Another Great LAST STAND Scene!

 

Francis Xavier Gordon, known as "El Borak," had numerous blood-and-thunder adventures in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries in the early years of the 20th Century. One of the seven El Borak tales is set during World War I--the others sets before the war.)

All the El Borak yarns are great--though, of course, Robert E. Howard rarely turned out anything other than great--and just occasionally merely good-stories.

The one I want to mention today is "Country of the Knife," first published in the August 1936 issue of Complete Stories. It's been reprinted--often under the title "Sons of the Hawk"--multiple times and is currently available in Del Rey's El Borak and Other Desert Adventures. 

The story awesome from start to finish, with El Borak showing off his talents for disguise, playing another part, and manipulating his enemies. There's still lots of action, of course, and--as good as the rest of the story is--I want to emphasize how good REH is at writing short action scenes that are so effectively stuffed with violence that you come away thinking it was several pages more to it than there is.

The climax has El Borak and four companions fleeing a remote city, pursued by a larger force on fresher horses. The fugitives reach a mountain pass soon after one of them tumbles off a cliff and their remaining horses die of exhausion. They take cover at the entrance to the path, determined to sell their lives dearly. They "lay behind boulders in the mouth of the pass. They had three pistols, a saber, a tulwar and a knife between them." 

The bad guys charge them on horseback. Bullets fly and the battle quickly turns into a hand-to-hand melee.

From start to finish, the action runs through only about a dozen short paragraphs. So much happens in those few paragraphs that, as I said, you think the battle might have run several pages before coming to its unexpected and satisfying end. But the prose doesn't feel crowded, over-stuffed or too long. It feels just right.

This was one of REH's talents as a writer. He did the same thing in Black Colossus, a Conan novella in which you THINK the epic battle between two armies must have been several chapters, but is only a few pages. The large-scale battles in his Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon are the same way--satisfying battle scenes that last just a few pages, but (in a good way) feel much longer. 

You can read "Country of the Knife" (aka "Sons of the Hawk") online HERE. 

Sailor Steve Costigan

 

cover artist unknown

I'm glad that so much of Robert E. Howard's stuff is getting reprinted nowadays, especially those stories that show what a strong sense of humor he had.

That humor is probably most apparent in his stories about mountain man Breckinridge Elkins, but you can also look to Sailor Steve Costigan for both great fight scenes and laugh-out-loud moments.

Costigan is a somewhat naive sailor who is quick with his fists. In fact, his solution to many of the problems he encounters is punching someone.

The stories often have him on shore leave in a port somewhere (often but not always accompanied by his bite-happy bulldog Mike), getting entangled in an adventure that requires him to get into fist fights and always features one of those fights being a formal match in the boxing ring. 

"Sailor's Grudge" was published in the March 1930 issue of Fight Stories and is typical of how much fun a Sailor Steve yarn can be. Costigan goes ashore in San Francisco for a few days, this time without his dog, and meets a girl. Later, he finds out the girl has been forbidden to see him again by a big guy named Bert. Costigan deduces that Bert is a villain who is probably blackmailing the girl's father to force the girl to see him. It's not much of a spoiler to tell you that Costigan's deductions lack accuracy.

Anyway, Bert is the fight double for a movie star on a boxing film. Steve lands the job of the opponent in the big finale by beating up four other guys who want the part. Steve and Bert are supposed to fight for real for four rounds--giving the director some great fight footage---then Steve is supposed to take a dive. Close-ups of the movie star will be spliced in later.

What follows is a great fight scene--something that is also typical of the Costigan tales. Here's an example: 

We traded rights to the head and lefts to the body and he brought up a sizzling uppercut which might of tore my head off, hadst it landed. I buckled his knees with a right hook under the heart and he opened a cut under my left eye with a venomous straight right.

He then backed away, sparring and working for my wounded eye with a sharp-shooting left. Much annoyed, I followed him about the ring and suddenly dropped him to his knees with a smashing right cross to the side of the head. He bounced up without a count and flashed a straight left to my sore eye, following it instantly with a right uppercut to the body. I missed a looping right, landed with my left, took two straight rights in the face to sink my left hook into his belly, and he went into a clinch. We worked out of it and was fighting along the ropes at the gong.

The end is hilarious, with the movie almost ruined and a disillusioned Steve learning he's not going to get the girl after all.

Howard, famous for his Conan the Barbarian tales, is not always remembered for his sense of humor. But he should be.

Read "Sailor's Grudge" HERE.  And for a deeper dive into Howard's boxing tales, check out an excellent article HERE. 

"...if I’m to answer for all the corpses I’ve made, ’twill be a wearisome reckoning.”

 

cover art by Stephen Fabian

A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at a Robert E. Howard story that was unpublished in his lifetime, despite being quite good. Today, we'll look at another one--"The Isle of Pirate's Doom," a novella REH wrote in 1928. It eventually popped up in various paperbacks. Nowadays, we're living in an REH Renaissance, where most if not all of his stuff can be found online or in various reprints.

cover art by Ken Kelly

(This reprinted two Black Vulmea stories along with "The Isle of Pirate's Doom)

The narrator of the story is a shipwrecked sailor named Stephen Harmer. He's been alone on a remote island for a time when a boat full of pirates lands nearby. 

One of those pirates is the beautiful Helen Tavrel, who is only 20-years-old, but has already built up quite a reputation as a freebooter.

art by Bill Cavalier

As Harmer hides nearby, he sees that Helen is having a rather violent disagreement with the other pirates. Shenanigans ensue. Several of the pirates end up dead, while Harmer and Helen team up. At first, they don't get along as Harmer seriously disapproves of pirates. Eventually, they begin to warm towards each other.

The story, in the meantime, moves from the island jungle through a swamp into an ancient temple in which legend says a fortune in jewels is hidden. Sword fights, poison snakes and booby traps quickly follow. 

It's a fun story that seems to be leading up to a lovey-dovey ending between Harmer and Helen, but REH throws in a bit of a twist, implying he might have instead tossed the two into more pirate adventures rather than a wedding chapel had this first story sold.

Helen isn't quite as epic as Belit, Valeria, or Red Sonya, but she's still pretty cool. "The Isle of Pirate's Doom" is a fun tale. You can find it online HERE. 

Cormac Mac Art

 

cover art by Jeff Jones

It's interesting to read the Robert E. Howard tales that were unsold during his lifetime and wonder why the heck no one published them. I've yet to run into one that's bad.  REH was one of the best short story/novella writers of all time and even his weaker efforts are usually better than most other stuff. 

