Harrison is a brawny police detective who patrols the unquiet slums and dives of River Street, in an unnamed port city where the sun never shines. But REH’s stories were far-removed from the „mean streets” of Hammett’s and Raymond Chandler’s stories in Black Mask. Like Skull-Face they owe more to Sax Rohmer – and to REH’s own contemporary horror stories.
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.
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.
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.
A powerful wizard named Thugra Khotan is awoken from his three-thousand year sleep by an audacious yet unlucky Zamoran thief named Shevatas. Thugra wakes with dreams of world domination. He assumes the name Natohk, the Veiled One, gathers an army of desert tribes and sets out to conquer the Hyborian nations.
Taramis, Queen of Khauran, awakened from a dream-haunted slumber to a silence that seemed more like the stillness of nighted catacombs than the normal quiet of a sleeping place. She lay staring into the darkness, wondering why the candles in their golden candelabra had gone out. A flecking of stars marked a gold-barred casement that lent no illumination to the interior of the chamber.
San Leon lay as if slumbering in the desert heat as the five brothers rode up to the doors of the Cattlemen’s Bank. None noted their coming; the Red Lode saloon, favorite rendezvous for the masculine element of San Leon, stood at the other end of the town, and out of sight around a slight bend in the street.
Some such thoughts flitted vaguely through my mind that night as I groped along the narrow trail that wound through the deep pinelands. Such thoughts are likely to keep company with any man who dares invade, in the night, that lonely stretch of densely timbered river-country which the black people call Egypt, for some obscurely racial reason.
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...
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...
”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...
A young settler named Balthus walks blissfully unaware through a forest trail when the sound of combat draws his attention. He hides behind a tree and sees Conan step into the open, having just slain a Pictish robber who was about to ambush Balthus. Conan had been tracking the Pict for some hours, as he has been chasing the encroaching Picts on commission from nearby Fort Tuscelan.
The stories are humorously written as if told by Breckinridge Elkins, a hillbilly with no schooling. He and his kin live in the Humboldts in Nevada. Elkins is six feet six inches tall, is as strong as a grizzly bear. He can be just as bad tempered if riled. And there is a lot to rile him, especially his relatives.
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.
The Thunder Dragon Gate is the name of a monastery in Tibet, which is considered a portal to Shambhala, and therefore is a symbol of the threshold to higher levels of spiritual consciousness. American secret agent Tom Greene and his wife, Elsa, are trying to send troopers to the Tho-Pa-gault gate, returning to Tibet to restore the sacred duty and find out what they can do on the way to Shambhala. There are only a few obstacles on their way – the crazy Raja Dole, an array of...
This is the first story in which Chulunder Gon takes a leading position, and previously acted only in the company of other Mundi heroes. The story is about a corrupt Indian ruler who is looking for hidden wealth on his land and has formed a background for the curtains of the gods of Manda. „The buried treasures” are in fact oil deposits. The inspirational author had his own interest in oil in Mexico and the presence of oil in Assam, one of the Indian provinces, which Talbot...
The mystery of the tomb of Khufu is a story about Jeff Ramsden written by Talbot Mundy. In this fascinating story, Ramsden travels a lot and encounters his old friend, the beautiful Joan Angela Leich. Soon they go to the desert, try to unravel the mystery of the place of the tomb of Khufu and help the old Chinese mathematician, which is blocked by the usual shoemaker from the villains, trying to steal the treasure for himself. Much more modern and anti-imperial in the world...
Guards, go out! – he ordered. Twelve men went out one by one from the house he had left. They seemed to feel more warm than Brown did, because they fell into the sword of Brown. In this nameless sanatorium there was no flag, and no flag was there, so the sword, without her nail, performed duties, pointing down to the ground as the totem pole of the empire. Brown was stuck there, like the Boanerges sandals, and there he stayed from the sunrise to the sunset, so that he would...
It has always been a mystery to her how she knows everything that is happening in Delhi, India and in the great outer world, although they themselves give her information that no government could have landed on the quiet hills. They know where she keeps her cobra – where a lot of jewelry knows some of her old stories. There were many maids in Yasmin, but no one, even her favorite, most proud ones, knew that in the small room there was a black stroll with stairs and steel do...
This is an immoral story. Ommony Cottwolves is inaccurate in the report. The report is incorrect. They say that the press is saying this, and with it it can be learned that Maddrum String is a billionaire with brains, but without a heart; that his heart, if he has it, is made of iron sheets; that his stomach is of bronze, and the feet of clay; that his friendship is imaginary, but his enmity is a bitter and terrible truth; that he lacks repentance, but he has crazy ambition...
The cable that Julius Caesar has made in helping find the best way to attack Britain is to play a double game. He must save his father and encourage the resistance of the British leaders to remove Rome from its legions that are ready to conquer the land of Gaul. Offenses, intrigue, and many murders pose a threat to accompaniment by Caesar’s Caesar in his amphibian landings and battles.
First let’s look at the situation for a moment. We were twenty people: seventeen Arabs, Narayan Singh, I and Thunder. We were in Petra over Jordan, which was a civilian land until Ali Higg, the impostor of Leo Peter, a friend of the Prophet Islam, Lord of Limit Deserts, and Lord Vaters became established there as a thorn on the flank of Palestine. Inaccessible and inaccessible, except for airplanes, once the valley of Moses, leading to it through a twelve-meter gorge, was b...
