Sunday, August 05, 2012

Clint Rockman

Clint Rockman was the pen-name of  Henry Kenneth Bulmer, better known for his SF but an author capable of turning to any genre of novel as required by the market. The slaver novels were popular for a brief period in the early 1970s, many of them imported from the US. This was one of the rare series that originated in the UK.

The slaver novels were pure exploitation. Robert Tralins and Stuart Jason both mined the same ground – Tralins may have been the earliest with Black Brute and Runaway Slave in 1969. The sexual sadism palled pretty quickly and slaver novels had drifted out of fashion even before Roots appeared on the TV and educated many to the horrors of slavery.

Black Slaver
New English Library 0450-01090-2, May 1972, 141pp, 30p.
She was the queen of slavers and her merest whim meant death.
__"She stood fully dressed in her long scarlet cloak, its gold lace blazing beneath the lantern light, her two pistols thrust through her sash, her long knife at her side, her booted legs spread wide apart as though challenging all the maleness of the whole brig.
__"Ragee handed her the cat o' nine tails. It was heavy for such a ladylike hand, but the cunning of her arm was ready for the work.
__"She lifted the whip. . ."
Black Queen
New English Library 0450-01124-0, Jun 1972, 140pp, 30p.
"The single, naked white man among the shining flood of black women looked indecent, frail. As though the blood had been leached from him to leave only a white husk. His head lolled. Torn between fearful despair and mounting lust, he struggled against the chains that held him helpless – a playing for the pirate Queen."
Black Gold
New English Library 0450-01240-9, Sep 1972, 126pp, 30p. Cover: photo
New English Library 0450-02173-4 [2nd imp.] Nov 1974, 128pp, 35p. Cover: photo
"I can have you do anything I like! I can have you flogged to death. Strung up to a tree and left to rot! Instead I offer you a chance of pleasuring me – of doing something no stupid buck has any right to even dream about...
__"Her breasts rose and fell in sudden tempestuous passion. She snatched up her quirt from its position by the couch – an unusual place in an ordinary household for a riding whip – but in Lady Diana Deckford's bedroom an essential item of furniture."
Black Ivory
New English Library 0450-01286-7, Nov 1972, 128pp, 30p.
New English Library 0450-02223-4 [2nd imp.] Dec 1974, 128pp, 35p.
For the African, slavery meant torture, whippings, sexual humiliation and appalling hardship. A few, a tiny minority, fought or ran for their liberty. The remainder rarely had long to wait for their own freedom – an early and often agonising death.
__For the slavers themselves, the trade brought its own peculiar kind of death. By dealing in human suffering by wading thigh-deep in death, their humanity diminished and swiftly died. They lived, but only as corrupt and brutalised shells of men.
__The only people who prospered were the slave merchants. They never saw blood on their own hands. They never had to smell the charnel-taint of a loaded slaving-ship. They simply grew fat on the enormous profits of the trade in 'Black Ivory'.
Sable Diana
New English Library 0450-01452-5, Apr 1973, 126pp, 30p. Cover: photo
King Kondo was born with blue blood in his veins and the heritage of a noble tribe on the West Coast of Africa.
__Captured by a raiding party, he is taken to the plantation of Jonathan Franklin, a corrupt and debauched plantation owner, who determines to use Kondo to sire great and powerful slaves.
__When the honour of his name is threatened, Kondo is determined to go to any lengths to avenge his magnificent heritage. But he is trapped by his desire for the women around him, torn between desire and pride.
Sable Adventure
New English Library 0450-01736-2, Feb 1974, 153pp, 35p. Cover: photo
---- [2nd imp.] May 1974.
The brig Sea-Witch was carrying a precious cargo over the Atlantic. A cargo that lined the pockets of American landowners and English traders with tainted money. It was a cargo of the most degrading kind – black human flesh – and one that threatened to explode at any moment.
__Young Adam Holt saw the brutal actions of the corrupt seamen aboard Sea-Witch. He watched, helpless, the rape of young African women, and the indiscriminate flogging of their menfolk. He could not avoid the stinking, fever-ridden conditions of their slavery.
Sable Mistress
New English Libraru 0450-01931-4, Sep 1974, 144pp, 30p.
Dildi has been brought up in the great mansion with the white lord and his family. She learns her lessons beside his son and rides with him in the fields.
__But there comes a time when they can be childhood friends no longer – the white son and the black slave girl – their bodies will not permit it. Dildi is torn by the love she bears for the man who is her master and the knowledge that he can never, never be truly hers.
Sable Ivory (omnibus of Black Ivory and Sable Mistress)
New English Library 0450-04285-5, Jan 1979, 272pp, 95p. Cover by Bob Martin
Those who survived the horrors of capture and the inhumanity of the slave market, endured sexual humiliation and brutality of the plantations. A few, a tiny minority, fought or ran for their liberty. The remainder rarely had long to wait for their own freedom – an early and often agonising death.
__For the slavers themselves, the trade brought its own peculiar kind of death. By dealing in human suffering by wading thigh-deep in death, their humanity diminished and swiftly died. They lived, but only as corrupt and brutalised shells of men.
__The only people who prospered were the slave merchants. They never saw blood on their own hands. They never had to smell the charnel-taint of a loaded slaving-ship. They simply grew fat on the enormous profits of the trade.

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