While he was alive, REH wrote two complete stories about Cormac Mac Art--a Gaelic pirate active not long after Roman rule in Britian collapsed. Cormac and his partner Wulfhere Skull-Splitter sail the violent seas of that era and find their share of adventure.

cover art by Ken Kelly

REH left two unfinished Cormac tales behind when he died. In 1975, Richard Tierney completed those two stories and all four were published in Tigers of the Sea, published by Zebra books. This went through five printings over the next few years and the anthology was reprinted by Ace in 1979. Baen Books reprinted all four stories in Cormac Mac Art in 1995.  Obviously, people enjoyed these stories.  They deserved to see the light of day. 

Cormac reappeared in 2014 in Swords of the North, published by REH Foundation Press. This includes the two complete stories and has the two unfinished tales in the appendix. This makes sense, of course. This publisher is giving us pure REH and, though I remember enjoying Tierney's endings to the unfinished tales, it wasn't Howard's work

I used to own the Zebra paperback, but lost track of it years ago. But I did recently acquire a copy of Swords of the North and last night, I read "Swords of the Northern Sea." And, by golly, it was just as much fun as I remembered it being.

Cormac is a guest of Rognor the Red, having been shipwrecked nearby. Rognor has a beautiful British woman named Tarala prisoner and plan to marry her. The fiery Tarala isn't happy with this, but she's not being given a choice.

But another Viking named Hakon has fallen for Tarala and she, it turns out, has fallen for him. This gets Hakon tossed into a cell. Rognor plans to have him killed after forcing him to watch the marriage ceremony. Rognor isn't a nice guy.

Cormac, by the way, is planning on stealing a longship. Wulfhere (an arch-enemy of Rognor) and 40 Danes are hidden nearby, having also survived the shipwreck. Hakon also has a dozen followers ready to follow him and, after Cormac springs him from jail, expresses a desire to team-up. If Hakon can usurp Rognor's position as leader, Cormac can take his pick of the longships.

So all Cormac has to do, aside from rescuing Hakon, is also rescuing Tarala, then come up with a plan to launch a surprise attack on Rognor and his men. Cormac and his allies are outnumbered 6 to 1, so this plan has to be a really, really good one.

It's an excellent story, ending with the sort of brutal battle scene that Howard excels at writing. Cormac is a great character--someone willing to split an enemy's skull, but expressing a desire to avoid killing when it's not necessary. Hakon and especially the fiery & brave Tarala are great characters in their own right. And, of course, it's impossible not to want to follow along with someone named Wulfhere Skull-Spliter. 

I'm glad the Cormac stories are in print again. Though I may see if I can find Tigers of the Sea at a reasonable price on the used book market. I'd love to own it both for nostalgia and to read Richard Tierney's endings to the two unfinished stories. 

Bitterness, Lonliness, and Death

 

cover art by Margaret Brundage

"The Lord of Samarcand," (also published as "The Lame Man") by Robert E. Howard, was published in the Spring 1932 issue of Oriental Stories. It is, I think, one of the grimmest tales that Howard ever told. And, by golly, it works. It's a vivid example of how Howard could use descriptive prose together with strong characterizations to keep his reader engrossed from start to finish.

It's set in the late 14th and early 15th Century. A Scotsman named Donald MacDeesa is the protagonist and his life has indeed been grim. He fought in Scotland until he was forced to flee for his life. He eventually ends up in the Middle East, where the army he's a part of is wiped out by the Turks. 

Anxious for revenge, he enters the service of Timour, also known as Tamarlane. This is a real-life emperor--a Turco-Mongol who founded the Timurid Dynasty that ruled much of what today is Afganistan, Iran and Central Asia.

Donald helps Timour defeat the Turks, satisfying the Scotsman's lust for revenge in that quarter. Then, with nowhere else to go, he serves Timour as the head of a sort-of Special Forces unit. Timour, a somewhat narcissitic ruler who desire only to expand his empire, recognizes Donald's usefullness, but feels no friendship or appreciation towards him:

Timour hurled Donald against his foes as a man hurls a javelin, little caring whether the weapon be broken or not. The Gael's horsemen would come back bloodstained, dusty and weary, their armor hacked to shreds, their swords notched and blunted, but always with the heads of Timour's foes swinging at their high saddle-peaks.

As the years go by, Donald's lonliness and friendlessness causes him to grow attracted to a Persian slave-girl. But the girl has a tendency to get involved in courtroom conspiracies. And if she gets on Timour's bad side, she might not live long. And if she doesn't live long, Timour might find out there can be consequences for treating people like disposable insects. It's not good to be on Timour's bad side, but it's definitely not good to be on Donald MacDeesa's bad side.

History has a different version of Timour's death in 1405 than we get here, but the story actually accounts for that. Much like "The Lion of Tiberias," which I reviewed a few weeks ago, Howard improves upon real-life in regards to the death of a tyrant. 

Getting to the grim end of this tale is a wild ride. Here's a brief passage describing one of Donald's many battles. The word "vivid" doesn't really do it justice.

AND AT ORDUSHAR the siege dragged on. In the freezing winds that swept down the pass, driving snow in blinding, biting blasts, the stocky Kalmucks and the lean Vigurs strove and suffered and died in bitter anguish.

They set scaling-ladders against the walls and struggled upward, and the defenders, suffering no less, speared them, hurled down boulders that crushed the mailed figures like beetles, and thrust the ladders from the walls so that they crashed down, bearing death to men below. Ordushar was actually but a stronghold of the Jat Mongols, set sheer in the pass and flanked by towering cliffs.

Donald's wolves hacked at the frozen ground with frost-bitten raw hands which scarce could hold the picks, striving to sink a mine under the walls. They pecked at the towers while molten lead and weighted javelins fell in a rain upon them; driving their spear-points between the stones, tearing out pieces of masonry with their naked hands. With stupendous toil they had constructed makeshift siege-engines from felled trees and the leather of their harness and woven hair from the manes and tails of their warhorses.

The rams battered vainly at the massive stones, the ballistas groaned as they launched tree-trunks and boulders against the towers or over the walls. Along the parapets the attackers fought with the defenders, until their bleeding hands froze to spear-shaft and sword-hilt, and the skin came away in great raw strips. And always, with superhuman fury rising above their agony, the defenders hurled back the attack.

