Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales by Seabury Quinn, edited by Gene Christie (Black Dog Books)

Author Seabury Quinn is probably best known to modern readers for his series of short stories featuring occult detective Jules de Grandin, as well as for his marked influence on the works of fellow author Robert E. Howard. But Quinn's career spanned sixty years: from 1917, the year "The Law of Movies" (a nonfiction article included as an appendix to this collection) saw print, to 1977, when his novel Alien Flesh was published, with at least 150 other works in the intervening years.

Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales, edited and with an introduction and bibliography by Gene Christie and published by Black Dog Books, collects Quinn's earliest known fiction along with other rarities, including the aforementioned "Law of the Movies." It is a humorous and insightful look at the way legal matters are presented on film that is just as applicable today as it was in 1917, even though its examples consist entirely of obscure silent films (none of which appear to be available on video).

The title story, "Demons of the Night," is just the kind of derivative tale — familiar but with a twist — that many an author has used as his entry to published genre fiction, and it is wholly entertaining if taken in that spirit. (The ending especially is that of an oft-told campfire story.)

"Was She Mad?" is reminiscent of classic Poe with genuine horror contained in it. Though many authors have tackled the "possessed artifact" tale, Quinn's "The Stone Image" manages to be surprisingly effective at chilling the spine, even though its tropes are all too familiar.

"Painted Gold" is one of a few surprises found by editor Gene Christie in his searches. Neither it or "Romance Unawares" have been reprinted since their publication in Young's Magazine in 1919 and 1920, respectively. In the former, Lt. Rathburn Thomas has little appreciation for the feminine form until the continuous company of men in the service puts him on the prowl. Quinn warns us with his trademark erudite humor: "When a perfectly nice young man begins to act in this way, there is danter ahead, particularly for him; for it is from such that the victims of the Strange Woman are recruited."

But despite this protest, "Painted Gold" is an unexpectedly sweet romantic tale of a fellow who meets a beautiful woman but is put off by her rouge and lipstick, since that was only worn by the cheap girls back home. "Romance Unawares" is another truly sweet story of two life-long friends whom the whole town expect to be married and who find out (of course) that they really cannot do without each other. These stories show a different side of Seabury Quinn than the other early tales in Demons of the Night, but it's one I wouldn't mind seeing more of.

"The Cloth of Madness" is most famous for its appearance in Weird Tales, but it was actually first printed in Young's, too. It's a classic tale of the cuckold getting revenge in one of the most original ways I've read. The fiction of Demons of the Night closes with two of Quinn's Major Sturdevant stories, "Ravished Shrines" and "Out of the Land of Egypt" — neither of which impressed me, though Loomis is an engaging narrator — and two from his Professor Forrester series, "In the Fog" and "The Black Widow."

It is in the Professor Forrester tales, especially "In the Fog," that I found the most direct antecedent to the style of Robert E. Howard, both in the constant action and in the varied, poetic vocabulary. "In the Fog" finds Forrester locking himself inadvertently into a "house of mysteries" that is like a trip to the Orient, and that will require all of his myriad (and mildly implausible though wildly entertaining) talents to escape alive.

I especially admired how Quinn uses the house to allow the reader to experience a globe-trotting adventure without his hero's having to leave Washington. "In the Fog" is the first of the series that appeared in Read Detective Tales throughout 1927 and 1928, and explains the origin of the woman who would later be his ward. "The Black Widow" is equally engaging, though more a mystery than an adventure.

Editor and compiler Christie brings Demons of the Night and Other Early Tales to a satisfying conclusion by offering the reader the breadth of Quinn's published work with an extensive bibliography — as full as is currently known, anyway. Given the organic nature of the discovery process, Christie considers the bibliography a work in progress and gives contact information in the introductory paragraph, welcoming any new information the reader can offer.

Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard (heroic fantasy / sword and sorcery)

Kull: Exile of Atlantis is my first single-character collection from the recent reprints of Robert E. Howard. The other books I’ve read, in order, are The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, Shadow Kingdoms: the Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume One, and Crimson Shadows: The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume One. (Apparently, good old REH wrote so much, publishers have to either divide his work according to character and genre, or just split the whole thing into multiple books.)

This collection focuses (obviously) on Kull, the man born in Atlantis in 100,000 B.C. who usurped the throne of Valusia to become its king. A good deal of Howard readers know Kull only as the progenitor of his most famous character, popularly known as Conan the Barbarian, since the unsold Kull story “By This Axe I Rule!” was rewritten into the first Conan story, “The Phoenix on the Sword,” with extra fantasy elements added to make it more palatable to editors.

Reading the former in the pages of Kull: Exile of Atlantis merely proved my original opinion (gained when I read the three primary Kull stories — those published in Howard’s lifetime — in the collections mentioned above) that Kull is a far more interesting character than Conan. Kull’s more thoughtful, and his stories are more based in reality, mythical setting notwithstanding.

Just comparing the two stories I mentioned in the last paragraph, it’s obvious just how many extra fantasy elements were added to the Conan version, while Kull uses sheer force of will to make his point known — and he does it with a shorter word count. Howard let his prose run unleashed while writing of the Cimmerian in a way not seen in his other, more tightly written tales. With the result that I consistently — even now, halfway through The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian — find my mind wandering while reading them, something that never happened with the stories in Kull: Exile of Atlantis.

Opening the collection is "The Shadow Kingdom," the first Kull story, in which Kull meets his own attempted usurpers in the Serpent Men, a fascinating race of snake-headed individuals who deal in mesmerism and shape-shifting. Kull has to struggle with his own doubts to maintain the throne.

Many consider Howard’s debut of another character, the Solomon Kane story “Red Shadows,” to be the beginning of the sword-and-sorcery genre, but "The Shadow Kingdom" also has its supporters for that title, with the main difference being the former's use of a realistic setting. Kull lives around 100,000 years B.C. and was born on a mythical island, while Kane is a 16th-Century English Puritan.

"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" finds Kull in a melancholy mood. His friend Brule the spear-slayer suggests a night on the town, but that does not appeal. Later, a blonde with "violet eyes" recommends a visit to Tuzun Thune, a wizard who shows Kull his hall of mirrors. Kull sits before one often, expostulating on which Kull is the real one. Sounds like Kull didn't take his meds. After such a heroic turn in "The Shadow Kingdom," this story may disappoint some. But perhaps it was merely the author's way of putting a little of himself in his work, given Howard's own notorious bouts with depression. It certainly seems like being king isn't all it's cracked up to be.

"Kings of the Night" brings Pict king Bran Mak Morn and Kull together through an ancient lineage. A wizard conjures Kull up from the ancient past when Bran's potential fighters ask for "a king, neither Pict, Gael, nor Briton" to lead them against the invading Romans. This is truly one of the great battle stories, with realism, history, and myth blended in ideal measure.

Other highlights of Kull: Exile of Atlantis include the novella-length “The Cat and the Skull,” the final Kull story “By This Axe I Rule!” (which is far more powerful than the Conan story it later spawned, “The Phoenix on the Sword”), and some other fragments that featuring Kull's own progenitor, Amra of the Ta-an. I swear, sometimes reading these Howard collections is a bit like watching evolution in action. One gets to see how a single character developed from a Ta-an to the king of Valusia to the world’s most famous barbarian. It's a process that is available to the enthusiasts of very few authors, and we are lucky that so many of Howard's unfinished works have survived.

The unpublished stories in Kull: Exile of Atlantis give a terrific portrait of Howard’s method. Howard was never averse to plundering his slush for its best ideas and using them again in other stories. “The Phoenix on the Sword” is only the most successful example of this, but “Swords of the Purple Kingdom” also contains elements from “By This Axe, I Rule!” It also seems to be retelling the aspiring newlywed story from “The Cat and the Skull,” but there are enough other ideas — including the legendary Battle of the Stair — here to make it well worth the reading.

