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    Black Vulmea's Vengeance
    Black Vulmea's Vengeance
    Black Vulmea's Vengeance
    Ebook65 pages1 hour

    Black Vulmea's Vengeance

    By Robert E. Howard

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This early work by Robert E. Howard was originally published in 1938 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Black Vulmea's Vengeance' is a story in the Black Vulmea series about an Irish pirate sailing the Caribbean. Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard - a bookish and somewhat introverted child - was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South. At fifteen Howard began to read the pulp magazines of the day, and to write more seriously. The December 1922 issue of his high school newspaper featured two of his stories, 'Golden Hope Christmas' and 'West is West'. In 1924 he sold his first piece - a short caveman tale titled 'Spear and Fang' - for $16 to the not-yet-famous Weird Tales magazine. Howard's most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, was a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago. Conan featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936 which is why Howard is now regarded as having spawned the 'sword and sorcery' genre. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWhite Press
    Release dateFeb 12, 2015
    ISBN9781473397415
    Black Vulmea's Vengeance

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    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      Not Howard's best, but still a fun & adventurous collection of short stories.
    • 4/5
      "Arrr, me hearties!" is one pirate stereotype that you won't find in this book of three bucaneering tales.

      You will, however, find much in the way of the seeking of cursed booty, secret treasure maps, dead men's tales, lost cities, savage tribes-people, villainous Royal Navy captains, treacherous French noblemen and covetous corsairs!

      There's actually little time spent ship-board, with most of the action taking place on deserted islands and in dense jungles. The feel is more Indiana Jones than Treasure Island, and, as the stories were written before Disney's adaptation of Stevenson's classic served us up the "hearty" image of piracy, they have a freshness despite their age.

      "Black" Terence Vulmea is the hero of the first two stories, Swords of the Red Brotherhood and Black Vulmea's Vengeance. He's cast in Howard's usual mould - a Celtic superman - but he's not simply Conan by another name (despite the fact that Howard adapted the first story into a Conan tale): he's given a distinct (if briefly sketched) background and motivations. I wish Howard had written more than these two stories about his adventures.

      The last story, The Isle of Pirates' Doom while written from the viewpoint of a male narrator is more interesting for its female pirate, Helen Tavrel. She could have made a good heroine for a series of Virgin Pirate Queen stories but again, alas, Howard wrote only this one story about her (at least as far as I'm aware). She's beautiful (of course), intelligent and resourceful, and an excellent swordswoman. She seems to be strategically more capable than her male partner, dictating many of their plans, and saves his life more than once (though he does return the favour).

      Three excellent examples of escapist fiction by a master of the genre.

    Book preview

    Black Vulmea's Vengeance - Robert E. Howard

    Black Vulmea’s Vengeance

    by

    Robert E. Howard

    Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    Contents

    Black Vulmea’s Vengeance

    Robert E. Howard

    Chapter I

    Chapter II

    Chapter III

    Chapter IV

    Robert E. Howard

    Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard – a bookish and somewhat introverted child – was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South. Although he loved reading and learning, Howard developed a distinctly Texan, hardboiled outlook on the world. He became a passionate fan of boxing, taking it up at an amateur level, and from the age of nine began to write adventure tales of semi-historical bloodshed. In 1919, when Howard was thirteen, his family moved to the Central Texas hamlet of Cross Plains, where he would stay for the rest of his life.

    At fifteen Howard began to read the pulp magazines of the day, and to write more seriously. The December 1922 issue of his high school newspaper featured two of his stories, ‘Golden Hope Christmas’ and ‘West is West’. In 1924 he sold his first piece – a short caveman tale titled ‘Spear and Fang’ – for $16 to the not-yet-famous Weird Tales magazine. He published with the magazine regularly over the next few years. 1929 was a breakout year for Howard, in that the 23-year-old writer began to sell to other magazines, such as Ghost Stories and Argosy, both of whom had previously sent him hundreds of rejection slips. In 1930, he began a correspondence with weird fiction master H. P. Lovecraft which ran up to his death six years later, and is regarded as one of the great correspondence cycles in all of fantasy literature.

    It was partly due to Lovecraft’s encouragement that Howard created his most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian. Conan – a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago – featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936, and is now regarded as having spawned the ‘sword and sorcery’ genre, making Howard’s influence on fantasy literature comparable to that of J. R. R. Tolkien’s. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    Howard was enjoying an all-time high in sales by the beginning of 1936, but he was also deeply upset by the ill health of his mother, who had fallen into a coma. On the morning of June 11, 1936, he asked an attending nurse whether she would ever recover, and the nurse replied negatively. Howard walked to his car, parked outside the family home in Cross Plains, and shot himself. He died eight hours later, aged just thirty.

    Chapter I

    Out of the Cockatoo’s cabin staggered Black Terence Vulmea, pipe in one hand and flagon in the other. He stood with booted legs wide, teetering slightly to the gentle lift of the lofty poop. He was bareheaded and his shirt was open, revealing his broad hairy chest. He emptied the flagon and tossed it over the side with a gusty sigh of satisfaction, then directed his somewhat blurred gaze on the deck below. From poop ladder to forecastle it was littered by sprawling figures. The ship smelt like a brewery. Empty barrels, with their heads stove in, stood or rolled between the prostrate forms. Vulmea was the only man on his feet. From galley-boy to first mate the rest of the ship’s company lay senseless after a debauch that had lasted a whole night long. There was not even a man at the helm.

    But it was lashed securely and in that placid sea no hand was needed on the wheel. The breeze was light but steady. Land was a thin blue line to the east. A stainless blue sky held a sun whose heat had not yet become fierce. Vulmea blinked indulgently down upon the sprawled figures of his crew, and glanced idly over the larboard side. He grunted incredulously and batted his eyes. A ship loomed where he had expected to see only naked ocean stretching to the skyline. She was little more than a hundred yards away, and was bearing down swiftly on the Cockatoo, obviously with the intention of laying her alongside. She was tall and square-rigged, her white canvas flashing dazzlingly in the sun. From the maintruck the flag of England whipped red against the blue. Her bulwarks were lined with tense figures, bristling with boarding-pikes and grappling irons, and through her open ports the astounded pirate glimpsed the glow of the burning matches the gunners held ready.

    All hands to battle-quarters! yelled Vulmea confusedly. Reverberant snores answered the summons. All hands remained as they were.

    Wake up, you lousy dogs! roared their captain. Up, curse you! A king’s ship is at our throats!

    His only response came in the form of staccato commands from the frigate’s deck, barking across the

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