Review of Bodacious Space Pirates (2012)
As one legacy of a bygone colonial war, an advanced interstellar society recognizes a small number of hereditary letters of marque. Everyone is insured, and most of the pirates’ actions are simple theatrics, using 1700 CE iconography to rob wealthy passengers as a form of entertainment on long voyages. One pirate is declared dead, and the buck passes to his daughter.
Utopian space opera. Too many clichés: Improbable outfits, an entire class of (space)yacht-clubbing high-school girls as recurring secondary characters, and a blandly optimistic heroine, all smeared in generic upbeat music, ray guns, and the worn-out central motif of benign pirate adventurers from Disney spin-offs of Treasure Island (1881). Surprisingly, there are moments when almost hard SF strategizing takes the stage, but the concluding arc has none of it and little closure, just style over substance.