!

You can buy this book here or by visiting the Stripes publishing website here.

For more information about the wonderful author Gareth P Jones and his other books please visit his website www.garethwrites.co.uk or why not follow him on twitter using @jonesgarethp !

The Adventures Of The Steampunk Pirates continues in May 2015 with the Attack Of The Giant Sea Spiders!  I can’t wait!

Also check out a Q&A with Gareth P. Jones here

Or find out which character from The Thornthwaite Betrayal you are here

Or a cover reveal of Pet Defenders:  Attack of the Alien Dung!  here

Have you read this book or an other books by Gareth P Jones?  What did you think?  Are there any other pirate books I should read (I love pirates!)?  If you could create a Steampunk Pirate what would it be called?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this post or tweet me on twitter (not the bird from the book but actual twitter 🙂 ) using @chelleytoy !

Happy walking the plank and fearing Chelley The Pirate….arrrggghhh!