The Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights – John Steinbeck, 1976 ★★

Random Acts of Meaningless Violence

Sometimes I enjoy a book so much I don’t want to finish it. The tone, voice, and story cast such a spell I fear it can only end in disappointment. Should I put the book down forever, to hold onto that brief feeling before the author drives it off a cliff? Or do I press on?

The only time I actually chose Option A was while reading this. Just 12, I found myself swept away as John Steinbeck retold the legend of King Arthur in all its gnarly glory. As Arthur stood at a riverbank somewhere in England, having vanquished his enemies after a hard fight, I suspected the book would turn grey and depressing. So I put it away.

It would be decades before I returned to The Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights. Dammit, I was right:

The Savage Tales Of Solomon Kane – Robert E. Howard, 1998 ★★★½

Wrath of a Godless Puritan

Many action heroes offer at least some depth of character; few put their gut-wrenching angst on display like Solomon Kane.

A Puritan unable to rest while there is evil to confront and defeat, whatever the odds, Kane makes for uneasy company, torn between steadfast religious convictions and violent engagement with a world which mocks his belief in a compassionate Creator.

Robert E. Howard is best known today as the creator of Conan, but Kane may be his most enigmatic character, certainly his most existential one. Del Ray presents every original Kane story Howard produced between 1928 and 1932, along with some fragments and poems that only deepen his mystery.

Bran Mak Morn: The Last King – Robert E. Howard, 2005 ★★★

Requiem for a Forgotten Race

There is much to love in this collection of short fiction and poetry centered around a doomed race of pre-Celtic warriors, but mainly if you are a fan of the author going in.

Underneath Robert E. Howard the professional pulp writer of the 1920s and 1930s was a fighting primitive who rebelled against civilized constraints even though he knew he could only lose. In that light, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, from the classy continuing series of Howard story collections published by Del Ray, presents Howard in his element.

People who love Howard will want this book, for the different ways it highlights one of the writer’s signature characters, Bran Mak Morn, and more at the core, the Pictish race from which he sprang. But as Spinal Tap’s manager once said, their appeal is selective.

Kull: Exile Of Atlantis – Robert E. Howard, 2006 ★½ [Edited by Patrice Louinet]

First Forays into Fantasy

It can be tempting to review a book by reviewing the author, especially when the author is famous for other books. How does this compare to those? It’s sad sport, and brutally unfair, but here I go anyway.

This Del Ray short-story collection presents Robert E. Howard’s first fantasy hero, Kull, who escaped a dead-end life on the island of Atlantis to become king of Valusia, “Land of Enchantment,” and mighty champion against threats both human and otherwise.

So let’s get it out of the way now: Kull is Howard’s initial attempt at establishing a barbarian conqueror, very much a rough draft, with not nearly the same depth or vitality as Conan. But Kull came first.

The Conquering Sword Of Conan – Robert E. Howard, 2005 ★★★½ [Edited by Patrice Louinet]

Farewell to the Hyborian Age

Artists sometimes are most inspired when the world is caving in around them. The need to make sense of the suffering and chaos, or simply wail against the tide, can manifest itself in outstanding work.

Is that why it seems in writing his stories of Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard saved the best for last? Brilliant as his Conan stories typically are, I don’t know any that holds up as well as “Red Nails,” his final work which caps this third Del-Ray collection of Conan stories.

Yet I still prefer the first volume, The Coming Of Conan, and middle volume The Bloody Crown Of Conan over this. Howard may still offer Conan in all his glory, but the barbarian has shed his familiar world of prior creations for a starker, deeply alien setting. And the yarns Howard spins, while every bit as taut, are more gnarled and knotty.

The Bloody Crown Of Conan – Robert E. Howard, 2003 ★★★★½ [Edited by Patrice Louinet]

A Barbarian Takes Command

Killing people is easy; leading them is not. In this middle volume collecting the original stories, Conan the Cimmerian demonstrates he has the right stuff for both tasks.

Conan creator Robert E. Howard reveals similar adaptive skill. The first Del Ray Conan volume, The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian, showcased the vast range of Howard’s imagination; in this second volume we see the depth of his storycraft and world-building powers.

