Second Bk R E Howard

by Robert E. Howard

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425044556
• ISBN13: 9780425044551
• Release Date: March 1980
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Prize fighters, hard-boiled detectives and spicy adventurers

The cover of this book is mis-leading, showing a black-haired barbarian in full swing with an axe, declaring "from the creator of Conan the Barbarian!" in proud letters. Anyone expecting grim Conan and his world will be quite disappointed by this outstanding collection.Instead, "The Second Book of Robert E. Howard" gives us Howard's also-rans. Inside is a sort of sampler of the other styles of stories and pulps that he wrote for, offering one of each type. A boxing story, a western story, a hard-boiled detective story, a spicy adventure story, a straight adventure story, a French warrior-woman story, a deep-south swamp story, etc... In addition to these offerings, interspersed throughout are some of Howard's poetry, sometimes pretentious, sometimes great, sometimes silly. Many of these stories were never published in Howard's lifetime, and were only discovered after his death when going through his papers.Outstanding tales include "Black Canaan," the deep-south swamp story pitting the hero against a Conjure Man and "Sword Woman," a rollicking adventure story with it's red-haired heroin clearly resembling Red Sonja. A warning: Many of the stores contain language that is disturbingly racist by modern standards, and concepts that can be a bit hard to swallow. However, this was 1930's Texas, and the language and stories accurately reflect this.