Black Vulmea's Vengeance

Rating:
Summary: HOWARD DOES PIRATES
Review: Here's yet another little know collection by REH, this one a collection of Pirate tales. Howard loved doing these kind of historical adventure stories.

There are three stories in all and they all contain the kind of rousing action, but slight character development you'd expect from Howard. Look, Howard wasn't writing to win awards. He was writing in as many markets as possible to earn a living in the depression.

He was not above canibalizing his own work and would do so as one of the stories would also be used as the Conan tale, The Treasure of Tranicos, with only some names changed.

Short but fun work.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Howard pirate stories!
Review: I understand that Donald E. Grant produced this and other deluxe volumes of R. E. Howard's stories a couple of decades ago, focusing primarily on the ever-popular Conan tales.

Well, like the six volumes of the Bean R.E. Howard Library (which, among other things, collected all the Bran Mac Morn, Solomon Kane, and King Kull tales in single, affordable volumes), Black Vulmea's Vengance collects a handful of Howard efforts that showed that he could create heroes, action, and character interplays far more interesting than anything found in his most famous stories.

Two stories and the novella found in this volume can either be read as top-notch pirate stories, or they can be read as typical Howard action tales. What *isn't* quite typical Howard, though, is the presence of female characters that display a bit more depth than one usually finds in his work.

Considering the relative age of this book and the fact that I received a first edition when I ordered it, I imagine that there are only a limited number of these left. I urge all Howard fans, as well as those who appreciate well-written adventure fiction, to order a copy. The price is definately right for these fine, hard-to-find tales. The book would have received Five Stars if the colour plates present had been better executed. They were the only dissapointing aspect of this hardcover collection.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of money
Review: There are three stories included in this book. The first story is called "swords of the red brotherhood". If any of you have ever read the conan story The treasure of tranicos, then you have read this story, as it is nothing more than a change of setting and the names have been altered, the other two tales are not even worth mentioning. All in all a very poor read.