A storming-tower was built and rolled up to the walls, and from the battlements the men of Ordushar poured a drenching torrent of naphtha that sent it up in flame and burnt the men in it, shriveling them in their armor like beetles in a fire. Snow and sleet fell in blinding flurries, freezing to sheets of ice. Dead men froze stiffly where they fell, and wounded men died in their sleeping-furs. There was no rest, no surcease from agony. Days and nights merged into a hell of pain. Donald's men, with tears of suffering frozen on their faces, beat frenziedly against the frosty stone walls, fought with raw hands gripping broken weapons, and died cursing the gods that created them.

The misery inside the city was no less, for there was no more food. At night Donald's warriors heard the wailing of the starving people in the streets. At last in desperation the men of Ordushar cut the throats of their women and children and sallied forth, and the haggard Tatars fell on them weeping with the madness of rage and woe, and in a welter of battle that crimsoned the frozen snow, drove them back through the city gates. And the struggle went hideously on.

You can read the entire story yourself HERE. 

Boy, Does This Guy Know How to HATE!

 

cover art by J. Allen St. John

"In those cold terrible eyes the Turk read hate beyond common conception-a monstrous, burning, almost tangible thing, drawn up from the lower pits of hell, not to be dimmed by time or suffering."

This quote is from the Robert E. Howard tale "The Lion of Tiberias."  And, yes, indeed, John Norwald knows how to hate. A wandering warrior in the 12th Century, Norwald had become the bodyguard of a young Muslim prince. When the prince's dad loses a battle, he insists that he and Norwald surrender. Their enemy, Imad ad-Din Zengi, promises that no sword will touch the prince.

Well, a sword doesn't touch him, but a whip does. Zengi has the young man scourged to death. That's what sets off Norwald's hate.

Zengi spares Norwald. Well, sort of. He condemns him to be a galley slave. He's strong, but there's no way that he'll survive more than a few years. No one does.

Skip ahead 23 years. Zengi's power has grown. A Norman knight gives him a spot of trouble, but he soon has the knight and his girl trapped in a small fortress. He brings up his army to take this fortress. He's on the verge of becoming THE power in the Middle East.

But what if an old enemy--a man he's long since forgotten about--survived for over two decades on pure hatred? What if he's coming back to visit Zengi?

I'm not counting this as a spoiler because if you don't know that Norwald is coming back the moment Zengi sends him to the galleys, then you aren't really trying. The journey there, though, is full of outstanding action and adventure. Like all of Howard's tales, it is truly exciting, vividly describing the bloody fights and heart-stopping chases. And, aside from being an exceptional adventure story, it's also a study in how the actions of one man can change history.

In real life, Zengi was assassinated in 1146. No one knows for sure who did it, though its thought to have been a slave or a disgruntled servant. Howard beats history in this case--his account of Zengi's death is lots better than that.

The story was published in the July 1933 issue of Magic Carpet Magazine. You can read it yourself HERE.

Favorite Stories: The Sowers of the Thunder

This week and (at least) next week, I'm going to be looking at short stories that have always been particular favorites of mine. I picked stories that I inevitably re-visit at least once a year, both written by favorite authors of mine. But though these tales are prime examples of why these authors are considered fantastic story-tellers, I make no claims that they are the best of the best. They simply speak to my inner... well, my inner whatever. Perhaps they speak that part of me that is convinced--however irrationally--that I myself could be a skilled adventurer or successful detective. Perhaps the deeper themes in these stories speak to me on a more intellectual level. Or perhaps I simply think they're really cool. 

I first encountered "The Sowers of the Thunder," by Robert E. Howard, when I bought this book from the Stars and Stripes bookstore at the Navy base in the Phillippines: 

The anthology, with great interior illustrations by Roy Krenkel, had four novellas and short stories set (with one exception) in the Middle East during the Crusades. All of them are wonderful stories and "The Shadow of the Vulture," which introduced the world to Red Sonya, is probably the most influencial of the four.

"The Shadow of the Vulture" actually is another story I frequently re-read, because no man can read about Sonya and not fall madly in love.

But it is antholgy's title story that stands out for me the most. First published in the Winter 1932 issue of Oriental Stories, it is set in Palestine in the years 1243 and 1244, recounting the adventures of Cahal Ruadhl O'Donnel (Red Cahal), a man who had once ruled Ireland. But after a betrayal that involved the woman he loved, he is now a penniless adventurer, traveling east to join the Crusades essentially because he doesn't have anything else to do.

Red Cahal is a creation of Howard, but the story does revolve around historical events--though Howard largely fictionalizes them. 1244 was a busy year. Jerusalem was sacked by a huge band of Turkish horsemen; the Western knights were decisively beaten at the battle of La Forbie; and a general in the Egyptian army began his efforts to eventually become the ruler of Egypt.

Red Cahal turns out to have a role in all these events. And he's the perfect character to do so. We will be seeing the breaking of the power of the Western Crusaders, to whom Cahal has allied himself. The losses he's already suffered and his melancholy nature work as thematic linchpins to the events around him.

But all this melancholy does not get in the way of telling a truly exciting adventure story. Cahal is traveling with a small band of knights when they are overwhelmed by a horde of 10,000 horsemen, riding down from Turkey to escape the Mongols, but destroying and conquering themselves along the way.

Cahal is the only one to hack his way clear and tries to warn Jerusalem of the approaching danger, but there's simply no time. The horde sacks the city and slaughters thousands of citizens, descerating both Christian and Muslim locations.

Cahal again hacks his way free and eventually joins up with the remnants of the Christian armies, who in turn have teamed up with some Muslim forces to face off against a mutual enemy.

But what about the Egyptians? They are marching as well and rumors are they may team up with the Turkish horde. If so, the makeshift Christian/Muslim army is doomed. Cahal is asked to be an emissary to talk to the Egyptian general Baibars and find out what the heck is going on.

Treachery, desperate escapes, a bloody battle and a doomed last stand all quickly follow.

Throughout all this, Cahal keeps running into the same guy--though the guy is using a different name and occupation every time they meet. It can be argued that a weak point of the story is that it's really not that hard to figure out who this fellow really is, but the revelation of his real identity is still dramatically effective. There's also a Masked Knight whom Cahal meets right after escaping Jerusalem. That's another identity that will be revealed at the story's climax.

"The Sowers of the Thunder" is a fantastic adventure story and that really is 99% of the reason I return to it regularly. But it also deals very effectively with the ephemeral quality of temporal power and glory. In the end, a man is on his way to becoming a king. But, as Cahal points out and himself knows all too well, the glory is a witch-fire and the gold is moon-mist. No matter how skilled, smart or ruthless a king may be, nothing he does is permanent.

