Essays on Piracy

1502 — Reuben Kane and Hildred Taferal born in Devon, Reuben in April, Hildred in August. Reuben is the child of poor fisher-folk in the coastal village of Salcombe, Hildred a scion of gentry living in a manor house outside Kingsbridge. Hildred is a younger son; Reuben has two brothers and two sisters. 1511-1516 —…

Voyage Three: 1636 Timothy Turlock- a gross, ferret resembling thief, is sentenced for hanging, however, his mother cries and begs for a different punishment. The judge changes the sentence to seven years as an indenture in Virginia. He was sent from England, on Captain Barstowe’s boat, to the new world. At first he didn’t sell,…

Robert E. Howard had a powerful interest in the desperadoes of his native southwest. “I could fill a thick volume of such disconnected bits and still not exhaust my chaotic store,” he wrote to H.P. Lovecraft in June 1931. I’ve found that passion expressed again and again in his letters, and used them for material…

Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt’s always wanted; convinced he’s lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he…

“I am probably the finest pistol shot in the world,” said the girl modestly, “but the blade is my darling.” She drew her rapier and slashed and thrust the empty air. “You sailors seldom appreciate the true value of the straight steel,” said she. “Look at you with that clumsy cutlass. I could run you…

Virus, Hmmm I am sure that you have heard this word before. I am not talking about the living virus like an influenza virus. I am talking about the computer virus. According to the New York Times, Microsoft, Compaq, and Hewlett Packards computers are at a great risk. I wonder why we the consumer, are…

Kane is now twenty-two. The slaying of Essex precipitates and sets his belief in himself as the instrument of God’s vengeance on the wicked and tyrannical. A modern person would say his paranoid tendencies are now full-blown, and REH more than once described Kane’s driven wanderlust and compulsion to avenge cruelty and evil as a…

“After all I have done to keep clean,” she sobbed, “this is too much!  I know I am a monster in the sight of men; there is blood on my hands. I’ve looted and cursed and killed and diced and drunk, till my very heart is calloused. My only consolation, the one thing to keep…

I stood on the deck of a ship offshore And harked to the awesome and deafening roar Of the ocean waves when they struck the reefs, High tossed on the tide like crested chiefs Whose plumes toss high ‘bove the battling hordes Where leap the lances and flash the swords, And the mighty waves rose…

On November 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy arrived in Dallas to a crowd of excited people lining the streets hoping to get a glimpse of the President. As his motorcade proceeded down Elm Street, Governor Connally’s wife said, “You can’t say that Dallas isn’t friendly to you today Mr. President.” Upon that, John F….