Similarly, included drafts of a few stories like “The Shadow Kingdom” and “The Cat and the Skull” (the draft is titled “Delcardes’ Cat”) offer insight to those interested in Howard’s self-editing skills (or his incorporation of editorial suggestions, as the case may be). (I could have my timeline wrong as to when the stories were written, however, and perhaps “Swords of the Purple Kingdom” predates them both and Howard simply decided they belonged in separate tales.)

In short, Kull: Exile of Atlantis is another example of author Robert E. Howard's amazing storytelling. Those new to Howard's work may want to start with a more varied collection, like those mentioned in the opening paragraph, but readers who already appreciate Kull and what he has to offer — or those who just want to dive yet again into Howard's marvelous prose — will find a lot to enjoy here.

Crimson Shadows: The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume One (edited by Rusty Burke, illustrated by Jim and Ruth Keegan)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on The Green Man Review. Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission.

Robert E. Howard wrote short stories during the heyday of the pulp era, mostly for Weird Tales, from 1924 until his death by suicide in 1936 at age 30. Howard wrote in various genres, but he is now best known for his stories popularizing the fantasy subgenre "sword and sorcery," and especially the Cimmerian hero popularly known as Conan the Barbarian. His range of talent, however, is becoming better known, as pulp-era fiction regains a modern readership. Subterranean Press and Del Rey Books are doing their part to keep Howard's name in front of book-buyers with, respectively, their limited-edition hardcover and affordable trade-paperback collections of his work. Crimson Shadows: The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume One is the first of two "best of" retrospectives.

Compiler and editor Rusty Burke has done a great job selecting 16 stories and 12 poems that offer an idea of the range of Howard's output. Helping him in his selection was a poll of Robert E. Howard fans; 19 of the top 25 vote-getters are included. Everything from sword and sorcery to adventure to horror, from crime to boxing to Westerns, is showcased here. This does give the collection a scattered feel sometimes, but what holds them all together is the quality of the author's writing.

Both versions of Crimson Shadows are illustrated by Jim and Ruth Keegan. I find their art serviceable but too static for Howard's active prose. It probably would have been good enough had I not first read The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, illustrated by Greg Staples. His art in that collection is so emotionally and physically realistic, often seeming to glower or move on the page, that it makes the Keegans' work pale in comparison. Rarely do the couple choose to depict action scenes, and when they do, the positions feel posed, where Staples seems to catch his subjects in mid-motion.

For Keegan devotees, however, the Subterranean Press limited edition hardcover is a must have. It is not only signed by the artists but also has four new color plates (one of which also serves as new cover art) not included in the Del Rey trade paperback.

Opening the collection is "The Shadow Kingdom," featuring Kull from Atlantis, usurping king of Valusia. Kull meets his own attempted usurpers in the Serpent Men, a fascinating race of snake-headed individuals who deal in mesmerism and shape-shifting. Kull has to struggle with his own doubts to maintain the throne. Though similar in many ways to the later character of Conan (the first Conan story was a rewritten Kull story), I find Kull superior due to his tendency toward deeper thinking. (He appears twice more in this collection.)

"Red Shadows" introduces Howard's 17th-century Puritan hero Solomon Kane. Avenging the death of a young woman, Kane travels for years to find Le Loup ("the wolf"), meeting "good juju man" N'Longa — who later plays a larger role in Kane's life — for the first time. Howard doesn't shy away from the action here, putting Kane in peril no less than three times. Many consider this the beginning of the sword-and-sorcery genre — "The Shadow Kingdom" also has its supporters for that title — with the main difference being this one's use of a realistic setting (Kull lives around 100,000 years B.C.). I've experienced "Red Shadows" multiple times, in print and audio, and it never loses its power to entertain. Both Kane and Le Loup are indelible characters, and the action sets up Kane admirably well for his later stories. (The poem "One Black Stain," also included here, has Kane stand up to Francis Drake in the face of an execution.)

