On Pirates
By William Ashbless
(Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock)
Subterranean Press (signed and numbered chapbook) 
$15.00 (1000 trade paper)
$45.00 (250 hardcover)
and an expensive (sold-out) lettered edition

With the legal wrangling over the status of the poet William Ashbless (is he alive or dead? is he very, very old, or just pretending to be? and is he a plagiarist or someone whose work just happens to "bring to mind" the work of others?) not quite over, this tiny but valuable collection hits the streets with introductions by Powers and Blaylock and with an afterword by Ashbless himself, accusing them of profiteering from his supposed death. What is one to make of these allegations and accusations? Did Ashbless survive that helicopter crash? If not, who has "untouched up" the story and poem, restoring them to their, uh, original glory?

Comprised primarily of the pirate tall-tale "Slouching Toward Gayalou" and the vaguely familiar poem "Moon-Eye Agonistes," this slim volume also brings to bear the talent of Gahan Wilson, whose illustrations navigate lovingly as always between the humorous (the narrator, "mounted" upon a buxom floating figurehead) and the grotesque (Captain England cleaving a stripe-shirted buccaneer in half). 

You gotta love a sea story that begins: "Call me Fishmeal." And you gotta love the tongue-in-cheek but heartily grotesque description of flame-bearded England's ship ramming that of the treasure-seeking narrator and the battle that ensues. And you gotta love that giant squid.

Is there horror afoot here, along with the literary shenanigans? Yes! Tall-tale horror, to be sure, but the grotesque holds a valued place in such exercises. The description of Captain England's slave galley alone is worth the proverbial price of admission. References to ON STRANGER TIDES, the Powers pirate novel, and Alexandre Exquemeling's 1684 volume, BUCCANEERS OF AMERICA, not to mention Coleridge and Melville, also lend an air of serious literary parody.

If you hunger for Powers and Blaylock collaborations under any flag, then by gum there's nothing wrong with this one under the skull and crossbones, and it's likely there's a place on your shelf for this eccentric little volume.