This early work by Robert E. Howard was originally published in 1936. „Knife Country” is a novel from the El Borak series of Texans in the early 20th century in Afghanistan. Very interesting book.

Pulp adventure, seemingly a bit crude and dashed off quickly, but good storytelling none the less. Pirates and lost cities – a bit of ’Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ’Indiana Jones’ rolled into one, but also with echoes of one of Howard’s best known tales of piracy, the Conan story ’Queen of the Black Coast’ – a superior story. The writing here is okay, entertaining enough, and even manages a little character exposition, but Howard could do and did do better work.

Robert E. Howard is famous for creating such immortal heroes as Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn. Less well-known but equally extraordinary are his non-fantasy adventure stories set in the Middle East and featuring such hero as Francis Xavier Gordon. Texas gunfighter F. X. Gordon traveled the world before settling in 1920s Afghanistan. The Afghans dubbed him „El Borak” for his quick thinking and skill with a sword and gun. The respected Gordon frequently...

Three unsolved murders in a week are not so unusual--for River Street, grunted Steve Harrison, shifting his muscular bulk restlessly in his chair. His companion lighted a cigarette and Harrison observed that her slim hand was none too steady. She was exotically beautiful, a dark, supple figure, with the rich colors of purple Eastern nights and crimson dawns in her dusky hair and red lips. But in her dark eyes Harrison glimpsed the shadow of fear. Only once before had he see...

Hawks of Outremer is a tight tale. The main character is Cormac FitzGeoffrey, a bastard Norman-Gael who has thrown his lot in with the Crusaders. Once a loose peace was established in Outremer, Cormac returned to Ireland but after a short stint fighting, peace broke out there, too. Cormac returns to the Holy Land (Outremer) seeking to attach himself to a liege, only to learn that his liege of choice has been assassinated. Plots are afoot between Muslims and Christian lords ...

Robert E. Howard best known for his contributions to the extremely popular sword and sorcery genre of fiction. Howard’s writings became more successful posthumously and he created legendary characters such as Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane. Though much better known for his fantasies, Howard wrote more about the humorous escapades of Sailor Steve Costigan and his bulldog Mike than any of his other characters. In a unique Texas voice, the unreliable narrator Costigan re...

Drums of Sunset was published in eight parts. Steve and Hard Luck, his newfound companion (or is he? The curious should check those back issues linked above!), are hot on the trail of a host of criminals ranging from ‘Navajoes’ to a ring of counterfeiters. Pieces of the mystery that have plagued Steve for six installments are starting to come together. And oh, the CLIFFHANGER! Steve and Hard Luck are locked in mortal combat with a rowdy group of Native Americans.

In „Black Wind Blowing”, Howard lays it on so thick I half suspected he was trying to do a spoof on the genre. But then, his normal storytelling was always full of bizarre images, hyperactive violence and heavy use of adjectives so this story is probably just an extreme example. It helps too, that „Black Wind Blowing” has enough wild premises to build at least two or three effective horror stories on. If you’re not moved by what’s going on at the moment, by the next page th...

The moonlight shimmered hazily, making silvery mists of illusion among the shadowy trees. A faint breeze whispered down the valley, bearing a shadow that was not of the moon-mist. A faint scent of smoke was apparent. The man whose long, swinging strides, unhurried yet unswerving, had carried him for many a mile since sunrise, stopped suddenly. A movement in the trees had caught his attention, and he moved silently toward the shadows, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of hi...

The Turks, cruelly lead by the scurrilous Bayazid, crushingly defeat a bunch of European Christians who were invading so as to steal land from the Turks, or something. But one of the Europeans, a Scott, Donald MacDeesa escapes with his life and hooks up with Ak Boga, who who had secretly been spying on the carnage. Ak Boga works for the Amir of Samarcand, one Timour the Lame.

The horror first took concrete form amid that most unconcrete of all things–a hashish dream. I was off on a timeless, spaceless journey through the strange lands that belong to this state of being, a million miles away from earth and all things earthly; yet I became cognizant that something was reaching across the unknown voids–something that tore ruthlessly at the separating curtains of my illusions and intruded itself into my visions.