In "The Dark Man," Turlogh Dubh goes to save a girl from his family though his family no longer recognizes him. This story is a terrific adventure with a surprise that connects it to another Howard stalwart, Pict king Bran Mak Morn. "Kings of the Night" brings Bran and Kull together through an ancient lineage. A wizard conjures Kull up from the ancient past when Bran's potential fighters ask for "a king, neither Pict, Gael, nor Briton" to lead them against the invading Romans. This is truly one of the great battle stories, with realism, history, and myth blended in ideal measure.

Sailor Steve Costigan is confronted with the prospect of a dog fight involving Costigan's best pal Mike, a bull dog,in "The Fightin'est Pair." This story, one of Howard's famous boxing yarns, showcases in a surprisingly sensitive manner, without getting blubbery, the love of a man (who talks with his fists) for his dog. Those wondering if Howard had a more romantic side need only read "For the Love of Barbara Allen," a story of love across time, told in the style of a Southern folktale. I was so surprised at how moving it was, that it just may be a new favorite.

An unexpected highlight of this collection is a selection of Howard's Lovecraftian horror. H.P. Lovecraft was Howard's friend and mentor, and they corresponded by mail for years. Howard's confidence is astonishing, as he boldly makes his own additions to the Lovecraft canon (Von Junzt's Nameless Cults, poet Justin Geoffrey) that have become as much a part of the Mythos as Lovecraft's own works. But even as he adds to another author's world, he remains firmly in Robert E. Howard territory, and these tales are just as enjoyable with no prior appreciation for such "Yog-Sothothery" (what Lovecraft called the practice of Mythos-sharing, which he supported).

Having long been enthralled by tales of rare books and their supernatural effects on unassuming readers, I was deeply engaged by "The Black Stone," especially by the fact of its tangential relationship to "Worms of the Earth" (wherein Pict king Bran Mak Morn searches for the same Black Stone). Read together, they immerse the reader in a fascinating otherworld in a way that would be impossible encountering the pieces individually.

As you may surmise from the title, "Lord of the Dead" is less a mystery than an adventure tale, though it is up to oversized detective Steve Harrison to figure out why someone who died 30 years ago is trying to kill him right now. The confrontation with Erlik Khan was reminiscent of The Mask of Fu Manchu, but I'm still interested in reading more about this "big dick" (as the narration refers to him) because, unless I miss my guess, Harrison is the first detective to so deftly use an ancient axe against his enemies.

Though many Howard fans are bound to be appalled, I must state here that his most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, is vastly overrated. I've read around half a dozen of the author's Conan stories and, apart from Howard's wonderful way with words, have found little to impress. Conan seems rather uncomplicated when compared to Solomon Kane or Bran Mak Morn, and Howard seems to run off at the pen writing of the barbarian in a way not seen in his other, more tightly written tales. (By far the longest, these two stories alone take up just under one-quarter of the book's 500 pages.) The result is I consistently found my mind wandering during "The People of the Black Circle" and "Beyond the Black River," something that never happens with his other work. Since I had not read these two before — and since they are considered the best of the best, so to speak — I was more than willing to let them convert me. But they did little but confirm my belief that Conan, while a source of great pleasure for many, is simply not for me.

But the Cimmerian has been popular from the beginning, and perhaps with good reason. Howard himself stated in a letter to Lovecraft that "his supernatural adventures aside — he is the most realistic character I ever evolved... he seemed to step full-grown into my consciousness when I wrote the first yarn of the series." So, Howard may have continued to write Conan's adventures if not for the convergence of two things: his steadily growing interest in the facts and legends of the West, and a steadily growing sum of money owed to him by Weird Tales. Both combined in such a way that Howard write primarily Westerns until his death.

