I consider David C. Smith (1952) a friend. We’ve never met face to face but we’ve corresponded and have spoken on the phone. As with writers such as Karl Edward Wagner and Andy Offutt, I first became aware of David as an author through a connection to Robert E. Howard.

While in REHupa, the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, I routinely did reviews of Howard pastiches. And so I came upon The Witch of the Indies (Zebra, 1977, cover by Stephen Fabian). Shortly after I picked up For the Witch of the Mists by Smith & Richard Tierney (Zebra, 1978, Cover by Doug Beekman).

The Witch of the Indies is about a pirate named Black Terence Vulmea. Robert E. Howard created Vulmea but only wrote two stories of him, “Black Vulmea’s Vengeance” and “Swords of the Red Brotherhood.” Neither was published in his lifetime. They were later issued in 1976 in a hardback publication by Donald M. Grant, shown above with a cover and some wonderful interior illustrations by Robert James Pailthorpe.

That book included an unrelated pirate story called “The Isle of Pirate’s Doom.” In 1977, Zebra reissued these stories in paperback with a cover by Tom Barber (see below). “Swords of the Red Brotherhood” has a particularly interesting history because it’s a rewrite of an unsold Conan story called “The Black Stranger.”

David C. Smith continued Vulmea’s adventures in The Witch of the Indies , which features a very fine female pirate named Kate O’Donnell.

Smith understands Howard’s action-oriented prose. He begins his tale with a cannonade:

With a roar and a deafening crash, the first of the cannon shot struck broadside, and flame and debris and blood flew up from the decks of the British merchanter.

The fast-paced action continued all the way and it was clear Smith was actively and emotionally involved in telling his story. He was enjoying himself, not just doing a job to take home a paycheck.

For the Witch of the Mists, which Smith wrote with Richard Tierney, is a Bran Mak Morn pastiche — Bran being another character created by Howard. Bran is King of the Picts, an ancient British tribe. In Smith & Tierney’s tale, Bran must undertake a journey to find Aeysla, a witch queen of ancient Atlantis, who is about to be reincarnated in Rome. Bran is captured and spends a little time in the arena before escaping with the reincarnated Aeysla. Lots of action, although the fine concept might have needed a little longer length to do it proper justice.

One problem with both Zebra books is the poor, poor editing job, with numerous typos and occasional sentence repetitions, which was not the fault of these authors certainly.

More on Smith, Tierney, and Howard next time.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was The Purple Prose of Robert E. Howard. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.