You can read "The Sowers of Thunder" online HERE.

Next week, we'll look at another favorite story and do some detective work in 1920s San Francisco, working on a case where a number of people die essentially because they are too dumb to live.

"...the star of Azrael hovers over the birth of a beautiful woman..."

Robert E. Howard wrote a number of good, solid stories that he wasn't able to sell during his lifetime. But when there was a resurgence of interest in his work--driven by the increasing popularity of Conan but spilling over into his other works--some of those unpublished stories finally saw print.

One of these is "The Road to Azrael," which didn't see print until 1976. This one is set in Palestine during the Crusades--a time and place Howard was drawn to in his writings on several occasions. As is usual for Howard's Crusader stories, the protagonist is a European warrior. What is unusual, though, is that the story's narrator is a Muslim and that this character doesn't really serve as a sidekick to the hero, but pretty much becomes a co-hero.

Azrael, by the way, is the Islamic name for the archangel of Death.  Perhaps one reason the story didn't sell during Howard's life is that the narrator muses just a little too often about riding the road of Azrael, finding or dealing death along the way. (Yes, people keep dying. We get it!) But all that death isn't just a part of the action needed to make this an adventure story. It's also a part of the tale's theme.

The narrator is Kosru Malik, a noted warrior whose name is known among both Muslims and Christians. Early in the story, he meets Sir Eric de Cogan, who is also well-known for his ability to deal death. Normally, the two are on opposite sides of any fighting, but Kosru considers Eric a blood-brother. Years earlier, Eric had saved Kosru's life during the battle for Jerusalem.

Eric is trying to rescue the woman he loves from Mohammed Khan, an important Muslim chief. For Kosru, friendship trumps nationalities or religion, so he helps rescue the girl.

The irony here is that Mohammed Khan is on the verge of forming a new Muslim empire and perhaps kicking the Crusaders out of the Holy Land, so under any other circumstances, Kosru Malik would gladly fight for him.

Escaping with the girl, the two men are forced into an uneasy alliance with yet another Muslim chief who opposes Mohammed Khan. There's a wild battle, an escape and a long chase across the desert. Kosru, who considers women to be a dime-a-dozen, is metaphorically banging his head against the wall for most of the story, even has he fights alongside Eric. From his perspective, it's a waste for a warrior like Eric to give his life in the hopeless task of getting the girl to safety. It's particularly galling to see Mohammed Khan risk his empire in his obsession to get the girl back. Gee whiz, it's not like she's the only pretty face around!  ("Have you ever loved?" Eric asks him at one point. "A thousand times," is the reply. "I have been true to half the women in Samarcand.") All the same, Kosru Malik will not abandon his friend. He is one of Howard's finest one-shot characters.

As the story come to its conclusion, it seems that the two friends and the woman are doomed--wounded, starving, and exhausted with Mohammed Khan and a few hundred warriors dogging their heels. But the sudden appearance of a surprise real-life guest star might just give them a chance to survive.

That twist at the end might be another reason the story didn't sell, because it comes out of the blue with no significant foreshadowing. But Howard succeeds in making the character involved so awesome that he successfully invokes the Rule of Cool and I'm not bothered by it at all.

So we have a cracking good adventure story interwoven into the idea that the common lusts and envies of leaders can cause them to make decisions that change the course of history.
 

Cossacks vs. Pirates vs. Turks

I was in Turkey recently with a group from my church, helping out with a Vacation Bible School for the children of workers from various countries who were meeting for a conference. So I figured reading something set in Turkey would be appropriate.

I did read Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad just before the trip over there, since it does include a hilarious account of his visit to Constantinople. But while in Turkey, I re-visited Robert E Howard's "The Road of the Eagles."

This particular story was unpublished in Howard's life time and first saw the light of day (sort of) in 1955, when L. Sprague de Camp re-wrote it into a Conan story. But the original version, set on and near the Black Sea in the year 1595, is the better story.

It involves a band of Cossacks who are pursuing a crew of Algerian corsairs. The corsairs, led by the brutal Osman Pasha, had raided the Cossacks' village and killed their leader. The background to all this--specifically how an Algerian pirate ended in the Black Sea--is unveiled to us later in the story and helps give the tale a unique flavor. 

As the story opens, the Cossacks and the corsairs have whittled each other down quite a bit. In fact, each party is their own badly damaged and rapidly sinking ship after a ship-to-ship duel ends without a clear-cut victor. Both ships limb towards shore.

With all the Cossack officers dead, a warrior named Ivan Sablianka takes over. Ivan is another factor in giving the story flavor--he's a tremendous warrior, but he's not a really effective leader. But he's all the Cossacks have while they still attempt to take Osman Pasha's head.

Osman, in the meantime, has fallen in with a 16th-Century femme fatale named Ayesha, which in turn leads him into a plot to team up with some Turkish warriors and rescue a prince from a remote castle. The prince, named Orkhan, is the brother of the current Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The idea is to use Osman's corsairs as the core of a rebellion intending to put Orkhan on the throne.

To do this, Osman Pasha has to not just rescue the prince, but avoid getting beheaded by Ivan. The Cossack might not be the best qualified leader, but he's determined and very, very hard to stop.

After the plot takes a few twists and turns, the story ends with an exciting battle described in Howard's usual vivid and fast-moving prose. Ivan and Osman finally meet face-to-face in a duel. Here, both their respective skill with swords AND their backgrounds come into play. Because Ivan isn't a native Cossack and Osman isn't a native Algerian--this will have an interesting effect on the story's conclusion.

Howard was a fan of Harold Lamb's fiction, which often involved Cossacks. I suspect that "The Road of the Eagles" is at least in part a product of Howard's admiration of Lamb. But Howard's own visceral voice dominates the tale. "The Road of the Eagles" showcases Howard's strengths as a storyteller, giving us a strong plot, interesting characters and great action set pieces.

Wings in the Night

Here's the latest video review from my YouTube channel:

Avarice makes for Credulity

We'll look at one last Robert E. Howard story in which the hero and the villain are forced by circumstances to team up with one another.

"Black Vulmea's Vengeance" was published in the November 1938 issue of Golden Fleece--a couple of years after Howard's death. The main character is an Irish pirate who has had a lot of success looting both British and Spanish ships.

It's the British who finally catch up to him--at a time when his entire crew is drunk from an all-night bender. Black Vulmea manages to take out a few of the Brits with a blast from a swivel gun, but the broadside he receives in return leaves him unconscious and wipes out his drunken crew.