"The Valley of the Worm" distinguishes itself from a plethora of sword-fighting stories by virtue of its unexpected conclusion. In most other ways, it is merely average Robert E. Howard, though any story that features the beheading of a giant snake (another mythos link?) is OK in my book. "The Grey God Passes" is the story of heroic Conn the kern and his role in the historic Battle of Clontarf. It contains a full-fledged epic story in just 30 pages.

"Hawk in the Hills" is the second of the five El Borak (Arabic for "the swift") tales published during Howard's lifetime. And the man who was born Francis X. Gordon is certainly fleet of foot, finger, and faculties, but he also talks too much, which often slows down the action in an otherwise fine story. This Texas gunfighter transplanted to the Middle East (Howard reportedly created the character when he was ten) gives the author the opportunity to write a Western character who confronts the same kind of exotic villains his other heroes did.

Breckinridge Elkins, Howard's most popular Western character by far, intends to bring a pretty schoolteacher from nearby Chawed Ear to Bear Creek by whatever means necessary in "Sharp's Gun Serenade" ("Bear Creek is goin' to have culture if I have to wade fetlock deep in gore to pervide it"). This was the last of the Elkins stories, and it is told, like the rest, in a "tall tale" style peppered with low-brow humor and Howard's deft touch with dialect.

Not only does Howard write gripping tales, but he also uses the English language with a skill I've not yet seen in genre fiction. His vocabulary range is immensely impressive, and I've never seen so many semi-colons all in one place — and used with such skill. Howard picks his words with a master's touch, making unconventional choices that still retain easy readability, like in selection from "Beyond the Black River": "A heavy chopping crunch sounded behind the leaves. The bushes were shaken violently, and simultaneously with the sound, an arrow arched erratically from among them and vanished among the trees along the trail."

Not difficult language, by any means — merely the right word for the purpose. One never gets the sense that such and such a word was "good enough," but that only the perfect one would do to set the proper mood. Yet his descriptive narrative style flows smoothly even as it speaks poetically.

Readers who tend to eschew modern poetry need not skip Howard's verse. There's a lot here to appreciate. It is written in an older style that any student of literature will find familiar. This makes it highly approachable. "The Song of a Mad Minstrel" seems to be sung by a demonic entity. It is filled with Howard's wonderfully specific word choices, like "There were crimson gulfs unplumbed, there were black wings over a sea; / There were pits where mad things drummed, and foaming blasphemy." The selection of "The Dust Dance" included is particularly effective in illustrating the epic span of man, as told by one of the first. "The Tide" has much the same effect as "For the Love of Barbara Allen." And that's just three of the dozen poems that act as palate cleansers of a sort to Crimson Shadows. Interspersed throughout, they only add to the total effect.

For the Howard completists, the editors have included an exhaustive rundown of how the versions of the pieces published in Crimson Shadows: The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume One are different from their original sources, from the placement of commas to the cleaning up of misspellings and further. I was for some reason enthralled by this information, mostly because it shows that Burke and company are fans and scholars who want nothing more than to present Howard in the best possible light. Their choice to use en-dashes instead of em-dashes throughout is mildly irritating, but the text is otherwise nearly pristine. Other extras include a foreword from the Keegans, an introduction and a short bio of Howard from editor Burke, and Charles Hoffman's "Robert E. Howard: Twentieth Century Mythmaker."

As a final note, I would just like to mention that, before being introduced to the work of Robert E. Howard, I was under the impression that fantasy was a tired genre with nothing to offer me. Also, short stories held no appeal. These two perceptions were turned on their ears upon entering Howard's world. After only one book, The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, I was an instant enthusiast, and Crimson Shadows has given me all the more reason to remain that way. It confirms my opinion (formed by the Horror Stories) that Robert E. Howard was a Great Writer and one who deserves to be reevaluated by those who feel that men who do their best communicating with swords, guns, and large fists are not to be taken seriously. This collection strongly suggests otherwise.

