Verdict: more than decent flick and lots of fun, as long as you aren’t expecting The Tempest… or, for that matter, Tim Powers’ own On Stranger Tides, which is kind-of, sort-of, not-really, actually-Tim-himself-is-fine-with-the-liberties-taken-because-he’s-getting-some-of-that-money-and-the-most-poetic-phrase-in-English-is-‘Pay-to-the-order-of’ the basis for the movie. The movie shows a certain willingness to admit that, yeah, there was an actual historical time period that this series has been largely abusing, and it had more of the conventional pirate movie tropes than some of the earlier flicks did.
Also, they had proper Spaniards.
I’d say, all in all: catch it in matinee, and go have a beer or two afterward. Or maybe one beforehand; either way, the afternoon will go pleasantly enough.
for Harry Turtledove’s 
. It’s the third book of an alternate history series where the eastern half of the North American continent (named Atlantis by the inhabitants) had apparently been detached millions of years previously and more or less parked in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The previous two books highlighted the alternate’s version of the Age of Discovery and the American Revolution; this one looks to address Atlantis’ version of the American Civil War.
for 
)
and you will totally buy the idea that the history of literature is the history of vampires, at least while reading it; and we are so conditioned now to accept that Voudon goes along with piracy* that we forget that this was first suggested by 
*.
. This book involves three themes: the Catholic Church; the Cold War; and the secret occult origins and sustenance of the Soviet Union – with the last being treated in much the same way that modern fantasy treats the occult trappings of Germany’s Nazi regime. The book is written in a very classic Cold War spy fiction style: 
is one of the classics of the alternate history genre). So check it out.