("They'll wake up in Hell without knowing how they got there," eulogizes Vulmea a few pages later.)

The commander of the British ship is the snooty and brutal John Wentyard, who years ago had hanged a ten-year-old Vulmea when he put down a peasant's rebellion in Ireland. Vulmea, being an REH hero, survived the hangman's rope, became a kick-butt pirate, and now brought in chains before the man who killed his friends and family years ago.

Vulmea at first figures he'll leap forward and bash Wentyard's skull in with his manacles--an act of vengeance he figures is worth giving up his life to obtain. But then he gets a chance to run a con on Wentyard, telling him about a treasure hidden in the ruins of an ancient civilization on a nearby island. Looked at objectively, Vulmea's story should have been an obvious and desperate lie. But Vulmea knows that "avarice makes for credulity" and Wentyard indeed falls for it.

They travel to the island and go ashore: Wentyard, Vulmea and 15 marines. They're attacked by natives, which allows Vulmea to make a break for it. Events soon leave the marines dead, while Wentyard and Vulmea end up both hiding in some ruins that the natives are frightened to enter.

Vulmea is good at being sneaky, so he can slip out of the ruins and escape pretty much at will. So his initial plan is to first watch Wentyard starve to death. But then he decides it would be more satisfying to bring Wentyard food and water, then kill him in a fair fight. This plan is spoiled, though, when he abruptly discovers Wentyard has a wife and five-year-old daughter that will be left destitute. In fact, Wentyard was anxious to find treasure mostly to provide for them. "I can't be the cause of a helpless woman and colleen starving," says Vulmea in disgust.

This situation is what makes the character interactions particularly interesting, adding depth to an already cracking-good action tale. In our previous looks at reluctant Howardian team-ups, the goal was always either mutual survival or obtaining a treasure, after which the hero and the villain would go back to killing each other. This time, it's an act of compassion from a normally brutal pirate that brings the two characters together. It's clear that Vulmea still hates Wentyard and doesn't trust the man at all, but he'll save the Englishman (and even share a bit of treasure they stumble across) for the sake of a woman and child whom Vulmea himself will never meet.

But surviving has become more difficult. The natives won't enter the ruins, but a band of former African slaves (whose ship wrecked near the island) has no problem doing to. And these guys have no reason to love any white man--whether Irish or English. Also, there's a reason the natives avoid the ruins---a really, really creepy reason.

It's a great adventure story, with Wentyard's character arc and his changing attitude towards Vulmea giving it an interesting level of emotional subtlety. Robert E. Howard was quite capable of subtlety in his characterizations--something that he did a lot more often than casual critics of his work realize. "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" is perhaps one of the best examples of this.

That's it for our look at REH tales that force the hero to team up with an enemy. There's probably some other examples I'm not thinking of, so I may return to the idea in the future. Next week, though, we'll return to Edgar Rice Burroughs and visit with the Lord of the Jungle.

Beyond the Black River--a video review

Here's a new video for my YouTube channel--it's a look at "Beyond the Black River," one of Robert E. Howard's original Conan the Barbarian stories.

"He Steals and Murders Openly"

We've been taking an occasional look at Robert E. Howard stories in which he uses a very effective trick to generate suspense: The protagonist is forced to team-up with a sworn enemy. The two must work together against a common enemy or because they have a common purpose, knowing that they'll try to kill one another as soon as that purpose is achieved.

Conan the Barbarian was forced into this situation in "People of the Black Circle." But that's wasn't the first time he'd been in a reluctant alliance.

Not long after Conan came to civilization--still naive about the ways of civilization (and probably still a teenager)--he became embroiled in the machinations of two feuding noblemen. All this is recounted in "Rogues in the House," first published in the January 1934 issue of Weird Tales.

It's set in an unnamed city-state or minor kingdom. The puppet king is controlled by Nabonidus, known as the Red Priest and also known to bring his political enemies to an unpleasant end. He's looking to do this to Murilo, a nobleman who has been lining his pockets by selling state secrets.

Threatened with exposure, Murilo hires Conan to kill Nabonidus. But the twists and turns of the plot soon land all three men in a catacomb beneath Nabonidus' mansion. Above them is Thak--an ape man that Nabonidus kept as a servant. Thak, it turned out, was just human enough to harbor ambitions of his own. He's killed Nabonidus' human servant and taken over the mansion.

So leaving the catacomb by the only available exit--through the mansion--means walking into the sharp talons and fangs of a brutal, super-strong humanoid creature.

The only way the three men can get out alive is to work together.

The story is one of the best of the original Conan tales. For one thing, it's a textbook example of good plot construction. In just a few paragraphs, REH introduces us to the main characters and tells us enough about their relationships and their personalities to give us a firm lock on them. He then moves the plot along quickly but logically, mixing in suspense and action in just the right doses.

Howard also mixes in the thematic aspects of the story so that it complements the plot without ever slowing down the action. Murilo and Nabonidus are rogues--dishonest men who use their power and position for personal gain. Even though Murilo is actually a little likable in that he shows personal courage when he has to, both men are essentially rotten hypocrites and thieves.

This is contrasted with Conan, who may also be a thief but at least isn't a hypocrite. As Murilo phrases it: "This Cimmerian is the most honest man of the three of us, because he steals and murders openly."

What good that may do the person Conan is robbing and murdering is debatable, but Howard still has us rooting for the big guy. It's really quite a balancing act in terms of good characterization. Conan does murder during the story, but he still has standards that raise him above Murilo and Nabonidus.

For instance, he shows a degree of mercy to a woman who had betrayed him. Well, sort of. He drops her in a cess pool instead of killing her. And he gutted her new boyfriend a few moments before that without batting an eye. But he refrains from killing a woman nonetheless.

He also shows loyalty to an agreement he made with Murilo even when he could have gotten safely away from the city. So we end liking Conan and hoping he survives despite his moral flaws.

Aside from the theme and the characterizations, the key action set-piece in the story is fantastic. Conan and Thak inevitably go up against each other in a savage hand-to-hand battle and it is truly awesome. Howard had a knack for describing exciting fight scenes, but this one still stands out from the crowd.

It is, in fact, Frank Frazetta Awesome

When you consider all of Howard's Conan stories together and remember that he did not write them in internal chronological order, then the character arc he gives the barbarian is a really remarkable achievement. The first Conan story Howard wrote shows us the barbarian as a king, with a degree of wisdom and maturity (though without losing the ability to hack his enemies apart in droves). But stories about a young Conan give us an impetuous thief and killer who barely understands much of what civilization has to offer. Stories set between these time periods give us a Conan who is maturing into a leader, less likely to act on blind impulse.