Shadow Kingdoms: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume One (audio book read by Charles McKibben, Bob Souer, Bob Barnes, and Brian Holsapple)

Shadow Kingdoms is volume one of Wildside Press's series of ten books collecting "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard," namely Howard's stories as published in the magazine Weird Tales, in chronological order. Audio publisher Audio Realms has taken a selection of the stories in that volume and produced an unabridged recording of its own, also called Shadow Kingdoms.

Though they're not the first ones presented, I began with the three stories of my favorite character, Solomon Kane, featured in this collection. "Red Shadows" introduces Howard's 17th-century Puritan hero. Avenging the death of a young woman, Kane travels for years to find Le Loup ("the wolf"), meeting "good juju man" N'Longa — who later plays a larger role in Kane's life — for the first time. Howard doesn't shy away from the action here, putting Kane in peril no less than three times.

I've experienced "Red Shadows" multiple times, in print and audio, and it never loses its power to entertain. Both Kane and Le Loup are indelible characters, and the action sets up Kane admirably well for his later stories.

In "Rattle of Bones," Kane and Gaston L'Armon enter a tavern for the night and discover there's a good reason it's called "The Cleft Skull." This story and "Skulls in the Stars" have suspense, death, and insanity portrayed with skill, and they really show Howard at his best. In some ways, Solomon Kane reminds me of the Western hero: stoic and strong and operating under a strict moral code of his own devising. The Kane stories offer the same kind of entertainment provided by modern Western series like The Trailsman and The Gunsmith: a sole hero who comes in, solves a problem, and travels off again, ready for another adventure.

"The Lost Race" is one of the earliest of Howard's Weird Tales publications, from 1927. Howard's appreciation of the history of the Pict race was already long-standing. In this tale, a fellow named Cororuc happens upon some dwarfish folk ("small dark people") and gets mixed up in an age-old revenge. Written when its author was only 18, it has a tangential relationship to his stories of Bran Mak Morn (though the Pict king himself is not mentioned).

"The Dream Snake" stands out as a particularly well-done pure horror story in the classic told-by-the-campfire vein. That is, its ending is entirely predictable and, in fact, inevitable from the beginning. But Howard's portrait of a man in the grip of an intense lifelong fear (from a horrific recurring dream) is utterly believable. A well-performed reading of "The Dream Snake" could be the highlight of any Halloween night storytelling session.

"The Hyena" is a high-energy adventure tale set in Africa and involving the antagonism between a fetish man and an American rancher. The American is kind of dumb — I guess he's never read this kind of "twist" ending before — but this doesn't ruin the tense showdown.

"The Shadow Kingdom" is the first featuring Kull from Atlantis, usurping king of Valusia. Kull meets his own attempted usurpers in the Serpent Men, a fascinating race of snake-headed individuals who deal in mesmerism and shape-shifting. Kull has to struggle with his own doubts to maintain the throne. Many consider this story to be the beginning of the sword-and-sorcery genre ("Red Shadows" also has its supporters for that title), with the main difference being the latter's use of a realistic setting (Kull lives around 100,000 years B.C.). Though similar in many ways to the later character of Conan the Cimmerian (the first Conan story was a rewritten Kull story), I find Kull superior due to his tendency toward deeper thinking.

"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" finds Kull in a melancholy mood. His friend Brule the spear-slayer suggests a night on the town, but that does not appeal. Later, a blonde with "violet eyes" recommends a visit to Tuzun Thune, a wizard who shows Kull his hall of mirrors. Kull sits before one often, expostulating on which Kull is the real one. Sounds like Kull didn't take his meds. After such a heroic turn in "The Shadow Kingdom," this story may disappoint some. But perhaps it was merely the author's way of putting a little of himself in his work, given Howard's own notorious bouts with depression. It certainly seems like being king isn't all it's cracked up to be.

