Jesse’s Reviews > Pirate Adventures > Status Update
Jesse
is on page 39 of 264
“The Isle of Pirates’ Doom”
A young man, shipwrecked on a deserted island, sees a group of pirates make landing on the beach, only for one of them to attack the crew and then run off. It’s not some dandy, but Helen Tavrel, the only female pirate active in the Caribbean!! And this island apparently has the remnants and treasures of some pre-historic civilization??
— May 21, 2026 09:01AM
A young man, shipwrecked on a deserted island, sees a group of pirates make landing on the beach, only for one of them to attack the crew and then run off. It’s not some dandy, but Helen Tavrel, the only female pirate active in the Caribbean!! And this island apparently has the remnants and treasures of some pre-historic civilization??
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Jesse’s Previous Updates
Jesse
is on page 247 of 264
“At the Inn of the Gory Dagger”
I was not expecting this tucked away at the end of this book, where the best male and female pirate at the tavern end up power fucking to see which of the two—Eve of the Sash of Crimson versus Murderous Mike—is the master of the seas. TW: this exchange, which is played for laughs, absolutely starts out as r—-.
— May 28, 2026 02:24PM
I was not expecting this tucked away at the end of this book, where the best male and female pirate at the tavern end up power fucking to see which of the two—Eve of the Sash of Crimson versus Murderous Mike—is the master of the seas. TW: this exchange, which is played for laughs, absolutely starts out as r—-.
Jesse
is on page 244 of 264
“Bill Boozy was a pirate bold”
If I had read this along side anything from Where the Sidewalk Ends I would not have batted an eye. It’s pretty cute.
— May 28, 2026 02:15PM
If I had read this along side anything from Where the Sidewalk Ends I would not have batted an eye. It’s pretty cute.
Jesse
is on page 243 of 264
“A Pirut Story”
Ummmmmmmmmm
I think Howard is taking the piss at what was considered funny at the time, with his stylized spellings and his “Alfonzo Goofus”, the indecipherable punchline being “We’re American citizens, by golly!” Which, this sort of stuff built the I Can Haz Cheeseburger house
— May 28, 2026 02:13PM
Ummmmmmmmmm
I think Howard is taking the piss at what was considered funny at the time, with his stylized spellings and his “Alfonzo Goofus”, the indecipherable punchline being “We’re American citizens, by golly!” Which, this sort of stuff built the I Can Haz Cheeseburger house
Jesse
is on page 241 of 264
“Black Vulmea’s Vengeance (earliest known draft)”
The final version is undoubtedly better than the first draft. This is more interesting in Howard’s creative process, how he got about 25% of the way through the story and then rushes through Wentyard’s time in the ruins and then collapses into a single paragraph detailing their escape. At this point, the name of the jewels had not been decided.
— May 28, 2026 02:09PM
The final version is undoubtedly better than the first draft. This is more interesting in Howard’s creative process, how he got about 25% of the way through the story and then rushes through Wentyard’s time in the ruins and then collapses into a single paragraph detailing their escape. At this point, the name of the jewels had not been decided.
Jesse
is on page 227 of 264
“The Shadow in the Well (unfinished fragment)”
This is the treatment of the prior synopsis. Nell is far more of a damsel here than the earlier Helen. The full account of the pirate-sorcerer is pretty cool; he would have been more fun to focus on than this stupid Steve / Nell romance. Also, fuck this guy and his description of “Juan the Butcher”
— May 28, 2026 01:57PM
This is the treatment of the prior synopsis. Nell is far more of a damsel here than the earlier Helen. The full account of the pirate-sorcerer is pretty cool; he would have been more fun to focus on than this stupid Steve / Nell romance. Also, fuck this guy and his description of “Juan the Butcher”
Jesse
is on page 217 of 264
“The Shadow in the Well (untitled synopsis)”
Howard generally wrote pretty good outlines. This one features a female pirate named Nell and it sort of cannibalizes some plot elements from the unpublished “Isle”, like a lady pirate and a hollow altar, but Howard commits to the weird fiction bit as some sort of unspeakable monster is lurking in a well in the ruins they try to loot.