The creator of Conan looks to the stars in one of fantasy’s most enduring science fantasy classics! Robert E. Howard’s Almuric is a savage planet of crumbling stone ruins and debased, near-human inhabitants. Into this world comes Esau Cairn, Earthman, swordsman, murderer. Only he can overthrow the terrible devils that enslave Almuric, but to do so he must first defeat the inner demons that forced him to abandon Earth.

Despite an aversion to the detective formula, he wrote the tales in Graveyard Rats during the same years he chronicled the adventures of Conan. This collection features a new introduction by scholar Don Herron, editor of „The Dark Barbarian,” the definitive look at the life and work of Robert E. Howard.

The castles of the Twelfth Century, fortresses rather than mere dwellings, were built for defense, not comfort. The hall through which the drunken band was hallooing was broad, lofty, windy, strewn with rushes, now but faintly lighted by the dying embers in a great ill-ventilated fireplace. Rude, sail-like hangings along the walls rippled in the wind that found its way through.

Professor John Kirowan is a fictional character from Robert E. Howard’s contributions to H.P. Lovecraft’s story cycle „the Cthulhu Mythos”. Kirowan is often partnered with the character John Conrad, to the extent that these stories are often referred to under the group title Conrad & Kirowan. Professor Kirowan is a younger son of a titled Irish family and a scholar of the Mythos who travelled widely in search of forbidden knowledge. His ancestor, Sir Michael Kirowan was...

If you like your horror with a western twist then these tales are for you. Awesome occult western adventure, from the master of strange fiction, Robert E. Howard! This collection includes the following stories: „THE HORROR FROM THE MOUND”, „THE MAN ON THE GROUND”, „OLD GARFIELD’S HEART”, „BLACK CANAAN”, „THE DEAD REMEMBER”, „PIGEONS FROM HELL” and others. Kind of like „Dreams at the Witch House” by Lovecraft but mixed with Howard’s own legends. „Tales of the Weird Southwest...

”I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue...

The speaker wrapped his purple cloak closer about his powerful frame and settled back into his official chair, much as he might have settled back in his seat at the Circus Maximus to enjoy the clash of gladiatorial swords. Realization of power colored his every move. Whetted pride was necessary to Roman satisfaction, and Titus Sulla was justly proud; for he was military governor of Eboracum and answerable only to the emperor of Rome.

Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the sword and sorcery genre. From his fertile imagination sprang some of fiction’s most enduring heroes. Yet while Conan is indisputably Howard’s greatest creation, it was in his earlier sequence of tales featuring Kull, a fearless warrior with the b...

The Pool of the Black One is one of the original short stories starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan becoming the captain of a pirate vessel and encountering a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation.

Robert E. Howard turned to writing comic and dialect Western tales only late in his career, but he found an immediate and continuously successful market for them, and they are in many respects his most accomplished and polished works. „The Pike Bearfield Stories” is a collection of stories in the western genre, featuring Pike Bearfield – the character who lead well-intentioned lives of perpetual confusion, mischance, and outright catastrophe. It includes: „While the Smoke R...

A great black shadow lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of the red sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

The tales of James Allison take place both in modern times and in the far past, in that time after the Hyborian kingdoms of Conan. Allison is a crippled Texan who lost a leg when his horse fell on him. To escape boredom and sadness he ventures into the past, exploring his previous lives as mighty warriors. All these ancestors were members of a migration of Aryans as they traveled the world in search of a homeland.

The battle in the meadowlands of the Euphrates was over, but not the slaughter. On that bloody field where the Caliph of Bagdad and his Turkish allies had broken the onrushing power of Doubeys ibn Sadaka of Hilla and the desert, the steel-clad bodies lay strewn like the drift of a storm. The great canal men called the Nile, which connected the Euphrates with the distant Tigris, was choked with the bodies of the tribesmen, and survivors were panting in flight toward the whit...