"The Voice of El Lil" was actually published in Weird Tales's sister publication Oriental Stories, and it's actually from volume two of the Weird Works series, The Moon of Skulls and doesn't appear in the print version of Shadow Kingdoms at all. Why this was done is rather confusing, but the story itself is one of Howard's rousing "lost race" stories. It starts out slow but shows many facets by the end.

All in all, Shadow Kingdoms is highly entertaining listening. Audio Realms seems to have picked the most exciting stories of the bunch and given them to the narrators best suited for them. (Usually, single-author collections have a single reader.) I look forward to their future recordings in this series.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (edited by Rusty Burke, illustrated by Greg Staples)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on The Green Man Review. Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission.

Robert E. Howard wrote short stories during the heyday of the pulp era, mostly for Weird Tales, from 1924 until his death by suicide in 1936 at age 30. Howard wrote in various genres, but he is now best known for his stories popularizing the fantasy subgenre "sword and sorcery," and especially the hero he created, Conan the Barbarian. His range of talent, however, is becoming better known, as pulp-era fiction regains a modern readership. Del Rey Books is doing their part to keep his name in front of book-buyers with their affordable trade-paperback collections of his work, of which The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard is only the most recent.

Compiler and editor Rusty Burke has done a great job putting these 40 stories and 20 poems in an order that makes sense, and not just in a chronological or other arbitrary order — the pieces that "belong" together and actually have some connection to each other appear one right after the other. This gives The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard a smooth flow that I've rarely experienced with a short story collection, and certainly not one of this breadth. The evocative black and white illustrations of Greg Staples heading each story, with an additional handful of full-page images, are the perfect accompaniment to Howard's otherworldly tales.

Howard's skill at blending genres — he wrote fantasy, Westerns, historical fiction, even boxing stories — merely showcases the fact that horror can happen in any situation or environ. "Rattle of Bones" features Howard's 17th-century Puritan hero Solomon Kane. Kane and Gaston L'Armon enter a tavern for the night and discover there's a good reason it's called "The Cleft Skull." This story has suspense, death, and insanity portrayed with skill, and it really let me know what I was in for, in a way that the opening tale "In the Forest of Villefere," a werewolf tale followed by the better "Wolfshead," did not. ("Red Shadows," the novella in which Solomon Kane first appeared is not included, but Kane fans have Del Rey's The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane to satisfy them.)

"The Dream Snake" stands out as a particularly well-done pure horror story in the classic told-by-the-campfire vein. That is, its ending is entirely predictable and, in fact, inevitable from the beginning. But Howard's portrait of a man in the grip of an intense lifelong fear (from a horrific recurring dream) is utterly believable. A well-performed reading of "The Dream Snake" could be the highlight of any Halloween night storytelling session.

An unexpected highlight of this collection is a selection of Howard's Lovecraftian horror. H.P. Lovecraft was Howard's friend and mentor, and they corresponded by mail for years. Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu" is immortalized in Howard's "The Children of the Night" as one of "the three master horror-tales" — along with Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Machen's "The Novel of the Black Seal" — that "touch the true heights of horror." (Pick up a copy of Horror: 100 Best Books to read Howard's opinion of another favorite horror novel, James Branch Cabell's Something About Eve.)

Howard's confidence is astonishing, as he boldly makes his own additions to the Lovecraft canon (Von Junzt's Nameless Cults, poet Justin Geoffrey) that have become as much a part of the Mythos as Lovecraft's own works. But even as he adds to another author's world, he remains firmly in Robert E. Howard territory, and these tales are just as enjoyable with no prior appreciation for such "Yog-Sothothery" (what Lovecraft called the practice of Mythos-sharing, which he supported).