“From death to death it came, riding on a river of human blood. Blood feeds it, blood draws it. Its power is greatest when there is blood on the hands that grasp it, when it is wrested by slaughter from its holder. Wherever it gleams, blood is spilt and kingdoms totter, and the forces of nature are put in turmoil.”

Animal Farm – George Orwell, 1945 ★½

Grimm and Grimmer

Have you ever re-read one of those books they used to assign you back in school? Did you ever notice how almost-uniformly unpleasant they are to read today?

The Painted Bird is the most wretched of them, but there were a host of suicide stimuli on offer back in my day: The Lord Of The Flies, A Separate Peace, Crime And Punishment, The Bell Jar, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter and of course this story about what happens when an oppressed group of animals take over a farm.

Did they want to put us off reading forever? Did they want social media to take over the planet before it had even been invented?

The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian – Robert E. Howard, 2002 ★★★★ [Edited by Patrice Louinet]

Loving, Slaying, and Being Content

Where to begin with Conan the Barbarian? You have movies, comic books, computer games. A number of fantasy writers have taken their hacks and stabs at detailing the Cimmerian’s gore-soaked adventures, either under the Conan name or else a thinly-veiled alternate moniker.

But forget all that. Real Conan begins here with Robert E. Howard’s original stories, set in a mythical long-lost age, which Howard churned out for the pulp-fantasy market. They drench you with a spirit of adventure and appreciation for the splendor and squalor of a unique world:

Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of those doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking-jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face.

The Land Of Hidden Men – Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1931 ★★½

Lost and Found in an Ancient Jungle Kingdom

Somewhere in my primordial past, decades before my birth, a man looked deep into some misty realm and espied the half-naked youth, bounding across a jungle just a half-step ahead of deadly peril, whom I would someday become, if only in my imagination.

That man was Edgar Rice Burroughs, who put pen to paper and crafted fantasies for a boyhood I had yet to reach.

The Cave Girl – Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1913-17 ★

All Perspiration, No Inspiration

The strongest feeling you get, from both reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and reading about his amazing career, is how critical the principle of flow was for him.

There’s narrative flow: Keep everything moving all the time, so the reader keeps reading.

There’s concept flow: Always work in new ideas in your fiction, even when they closely resemble older ones.

Then there’s product flow: Never stop writing, because you need the money.

The Return Of The King - J. R. R. Tolkien, 1955 ★★★★½

Closing the Ring

The last of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Return Of The King strikes me as one of the great payoff books in Western literature. It may not be a perfect novel, yet it rewards the investment paid by the reader of prior LOTR installments, deepens and broadens the insights one gleaned from reading the other books, and, unless you are a goblin or troll, sends you away happy.

The Two Towers – J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954 ★★★

The Murky Middle

Any great trilogy would seem to require a strong middle piece, something that deepens one’s engagement with the material being explored.

So I’m struck at how J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy manages to be so spell-binding despite the murky muddle of a middle piece that is The Two Towers.

The Fellowship Of The Ring – J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954 ★★★★

One Ring to Rule Them All

The first book in J. R. R. Tolkien's epic trilogy makes for a fine scene-setter and a bit of a puzzler. 

Enormously different in tone and content from his earlier novel set in Middle Earth, The Hobbit, The Fellowship Of The Ring challenges you to read closely and pay attention. It often rewards you for the effort, but make no mistake, this ain't no pleasant Misty Mountain hop.

The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937 ★★★★

A Tall Tale that Gets Bigger and Bigger

A quaint, bucolic story about a little fellow who meets with big adventures, The Hobbit is the kind of book one expects to read to a young person over the course of several lazy Sunday afternoons. Is anyone else surprised it became the foundation stone for one of modern culture's most popular mythologies?

What struck me recently reading The Hobbit was the small-ball stuff, its readability and charm. Yes, its greatest legacy by far lies with it being the forerunner of fantasy fiction's greatest trilogy, a trilogy that does much more than The Hobbit giving life and breadth to its fantasy setting of Middle Earth. But what strikes me is not how meticulous a myth-maker author J. R. R. Tolkien was, but how instinctual his pacing and craft seemed to be.