— May 28, 2026 01:42PM
Howard generally wrote pretty good outlines. This one features a female pirate named Nell and it sort of cannibalizes some plot elements from the unpublished “Isle”, like a lady pirate and a hollow altar, but Howard commits to the weird fiction bit as some sort of unspeakable monster is lurking in a well in the ruins they try to loot.
Jesse
is on page 215 of 264
“Help! Help! They’re murderin’ me!”
This is a similar setup to the Morgan story, except our MC is an Irish brawler who is more aligned with Howard’s fighting tales. Dude helps an old man who tries to cut him in on some treasure. But, BUT, the treasure is guarded by a mysterious race that seems to have driven the dude who first found it kind of loopy. This one never leaves the tavern.
— May 28, 2026 01:36PM
This is a similar setup to the Morgan story, except our MC is an Irish brawler who is more aligned with Howard’s fighting tales. Dude helps an old man who tries to cut him in on some treasure. But, BUT, the treasure is guarded by a mysterious race that seems to have driven the dude who first found it kind of loopy. This one never leaves the tavern.
Jesse
is on page 211 of 264
“So There I Was…”
Howard writes with an uncharacteristically Hemmingway-esque terseness here. His bravado here is an unruly SLAVE TRADER who gets drunk a lot and then wakes up to find that he’s on a driftwood raft with all the guns, all the ammo, and all the booze. I have no idea where this was going.
— May 28, 2026 01:30PM
Howard writes with an uncharacteristically Hemmingway-esque terseness here. His bravado here is an unruly SLAVE TRADER who gets drunk a lot and then wakes up to find that he’s on a driftwood raft with all the guns, all the ammo, and all the booze. I have no idea where this was going.
Jesse
is on page 207 of 264
“The Treasure of Henry Morgan”
This unfinished story has the grandson of a pirate, the MC, falling in with his grandfather’s cabin boy, who just happens to have the same name as the cabin boy from Treasure Island. The story is obviously leading toward Hawkins getting Stephen to go find Morgan’s treasure (and maybe getting a lot of respect for his grandfather the pirate).
— May 28, 2026 11:07AM
This unfinished story has the grandson of a pirate, the MC, falling in with his grandfather’s cabin boy, who just happens to have the same name as the cabin boy from Treasure Island. The story is obviously leading toward Hawkins getting Stephen to go find Morgan’s treasure (and maybe getting a lot of respect for his grandfather the pirate).
Jesse
is on page 199 of 264
“List of Names (The Treasure of Henry Morgan)”
The archivists decided to include this scrap of lined paper that makes is pretty clear, if the Flint references in the poems weren’t enough, that Howard had Treasure Island as one of his influences. I recognize the names of Hawkins and Israel Hands, here. Hey—Morgan! Cutthroat Island, anyone?
— May 28, 2026 10:16AM
The archivists decided to include this scrap of lined paper that makes is pretty clear, if the Flint references in the poems weren’t enough, that Howard had Treasure Island as one of his influences. I recognize the names of Hawkins and Israel Hands, here. Hey—Morgan! Cutthroat Island, anyone?
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rated it 3 stars
May 21, 2026 09:08AM
The dialogue is stilted in parts and the Helen / Steve romance (it’s always a Steve) isn’t quite as gritty as you might imagine a pirate story to be—Helen has a breakdown when Steve calls her an unclean woman, because he is a proto-male asshole who can’t stand how much she idolizes the man who turns out to be basically her adopted pirate father—but it’s a very fun story. We sort of dabble with weird fiction with the ruins and they’re thematically adjacent if not outright kin to Howard’s pre-historic snake cult temples, those descended from the serpent men that secretly ruled the civilized world back in Kull’s time. Howard deliberately evokes the scale of this cosmic horror / weird fiction in the way that Helen and Steve feel about the ruins as they approach them. Also, one pirate gets bit by a venomous snake and blows his brains out?! The end of the two remaining bad dudes is delightfully pulpy… uh, pun not originally intended.
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