Having long been enthralled by tales of rare books and their supernatural effects on unassuming readers, I was deeply engaged by these stories (including "The People of the Monolith," "The Children of the Night," and "The Black Stone" among others), especially by the fact of their tangential relationship to one another. One story may make a passing mention of a character, while another focuses more deeply on another aspect. Pict king Bran Mak Morn searches for the same Black Stone in "Worms of the Earth," and the poem "The Symbol" describes it with a tone reminiscent of Shelley's "Ozymandias." Read all together, they immerse the reader in a fascinating otherworld in a way that would be impossible encountering the pieces individually. Later, in the section devoted to horrific Westerns, "The Hoofed Thing" is a marvelous mix of Lovecraftian fiction and the Old West. Though somewhat weak in believability, it remains exceptionally effective. Some of the four unfinished "Miscellanea" pieces add more interesting information in this vein, but they are otherwise frustratingly incomplete.

No collection of Howard horror would be complete without "Pigeons from Hell," the novella Stephen King called "one of the finest horror stories of our century" in Danse Macabre. Some may know it from its adaptations to other media, from an episode of the Thriller anthology TV series to a recent graphic novel (scripted by Joe R. Lansdale). The concept seems laughable, but Howard manages to make it truly terrifying with an ending that's actually surprising. "The Cairn on the Headland" and "People of the Black Circle" "glow with the fierce and eldritch light of Howard's frenzied intensity" (to use another apt King reference). Howard seems to be at his best at this kind of tale, where men awaken to find themselves turned into the superhuman warriors they once were long, long ago.

Not only does Howard write gripping tales, but he also uses the English language with a skill I've not yet seen in genre fiction. His vocabulary range is immensely impressive, and I've never seen so many semi-colons all in one place — and used with such skill. Howard picks his words with a master's touch, making unconventional choices that still retain easy readability:

Some distance behind him loomed the green, rank jungle, thinning out to low shrubs, stunted trees and tall grass. Some distance in front of him rose the first of a chain of bare, somber hills, littered with boulders, shimmering in the merciless heat of the sun. Between the hills and the jungle lay a broad expanse of rough, uneven grasslands, dotted here and there by clumps of thorn trees. [p. 111-112, "The Hills of the Dead"]

Not difficult language, by any means — merely the right word for the purpose. One never gets the sense that such and such a word was "good enough," but that only the perfect one would do to set the proper mood. Yet his descriptive narrative style flows smoothly even as it speaks poetically.

Horror fans who tend to eschew modern poetry need not skip Howard's verse. There's a lot here to appreciate. It is written in an older style that any student of literature will find familiar. This makes it highly approachable, as does its often horrific subject matter. "Up, John Kane!" was especially memorable with its folk-ballad rhythm, and the refrain of "Will ye come, will ye come, John Kane?" "Remembrance" is similarly effective telling of a haunting in 14 lines. "Dead Man's Hate" shows how not even death can staunch some men's lust for revenge. "The Dweller in Dark Valley" sets a palpable atmosphere and then explains it with a twist. And that's just a handful of the 20 poems that act as palate cleansers of a sort to The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. Interspersed throughout, they only add to the total effect.

For the Howard completists, the editors have included an exhaustive rundown of how the versions of the pieces published in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard are different from their original sources, from the placement of commas to the cleaning up of misspellings and further. I was for some reason enthralled by this information, mostly because it shows that Burke and company are fans and scholars who want nothing more than to present Howard in the best possible light. Their choice to use en-dashes instead of em-dashes throughout is mildly irritating, but the text is otherwise nearly pristine.

As a final note, I would just like to mention that, while I was reading this book for review, a severe ice storm hit our community that knocked out the power for nine days. During this difficult time, it was nice to have Howard's wild tales nearby as a small bit of escapism after the kids were asleep, before we crawled into our cold bed for the night. I've found myself returning to them during this economic downturn, as well. Howard's work allows my brain to get away from daily concerns in a way I've not experienced before. His breadth of imagination combined with his expert use of language (two things rarely found in the same individual) showcase a highly literate, action-oriented pulp style that is bound to appeal to all readers of intelligent genre fiction.