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The Haunter of the Ring & Other Tales
The Haunter of the Ring and Other Tales by Robert E. Howard. From the unsurpassed imagination of the creator of Conan, Robert E. Howard, here are twenty-one tales of suspense, high adventure and Lovecraftian horror. Foul sacrifices are made to a reptilian God in Hungary, a werewolf prowls the corridors of a castle in strife-torn Africa, criminal masterminds on both sides of the Atlantic vie for world domination, an enchanted ring exerts a terrible influence upon its wearer...And, as written in the pages of the accursed Necronomicon and Unaussprechlichen Kulten, the Great Old Ones watch our world from beyond the void - and wait...
397 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 2007
11 people are currently reading
264 people want to read
About the author
Robert E. Howard
2,990 books2,651 followersRobert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. Howard wrote "over three-hundred stories and seven-hundred poems of raw power and unbridled emotion" and is especially noted for his memorable depictions of "a sombre universe of swashbuckling adventure and darkling horror."
He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.
—Wikipedia
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
He is well known for having created—in the pages of the legendary Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales—the character Conan the Cimmerian, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can only be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Count Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond.
—Wikipedia
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
March 24, 2012
Robert E. Howard will always be best remembered for his sword and sorcery tales, especially the Conan stories, but his work was extraordinarily varied. He wrote westerns, adventure stories, gothic horror and even detective stories. The one thread that connects all his work however is horror. Even when he wrote detective stories he still added a dimension of the horrific.
Wordsworth’s paperback The Haunter of the Ring and Other Stories is an excellent sampler of his non-sword and sorcery output, with a very strong emphasis on the gothic and the macabre.
It includes his classic Pigeons from Hell. There are a couple of werewolf tales. There are three detective stories, remarkably dark and gruesome.
Many of the stories deal with reincarnation or with what appear to be memories of past lives, or perhaps dim collective memories stored in certain arcane objects or certain accursed places. They are stories of events so horrible or so cataclysmic that the echoes remain centuries later. The Children of the Night and The Black Stone are notable examples, the latter a truly superb story, as is The Cairn on the Headland.
Black Wind Blowing is another impressive tale of dark deeds that return to haunt the present.
Thee are quite a few tales that draw on Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, not surprising since Howard was an important member of Lovecraft’s circle. The best writers in Lovecraft’s circle had a remarkable ability to influence each other without merely copying each other. They had their own voices and were confident enough in their own abilities to absorb influences without being swamped by them. The Children of the Night and The Fire of Asshurbanipal both draw on Lovecraft’s Mythos but with a definite Robert E. Howard flavour. Howard’s style is more violent and there’s a disturbing eroticism you won’t find in Lovecraft.
Howard was fascinated by the ideas of cultures in collision, and especially by conflicts between cultures at different levels of development, or between cultures of differing levels of barbarism. This is something that drives many of his best tales and he had the ability to capture the feel of cultures with wildly different ways of looking at the world compared to our own.
There’s plenty of horror here. While there’s more violence than there is in Lovecraft Howard’s horror does resemble Lovecraft’s in the sense that it’s not the physical threat you really have to worry about - it’s the cosmic horror that brings madness and undermines the very foundations of reason.
This is a fine collection - highly recommended.
Wordsworth’s paperback The Haunter of the Ring and Other Stories is an excellent sampler of his non-sword and sorcery output, with a very strong emphasis on the gothic and the macabre.
It includes his classic Pigeons from Hell. There are a couple of werewolf tales. There are three detective stories, remarkably dark and gruesome.
Many of the stories deal with reincarnation or with what appear to be memories of past lives, or perhaps dim collective memories stored in certain arcane objects or certain accursed places. They are stories of events so horrible or so cataclysmic that the echoes remain centuries later. The Children of the Night and The Black Stone are notable examples, the latter a truly superb story, as is The Cairn on the Headland.
Black Wind Blowing is another impressive tale of dark deeds that return to haunt the present.
