By Dean Poling
The Valdosta Daily Times
December 14, 2007 01:55 am
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In his short life, Robert E. Howard saw dozens of his stories purchased and published. Howard wrote tales for almost every kind of pulp publication of the late 1920s and 1930s: boxing, cowboy yarns, heroic historic fiction, horror stories. At the height of the Great Depression, Howard’s neighbors thought him a lazy boy with no visible means of employment, but his stories were pulling in more money than almost anyone else in his small Texas hometown. Yet, at the age of 30, Howard’s writing and his life came to an end. In 1936, receiving word that his ailing mother would not survive the night, Robert E. Howard took his own life. His mother died a few hours later. Thus came the end of the man who created characters like Conan and King Kull.
Howard is credited with the creation of the sword-and-sorcery genre of fantasy. His other on-going characters included the Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane, the Pictish warrior Bran Mak Morn, the Lawrence of Arabia-inspired El Borak. These are the characters which have kept Howard’s name in publication more than 100 years after his birth, and more than 70 years after his death at the age of 30. Over the past few years, Howard’s Conan, Kane, Kull and Bran Mak Morn stories have been collected in their respective volumes by the Del Rey imprint of Ballantine Books; each volume containing numerous illustrations by various artists. Now with two volumes titled “The Best of Robert E. Howard,” Del Rey offers a sampler of Howard treats. Both include stories from past volumes.
This second volume, “Grim Lands,” contains two Conan tales (arguably the best ones: “The Tower of the Elephant” and “Red Nails”), a Kull tale, a Solomon Kane story, and one of Bran Mak Morn. “The Best of Robert E. Howard: Volume 1 Crimson Shadows” also contains tales of these characters already collected in past volumes from this series. But what makes these volumes a true find for Howard regulars are the other stories contained here. And, if you can choose only one volume, “Grim Lands” is the pick. Not only does it contain some of the best character tales (such as, again, Conan’s “Red Nails”), but it also contains other great Howard stories from his Westerns, his boxing stories, his poetry, and his horror stories. “Pigeons from Hell” is a jarring horror yarn that could give a Stephen King fan a start.
“Black Vulmea’s Vengeance” is great pirate yarn. Desert adventurer El Borak is here in “Son of the White Wolf.” Dozens of stories can be found within the volume’s 500 pages. These stories are unadulterated Robert E. Howard, some being published in their original context for the first time in decades, which means they contain the prejudices of the era as well as Howard’s oft-times creative approaches to word usage. If you’ve never read any Howard, Conan or otherwise, “Grim Lands” should be a solid indicator if you want more. For Howard fans, “Grim Lands” should be a happy place to visit.
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