Tuesday, January 03, 2006

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane -- Robert E. Howard


This year is the centenary of Robert E. Howard's birth, and the World Fantasy Convention in Austin will have a strong REH flavor. I plan to be there, and I'm thinking about the possibility of self-publishing a novel featuring Howard that a friend and I wrote about 25 years ago. I'm not sure I'll do it, but it might be fun.

At any rate, what better time to be reading some of Howard's stories than this year? I believe some people like the Solomon Kane stories better than the ones about Conan. I'm not one of those people, but I like some of the Kane tales quite a bit, including "The Moon of Skulls" and "The Hills of the Dead." Great titles!

This volume is supposed to be as close to Howard's original words as possible. Where typescripts weren't available, the texts from Weird Tales were used. The book includes all the Kane material, including unpublished fragments. Some of that material isn't top-notch Howard, if you ask me, which nobody did, and I could have done without it. But for Howard fans, it's a must.

No comments: