Roman Riva of Opium Tales and I had a great interview last night; catch it here: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/399308

I’m continuing 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 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—I snapped them up and decided to review them one-by-one.

So far, I’ve reviewed Humpty Dumpty, A Pirate’s Tale, and The Staff (those are Affiliate links—more of them below—so I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you); at the moment, A Pirate’s Tale remains my favorite followed by Humpty Dumpty and The Staff.

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 (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.

I reached out to Roman to ask which story should be read fourth, and he suggested I read one that his wife, Anna, took the lead on writing. Instead, I just grabbed the next one on top of my stack, Son of an Incubus, and I’m pretty sure it’s one of Roman’s based on the writing style. Sorry, Anna!

Son of an Incubus is definitely the oddest of the tales so far, and based on the ending, it’s clearly meant to be one of a series of episodes featuring the characters Greta and Clafigan, our heroes. Greta is a feisty witch with a strong independent streak; Clafigan is a knight-in-training, the son of old Crusader, who puts up with Greta’s outbursts with patience and humility. It’s quite clear that Clafigan loves Greta, but from a respectful distance.

That doesn’t make Son of an Incubus odd. Indeed, it’s a great setup for a series of stories involving these characters: a powerful duo committed to defeating evil with a “will-they-won’t-they” dynamic baked in. I can easily see how this could play out over the course of many episodes, seasons, or books, introducing complicating factors like a love triangle, or Clafigan needing to go it alone as part of his knightly training, etc.

What makes the story odd is the creature mentioned in the introduction. A wizard is coerced by a wicked prince into summoning both an incubus and a succubus. The incubus is tasked with impregnating the Queen (warning—while not exactly “X-Rated,” this scene is still explicit; these books are not for children); the succubus is tasked with killing the King, the wicked prince’s brother. The motivation seems to be pure spite on the part of the wicked prince, but I think there was something of a missed opportunity here for the prince to attempt to sway the demon-spawn of the Queen as an evil regent; instead, the wicked prince seems to disappear from the story altogether, as the focus shifts to the titular Son of an Incubus.

The half-incubus demon-spawn is setup quite nicely, though. The Queen is attached to him obsessively, and covers up the many homicides he commits during his youth. The half-incubus grows up to be a popular prince, promising to bring a new golden age to his people, but after a few years on the throne, the kingdom is in shambles, with the peasantry forced to work long hours on their farms or suffer death-by-work in the mines. Meanwhile, the succubus and the wicked prince have disappeared from the story, but Greta and Clafigan reference them in the ending, so, again, it’s clear that they’re setting up some sequels (which I hope they write!).

Greta calls out the half-incubus prince for what he is, and she’s convicted of heresy for her trouble. As she’s about to burn at the stake, Clafigan saves her, and she’s not exactly pleased, claiming she had it under control. There’s some great characterization through dialogue here, as we get a clear sense for Greta and Clafigan’s personalities through their dialogue. Clafigan takes Greta to the safety of his parents’ home, and it’s also clear that Greta has a warm relationship with them, establishing that these characters know and care for each other. Greta and Clafigan likely grew up playing together.

Ultimately, Greta and Clafigan storm the half-incubus king’s castle in a daring raid, and face off against the demon-spawn. The writing here is incredibly cinematic, and the Son of an Incubus gives a movie-perfect villain monologue. He’s cocky and self-assured in the way that only a nasty, well-drawn villain can be.

At first, I thought this story was probably my fourth favorite so far, but as I’m thinking about it more, I think I’ve gotsta bump it up to the third place, at least. There’s some really imaginative stuff here, such as a scene where Greta summons ghost knights to, essentially, spank a dragon until it submits to her and Clafigan. It’s a memorable scene and shows some clever use of magic. Earlier, the coerced wizard casts a spell that causes uncontrollable bladder and bowel emissions, which is crude but funny. The main plot itself is something out of a He-Man cartoon—good guys fight quipping bad guy—but that works well for this kind of story, and the basic chassis gives the Rivas tons of opportunity for creative embellishment and riffing.

In all, I’ve really enjoyed this series. The last two books are a bit longer, so I’m going to get cracking on them soon. The first four, however, are all easy to devour in a half-hour or so; with a little bit of editing for more mature content, I could see myself reading these to my hypothetical future children as bedtime fairytales.