The Weird Works Of Robert E. Howard: Moon Of Skulls (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
It's only really dawned on me in recent years just how prolific Robert E. Howard was as a writer. He wrote a lot, no joke. When I first discovered Howard through those Ace Conan paperbacks, my interest never strayed too far from Conan. I read some Kull, some Bran Mak Morn, some Solomon Kane but never really explored Howard's writing past that. Getting into some of his other work has been a treat.Moon Of Skulls collects several "weird works" of Howard's, as the title suggests. Some of these weird works are poems. In his introduction, Mark Finn warns the reader against skipping these because he or she will miss some good writing. I agree. It struck me, reading "Dead Man's Hate" and "Black Chant Imperial" especially, that Howard was not a bad poet. He may not have been a great poet but he knew how to use his words."The Fearsome Touch Of Death" and "The Voice Of El-Lil" are two general sort of horror tales, the earlier being the better, in my humble opinion. They're good but, included as they are with "The Moon Of Skulls" and "The Hills Of The Dead" (both Solomon Kane stories), as well as "Skull-Face" (which originally appeared in two parts in Weird Tales), they get lost in the shuffle."Skull-Face" is almost a novella and is full of all sorts of mystery, intrigue, conspiracy and a great plot to destroy civilization. White civilization, as a matter of fact. I suppose, at some point, I'll have to get over the blatant racism (and sexism) of some of these authors from the earlier half of the 20th century. Howard was obviously in possession of a number of bigoted views and his pal, Lovecraft, was a confirmed racist as well. Clark Ashton Smith seems to have been the enlightened one of the bunch, but I don't know that for certain. It doesn't really detract from my enjoyment of their work, but I am unable to ignore it. I suppose, for me, it's similar to The Bad Brains being homophobic, blatantly so, in some cases, yet I still love their music, though anything after Quickness is pretty boring in my humble opinion. I suppose Howard and Lovecraft were products of their time but it's still disappointing to realize these talented authors were quite ignorant in many ways.The two Solomon Kane stories are my favorites from this collection. I find Solomon Kane, as a character, fascinating. The hell bent puritan hunts down and destroys evil with sword and pistol in hand. He's awesome, like an old world Punisher. Kane resonated with me as a kid because he was a righteous, pure hearted avenger who did what it took to right wrongs and destroy evil. Murder and mayhem are all in a day's work for Solomon Kane! I suppose today he would be considered a religious zealot and end up in jail but, in the 17th century, he was your only hope if you were a damsel who'd been kidnapped, changed hands quite a lot and ended up the prisoner of a beautiful yet horrible jungle queen.This Wildside Press collection is good but I am sold on the Del Rey Howard collections with their excellent essays and thorough scholarship. I can't wait to read the Del Rey Solomon Kane book.
Continuing the chronological reprinting of Howard's stories and poems in Weird Tales. This volume sees a more mature writer, capable of very precise plotting and a strong focus on decaying societies, which we saw a bit of in the Kull stories of Volume 1. The writing in general is better, but the there is a strong vibe of racial paranoia in this one that made me uncomfortable. While I understanding that you have to be prepared to take that into account when reading stories from this time period, it seemed to dominate the stories more so than in the first collection. There's too much of a focus on evil blacks/asians trying to take over the world for me to just chalk it up entirely to "he was just using the ideas of the time to tell a good story" which is the apology we get in the intro to this collection.The opening story, Skull-Face, is probably the worst offended on the racial scale, featuring a white drug addict who has to stop the evil asian drug-dealer from trying to take over. It also, as the introduction notes, is stuck between horror and action. Howard as a writer tended to do that, but usually one wins out over the other. In this case, the hybrid is stuck, and therefore, I think, stillborn. Howard is better as a writer of shorter fiction. The last story is mediocre, and can be easily skipped. Which I admit does not leave a lot of this book, but what's in the middle is the Howard I like. I still like the way Howard writes, and I feel he is very underrated as an author because of the ties to the Conan character. The Solomon Kane stories continue to be my favorite, as they have the best plots and Howard really takes the time to let you get to know Kane and why he is out there righting wrongs in the oddest of locations for a Puritan. He is a Warrior-Puritan, and we get to see all the contradictions that this entails. It's when he's looking at society from the outside in, and not when he's looking at oriental conspiracies, that we see Howard the writer really shine. Unfortunately, this grouping is not the best for that. (Library, 2006)Trebby's Takes: Still recommended, but there's a higher wince factor in this one.
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