For the next few weeks I’m going to review the novellas adapted from Roman and Anna Riva’s planned animated series, Opium Tales (which doubles as Roman’s Substack moniker and publication). I’ve followed Roman’s work for years, and it’s refreshing to see his active presence on Substack. When I found out he and his wife had a series of short novellas in print—and that they are all, save one, under $8.

Last week, I reviewed the first book in the series, Humpty Dumpty (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link—more of them below—so I receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you).

According to the introduction of each volume, Roman and Anna sought, but failed to procure, funding for an animated series called Opium Tales. They hoped to call it Dark Tales, but the name was taken, so they leaned into the opium habits of early eighteenth-century Romantics and landed on Opium Tales. Since they still had all the rights to their stories, they decided to publish them as a series of novellas.

Here is the series—or, at least the volumes I purchased; if I’m missing one, please let me know, Roman (the following are Amazon Affiliate links; I receive a portion of any purchase made through these links, at no additional cost to you):

• Humpty Dumpty
• A Pirate’s Tale
• The Staff
• Son of an Incubus
• The Midnight Train
• Sophia and the Goblin King (the only volume that costs more than $8; it’s also the longest)

The entire series is (as of the time of writing) $46.94 before tax, so these are easy to scoop up in one fell swoop.

According to is introduction, A Pirate’s Tale was intended to be the second installment in the animated series. Indeed, there was some debate between it or Humpty Dumpty being the pilot episode, but H. Dumps won out due to name recognition. That move seems wise, as HD strongly establishes the series’ foundation in European folklore and fairy tales, so a classic nursery rhyme turned into a dark tale of corruption and excess was the fitting choice.

That said, A Pirate’s Tale is my favorite between the two. While I loved what HD did with the source material, A Pirate’s Tale is a full-on swashbuckling adventure in the vein of (as the Rivas point out in their introduction) the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

A Pirate’s Tale is a frame story. A salty old sea dog in or around New Orleans overhears two sailors debating the existence of mermaids. The pirate—our narrator—tells them of his time on the ship Fat Mary’s Gold (I guffawed when I read that, but it’s the perfect name for a pirate ship). The pirates raid a Spanish galleon laden with gold, but their wild spending raises a few too many eyebrows, so they vow to bury the treasure.

They find the perfect island—one that’s too small to inhabit, but large enough to avoid flooding at high tide—and bury their booty, swearing to a pact of secrecy. The plan seems to have gone off without a hitch, but the islands were expecting a group of winsome mermaids on the island.

The mermaids are gorgeous, and while they don’t speak English—or any human tongue—they clearly know how to seduce the pirates. Our narrator is a married man, faithful to his wife, and declines the temptation of making it with a fish-woman (thankfully, the Rivas spare us the details of how that works), and heads back to the other side of the island.

That decision saves his life.

I don’t want to spoil anymore than I already have, but it’s a gripping tale of adventure. One element I appreciated in A Pirate’s Tale that was a bit more lacking in HD is that the characters are more fully-drawn, especially the narrator. HD worked because it’s supposed to have a fairy tale essence, in which the characters are more stand-ins for archetypes. Here in the more morally ambiguous world of piracy, there’s a need to “color” the characters more. Our hero—the narrator—is a good man overall, but he’s resorted to piracy to make a fortune for his family. When his lofty dreams don’t pan out, he becomes more despondent, but makes the very human choice of burying himself in a new profession, fur trading. Only much later does he attempt a return to the mermaid-infested island.

The fur trading element is really cool, too. There’s a whole other story to be had there, one that I don’t think has been rendered adequately in fiction since James Fenimore Cooper (although that could very well be my ignorance; there may be a rich vein of fur trader adventure stories out there that I’ve missed entirely). The Rivas make it clear that this story, while it occurs throughout the Caribbean, has roots in pre-American New Orleans and the days of the French fur trappers. There are Frenchman, Spaniards, Englishmen, and all other manner of characters who would have frequented New Orleans and the wider Caribbean world. It gives the story an exciting, broadly historical backdrop.

I suspect that I prefer A Pirate’s Tale because, well, it’s about pirates! Pirates are cool. The narrator-pirate is particularly interesting as a character, and his titular tale captures the excitement, the drama, the highs, and the lows of the Golden Age of Piracy.

I highly, highly recommend you grab A Pirate’s Tale.