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 he has grown an impressive and 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—I snapped them up and decided to review them one-by-one.

Last week, I reviewed the second book in the series, A Pirate’s Tale (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). As I wrote last week, the novella is “a full-on swashbuckling adventure in the vein of (as the Rivas point out in their introduction) the Pirates of the Caribbean films.”

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 was unclear which novella came third in the sequence, so I went to the source and asked Roman himself. He told me to read The Staff next. I’ve been on the road a ton lately with some SCISA work and to pick up our new puppy, and was worried I might not have a chance to read The Staff in time of this Wednesday, but Tuesday afternoon presented an opportunity with both dogs napping on the couch—and yours portly cracking open a book starring a clever thief with a heart as golden as the afternoon sunlight streaming into our sunroom.

So far, A Pirate’s Tale remains my favorite, but I’m a sucker for a pirate setting. The Staff is a close second, though, as I’m also a sucker for a skilled rogue who is experienced as a second-story man or cat burglar, the kind of guy who can get into impossible places with seeming ease. The Staff presents us with such a protagonist, the unnamed “thief,” who must retrieve a powerful staff as ransom for his lovely new bride, Katherine.