 "Black Colossus" (published in 1933) is a good example of Conan's overall character development. Set at a time when Conan has largely left thievery behind to work as a mercenary, the story shows us the first time he is given command of an army. Outnumbered, he deploys his troops in a conservative defensive manner. When someone comments that Conan normally leaps into the thick of a fight, he explains that he usually only has himself to look out for. But now he's responsible for thousands of lives and must act differently. It's a key moment in his career, allowing us to believe that this is a man who can one day rule a nation.

Once again, Howard didn't write these stories in any order. Each successive story jumped from one point in Conan's life to another at random. But string them together in an order that makes internal chronological sense and you have a definable and fascinating bit of character development.

All this and great fight scenes as well. Because that fight between Conan and Thak really does drip with awesome sauce.

We have one more example in which an REH character has to team up with an enemy. This will involve the pirate Black Vulmea, whom we visited once before. Before long, we'll take a look at "Black Vulmea's Vengeance."

"...two wild natures, thirsty for each others' life."

Last time we visited with Robert E Howard, we met Kirby O'Donnell, an Irish-American wanderer who found adventure in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

But, by golly, Kirby wasn't the only Irish-American adventure who hung out in that part of the world in the early 20th Century. Howard also wrote about Francis Xavier Gordon, better known as El Borak ("The Swift").  Gordon wasn't quite as boisterous as Kirby. Whereas Kirby traveled alone or with a single companion, Gordon was often leading local tribesmen into battle. But both men were fantastic fighters and both were prone to find trouble wherever they went.

We've been taking a look at instances in which Howard's heroes were obligated by circumstances to team up with deadly enemies. It was always a temporary alliance, with the parties involved certain to return to killing each other at the first opportunity.

It's something that happened to them a lot. Which is just fine by me--it was a plot devise that Howard used very effectively.

We've already seen it happen once to Conan (and we'll have to return to the Barbarian again for another reluctant team-up with an enemy) and once to Kirby. It happened at least twice to El Borak.

"Son of the White Wolf" was published in the December 1936 issue of Thrilling Adventure magazine. This story is set during the First World War, during which Gordon allied himself with the British and helped out Lawrence of Arabia. But this time out, he's not going up against the Germans or the Ottomans. Instead, he runs across a band of Turks who have fallen under the sway of a madman--a man who plans to carve his own kingdom out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. He rescues a beautiful German spy from their clutches and runs for help. But he finds not the allies he was hoping to find, but a tribe of Arabs who fight for the Ottomans.

To stop the renegades, he must convince the Arabs that the mad would-be emperor is a danger to everyone. Then he has to lead the Arabs into a wild battle while simultaneously remaining wary of one of his erstwhile allies putting a bullet in his back.


But that wasn't the first time Gordon had to team-up with a deadly enemy. It also happened in "Blood of the Gods," which first appeared in the July 1935 issue of Top Notch magazine.

El Borak learns that a ruthless Englishman named Hawkston (along with Hawkston's band of thugs) has discovered where a hermit named Al Wazir is living. This particular hermit is owner of priceless rubies called the Blood of the Gods. Hawkston wants those rubies and he's willing to use murder and torture to get them. (Al Wazir's back story--explaining why he's a hermit and why he owns valuable treasure--is an interesting part of the story.)

Gordon is the hermit's friend, so he rides his camel across a trackless desert to find and protect Al Wazir. But a violent encounter with a band of Arabs (members of a tribe with whom he has a blood feud) leaves him on foot.

He still manages to reach the cliff-side caves in which Al Wazir is currently living. But the poor hermit--someone Gordon once knew as a compassionate and wise man--has degenerated into a homicidal maniac.

Then Hawkston shows up. But he's being pursued by the same Arabs who are also after Gordon. They've already killed Hawkston's followers, so the two men must team up to fight off their mutual enemy. If they survive that, then they can go back to killing each other over Al Wazir and the rubies.

"Son of the White Wolf" is a great story, but--even though it has some flaws--I really love "Blood of the Gods." Howard always does fantastic action scenes, but he outdoes himself in "Blood." There's a particularly intense hand-to-hand struggle at an oasis during Gordon's journey to the hermit's cave. The defense of the caves by Gordon and Hawkston against the attacking Arabs is equally intense and very exciting--involving both gun play and more hand-to-hand combat. And there's a sword fight at the stories climax that is nothing short of awesome.

I also like the way Gordon and Hawkston are portrayed when they are forced into a partnership. Howard makes it clear that Hawkston has no morals at all, but he's otherwise like Gordon in a lot of ways. Both men are brave, clever and experienced fighters. Hawkston is a sort of evil mirror image of Gordon. It's something that adds a lot of tension to an already tense situation.

This all makes me very forgiving of the story's flaws, which mostly relate to the plot structure. Most of the story is just fine in terms of good storytelling, but Howard relies a little too much on several unlikely contrivances at the denouement to get Gordon out of trouble and wrap up Al Wazir's story arc. And the ironic twist that ends the story is arguably predictable.

But that's okay. Awesome sword fights make everything better.

We still two more REH stories I want to look at--a Conan yarn set early in the barbarian's career and one involving the pirate Black Vulmea. Two more cases in which the protagonist must team up with a man who wants him dead. It's something that seems to be a genetic predisposition in Howard's adventurous heroes.

Alliance of Wolves

A month or so ago, I wrote about a Conan novella--The People of the Black Circle--in which one of the fun aspects of the story was Conan being forced to team up with an enemy. The two men had to work together until they achieved a specific goal, then they would go back to trying to kill one another.

This got me thinking about other stories in which Robert E. Howard used this plot device. He did it on one other occasion with Conan and once with 20th Century adventurer El Borak. We'll take a look at these stories eventually.

Today, we'll look at "Trail of the Blood-Stained God," which recounts an adventure of yet another 20th Century adventurer wandering around the Middle East. This is Kirby O'Donnell, an Irish-American brawler who--when the story first opens--is looking for a stolen treasure map in a dark alley located in a Mid-Eastern city.

This leads into a fast-moving and exuberant adventure yarn. Kirby is almost immediately involved in a fight against half-a-dozen opponents--not realizing he's actually fighting the map thieves while he's trying to rescue a man from being tortured. This is the first of several truly exciting fight scenes that Howard manages to fit comfortably and realistically into this fairly short story.

Soon after that, he teams up with a Persian named Hassan, who also knows about the map. Kirby knows Hassan will probably back-stab him after they find the treasure, but for now the two men need each other. The thieves have left the city, so the erstwhile partners pursue.

Soon after THAT, O'Donnell and Hassan find themselves trapped between the map thieves (led by an English renegade named Hawklin) and some local savage tribesmen. Outnumbered, Hawklin allows O'Donnell and Hassan to join him--leading to another great fight scene as the tribesmen try to overwhelm the small force. Later, with Hawklin now the only survivor of his group, he, Kirby and Hassan go after the treasure--each of them knowing that their alliance will only last as long as it takes to find it. Howard calls it an alliance of wolves--three skilled warriors who work together to survive and gain loot, then will without question try to carve each other up afterwards.

This very bare bones summary doesn't do justice to the story at all. Aside from the great action, it is a model of solid story construction--with one event leading logically into the next.

I didn't get to read this story in its original form until just a few years ago, when it was included in a Howard anthology. When I was a little one, I had read an L. Sprague de Camp re-write of the story that was included in the old Lancer paperbacks that anthologized the Conan stories.

de Camp's Conan pastiches generate a lot of strong emotion among REH fans. I myself don't hate them vehemently, but I don't think they're all that good. My opinion of de Camp is that he was an excellent writer, but with a prose style and a world-view that left him unqualified to write good Conan stories. His original Conan novels--such as Conan and the Spider God and Conan the Liberator--are actually quite dull.

The Conan version of "Bloodstained God" is probably the closest thing to a good Conan pastiche that de Camp did. This is in part because the story is so straightforward and in part because there was an opportunity to insert a supernatural element without it seeming contrived--a major drawback with other non-Conan stories that de Camp changed to fit into the Hyborian Age.

It (the Conan version) was also adapted into a comics story in 1977--with John Buscema's art work making it look too cool for words.

But the original REH story has an exuberance and a love of pure adventure to it that de Camp managed to lose when he re-wrote it. This shows through especially in the ending--de Camp's climax is a little depressing, while Howard's ending looked forward to more adventure, as well as tying the events of the whole story together more solidly.

Howard only wrote a few Kirby O'Donnell tales, but the Irish-American was a fun character with a real love of life that give his tales a unique ambiance. I wish we'd seen more of him. "Trail of the Blood-Stained God" didn't sell during Howard's lifetime, but it's a wonderful adventure yarn.

"If we succeed, and live, we can fight it out to see who keeps her."

There are certain cliches in adventure fiction that--as long as the surrounding story is well-written--I am a sucker for.

For instance, I love it when circumstances force guys who would normally kill each other on sight to team up with one another. It's a trope that Robert E. Howard seemed to enjoy. I just re-read the Conan novella People of the Black Circle (1934), in which this happens. I can think of three other Howard stories without even trying in which something similar occurs.

I'll probably do entries on the other three "enforced team-up" stories, since thinking about them makes me want to read them again. In fact, I briefly considered making this part of my "Read/Watch 'em in order" series, but each of these stories features a different character and aren't directly interconnected.

In Black Circle, Conan has become leader of a tribe of barbarian warriors who live near Vendhya, the Hyborian Age analog for India. He's hoping to weld other tribes together into an empire.

But there's other plots afoot as well--one of them involving spies from the nation of Turan teaming up with a sect of ancient and evil wizards to kill the king of Vendhya. (And not just kill him--but to steal his soul while doing so.)

Circumstances allow Conan to kidnap the Devi--the now-dead king's drop-dead gorgeous sister. Despite being pampered royalty, she soon proves herself to brave and intelligent, allowing her to rise above being a stereotypical damsel-in-distress.

Which is always a good sign in an original Conan story. The best of Howard's Conan tales often included a strong female character, while the weaker ones would sometimes involve whiny cry-baby girls who just scream a lot until they are rescued. I've nothing against damsels-in-distress. I just like it better when they seem to be worth the effort of rescuing.

Howard manages to weave several plot threads involving several different characters together to keep the story moving, inserting his typically awesome action sequences along the way. Eventually, the Devi is captured by the evil wizards and taken to their mountain fortress. To rescue her, Conan must team up with a Turanian spy named Kerim Shah, who has been searching for the Devi for reasons of his own. Though they would normally kill each other on sight, Conan, Kerim and the spy's small band of henchmen must team-up to rescue the girl. They figure they can kill each other afterwards to see who gets to keep her.

The motley crew must fight their way through both magical dangers and more prosaic threats to reach the fortress. Once there--well, they face even more horrific dangers. Howard's Conan stories often include elements of horror as well as adventure tropes.

But messing with Conan the Barbarian--even if you have nigh-godlike powers--is never a smart thing to do.

People of the Black Circle is one of the best Conan yarns. It's particularly notable in that at one point Howard has at least three sets of characters plus at least three large armed forces wandering around the Vendhyan border, but he keeps track of all of them quite nicely. The overall plot is not that complex, but there's enough going on so that it might have gotten muddled and confused in the hands of a lesser writer. But the various elements involved are sorted out and explained to us with Howard's typical skill. That guy really knew how to spin a yarn.

Pulp Era Story Reviews, Episode One

This is a video version of a past post. Since I'm apparently unable to do narration without stumbling over a sentence or two no matter how many takes I do, I'm not certain this is a successful enough experiment to repeat. But if I'm gonna go to all the effort to make the darn thing, SOMEONE is going to have to suffer through it.

My Kindle, a Barbarian, and an Ancient Evil

One of the nice things about owning a Kindle is the tons of pulp-era fiction available at little or no cost. It means I get to regularly re-visit my favorite stories or read stuff I've never run across before. Sometimes, it means I finally get to catch up on reading a story by a favorite author that I've managed to miss in the past.

That just happened with Robert E Howard's "Valley of the Worm." It's actually a fairly well-known story among his fans, so I'm a little embarrassed that I've never read it before. But I finally have and it's a really good one. It's about a prehistoric barbarian and his battle with a huge and immortal monster.  There is a truly epic battle at the tale's climax.

When Howard was at his best, his command of the English language and his ability to find just the right words to carry a story along was almost without peer in the pulp world. This story is indeed one of his best and works quite well as both an adventure tale and a horror tale. H.P. Lovecraft's influence on Howard is really apparent here. In fact, though I don't believe the story was intended to be part of Lovecraft's Cthulu cycle, it could easily be included in it.

For some edge-of-your-seat scares and great action, read the story for yourself:

VALLEY OF THE WORMS

The Best Team-up that Never Happened.

It’s not often that you find in Western literature a Cossack warrior as a hero. But in a series of superb adventure stories by pulp writer Harold Lamb (recently reprinted in four volumes, we do get to follow along with a Cossack as he gets caught up in one wild adventure after another.


Set in the last 16th Century, Lamb’s stories introduce us to Khlit, an aging warrior whose wits are as sharp (and often as deadly) as his sword. "His ability to think clearly into the future," we're told in one story, "had kept Khlit alive until his hair was gray, when few Cossacks lived to middle age."


Khlit gets around. In the first few stories, he’s hanging out with his fellow Cossacks. But despite constantly proving himself to be smarter than everyone else (and still a master swordsman), they think he’s getting too old to fight. So he wanders off on his own. At this point, his adventures really kick into high gear. He gets involved in finding the hidden tomb of Genghis Khan. He sneaks into a city of Assassins and finishes them off from the inside out. He gets accused of assassinating the emperor of China (who has really only been kidnapped by traitors). He gets hunted as prey by the Tartars. He has myriad single combats and fights in huge battles involving tens of thousands of soldiers. He fights and thinks his way out of prisons and certain death on a regular basis.


Lamb gave his stories consistently fun finales. There's be a twist--or we'd get to see the culmination of Khlit's plan in dealing with his current situation--then there would often be another bigger twist on top of that, highlighting just how clever the Cossask is.


These stories were printed in Adventure magazine between 1917 and 1926. Adventure was a unique pulp, taking pride in printing high quality stories that combined excitement with historical accuracy. Lamb’s stories were standouts even among works by Rafael Sabatini and Talbot Mundy. Khlit is one super-cool guy and Lamb’s prose is animated and lively.


Reading these stories (most of which have never been reprinted before) reminded me of the one other Cossack pulp hero that I’m aware of. Here we have to turn to a writer who admired and was highly influenced by Lamb’s stories—Robert E. Howard.


“The Shadow of the Vulture” is a novella published in the January 1934 issue of Magic Carpet Magazine. Here we first meet Red Sonya, a red-haired warrior woman who is helping to defend the city of Vienna against the Turks during the siege of 1529.

She also spends a lot of time defending Gottfried von Kalmbach, a knight who has a price on his head. Some years earlier, Gottfried had personally wounded the emperor Suleyman on the battlefield. Now Suleyman has sent his most ruthless soldier, Mikhal Oglu, to bring him Gottfried’s head. So the knight has not only survive a series of regular battles, but also watch his back for treachery.


Sonya is at first contemptuous of Gottfried, but she gradually warms up to him and they become companions on the battlefield (how far their companionship might eventually go is never made clear). And if you need someone to watch over you on the battlefield, you can’t do better than Sonya, whose “blade is a blur of white fire, and men went like ripe grain before the reaper.” She saves Gottfried—who is no slouch himself in a fight—at least three times; once after he’s kidnapped by double agents inside Vienna’s damaged walls. There is an absolutely wonderful shock at the story's climax.


The novella is yet another exciting example of Howard’s own storytelling skills. It’s sad that he never got around to writing any more stories about Gottfried and Sonya. In the 1970s Conan comic book published by Marvel, Red Sonya (now Red Sonja) was moved back to the Hyborian Age to team up with Conan. She’s been in sword-and-sorcery land ever since, both in comics and in a series of paperback novels published at some point in the 1970s. There was also what is reputed to be a very bad movie (I haven’t seen it) made in the 1980s.

So the original 16th Century Red Sonya is limited to her one appearance. It really is sad.


But while reading the Khlit stories, I got to thinking. It’s not impossible that Sonya—a few decades after the siege of Vienna—could have met a young Khlit. Maybe she returns to her homeland after adventuring around Europe and the Middle East for a couple of decades with Gottfried. Khlit might have been a youthful warrior, just getting started in the business of warfare. Maybe Sonya is the person who taught him his swordsmanship. Maybe they even had an adventure or two together.


It’s a nice thought. But, sadly, we'll never know for sure.

FINALLY back in print

Pulp writer Robert E. Howard churned out a lot of stuff that never saw print in his lifetime--most of which were great stories that really deserved to be read.


Howard never achieved much popular success during his short life (though he certainly did have his fans) and it wasn't until a couple of decades went by that his work began to be re-discovered and build up a following.


And he appears to be as popular today as he ever was. A lot of his stuff is coming back into print, most notably through a superb series of anthologies being put out by Del Ray. All his Conan stuff is there, as well as Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and  many of his non-series stories.


In fact, this past February saw the publication of El Borak and Other Desert Adventures. El Borak is the nick-name of Francis Xavier Gordon, a Texan who wanders around Afganistan and the Mid-East during the early 20th Century, getting into one violent adventure after another.All the short stories involving Gordon (and a few non-Gordon stories set in the same milieu) are here.


All the stories in this volume are slam-bang adventures, but one in particular is a favorite of mine. "Three-Bladed Doom" plops El Borak smack into a whole danged city of assassins, ruled by a man planning on using assassination and terror to set himself up as a behind-the-scenes ruler of much of Asia. There's political intrigue, treachery, escapes and captures, sword duels, a damsel in distress, a fight with a yeti (the closest thing to an overt fantasy element in any of these stories) and a full-scale battle at the climax.

It's amazing storytelling from start to finish--one of these "can't put it down" yarns that are a joy to read, combining compelling action sequences with clever plot construction and vivid characterizations.

The new Del Ray anthology actually contains two versions of the story. Howard originally wrote it as a 42,000-word novela. When that didn't sell, he re-wrote it as a 24,000-word short story.

Neither version found a market at the time. It wasn't until 1977 that the longer (and better) version saw print in a paperback. (It had, in the meantime, been re-written by L. Sprague de Camp into a Conan story, but this was a awkward and unsatisfying effort.)

That's where I first encountered this story. I've still got that paperback, in fact. But I'm glad that "Three-Bladed Doom" has found a back-in-print home. (Especially since it was offered in an electronic version as well--bringing my Kindle one step closer to being my perfect personal library.)  And it is interesting to compare both versions of the tale. I also appreciate the inclusion of "The Trail of the Blood-Stained God," another story that had been altered by de Camp into a Conan story. It was nice to finally read the original version of that one.



By the way, some of the El Borak stories have become public domain and are available online. Here's one that gives you a good idea of how much fun these stories are:  BLOOD OF THE GODS


Man, I only just re-read "Three-Bladed Doom," but now I want to read it again.