Thee are quite a few tales that draw on Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, not surprising since Howard was an important member of Lovecraft’s circle. The best writers in Lovecraft’s circle had a remarkable ability to influence each other without merely copying each other. They had their own voices and were confident enough in their own abilities to absorb influences without being swamped by them. The Children of the Night and The Fire of Asshurbanipal both draw on Lovecraft’s Mythos but with a definite Robert E. Howard flavour. Howard’s style is more violent and there’s a disturbing eroticism you won’t find in Lovecraft.
Howard was fascinated by the ideas of cultures in collision, and especially by conflicts between cultures at different levels of development, or between cultures of differing levels of barbarism. This is something that drives many of his best tales and he had the ability to capture the feel of cultures with wildly different ways of looking at the world compared to our own.
There’s plenty of horror here. While there’s more violence than there is in Lovecraft Howard’s horror does resemble Lovecraft’s in the sense that it’s not the physical threat you really have to worry about - it’s the cosmic horror that brings madness and undermines the very foundations of reason.
This is a fine collection - highly recommended.
December 8, 2014
A very long time ago, when I was still in high school, Texas-born Robert E. Howard was one of my favorite authors, and this reader could not get enough of him, whether it was via such legendary characters as Conan the Cimmerian, King Kull, Solomon Kane or Bran Mak Morn. Flash forward more years than I’d care to admit, and one day I realized that I hadn't read a book of Howard's in all that intervening time. Sure, I'd run across the occasional story of his now and then; when your tastes run to vintage pulp fiction, as do mine, and you read a lot of old anthologies and Best of Weird Tales collections, the man is practically unavoidable. But an entire book devoted to Howard...it had been eons, for me. Thus, the collection entitled "The Haunter of the Ring & Other Tales"--a big, 400-page affair from Wordsworth Editions' economically priced Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural subdivision, which has rescued from oblivion dozens of writers of the macabre--was just too much for me to resist. The book includes a scholarly essay on Howard by M.J. Elliott, followed by no less than 21 of Howard's best tales (none of the stories deals with those four famous characters listed up top), conveniently arranged in chronological order so that the reader can better appreciate Howard's increasing skill as a wordsmith as he practiced his craft. Fourteen of these stories have been culled from the pages of "Weird Tales" (although the collection does not include his first story sold to the legendary magazine, "Spear and Fang," from the 7/25 issue) and the rest from other competing pulp publications: "Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror," "Strange Detective Stories," "Super-Detective Stories" and "Thrilling Mystery." Chronologically, the tales span Howard's entire writing career, from 1925 until the posthumously released "Pigeons From Hell" in 1938 (two years after Howard's suicide, at age 30). And, as it turns out, the book is a wonderful overview of REH's enormous oeuvre. I just ate this book up, and absolutely loved each and every story in it. Simply stated, this is one helluva collection.
As for the tales themselves, Howard wrote in many different genres--although he almost single-handedly created the genre now known as sword & sorcery--and many of his genres are represented here. The collection kicks off with two tales dealing with a French werewolf named de Montour. "In the Forest of Villefore" serves as merely a short introduction, but its sequel, "Wolfshead" (the cover story of the 4/26 "Weird Tales"), is a tremendously exciting affair that transpires in East Africa, of all places, and gives the reader an explanation of how werewolves arose in the first place. Howard was a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard, and his story "The Hyena" is surely reminiscent of those two great writers. He was also a fan of Fu Manchu creator Sax Rohmer, and in the novella-length "Skull-Face," Howard does a Rohmer pastiche that is dead-on, replacing the Chinese supervillain with Kathulos, a diabolical mastermind posing as an Egyptian, but who is ultimately revealed to be (slight spoiler ahead) a survivor of the lost continent of Atlantis! This pulpy tale, crudely written as it is (it ran as a three-part serial in "Weird Tales" in late 1929), is still wonderfully entertaining, and remarkably, features the destruction of 1/10 of London! Howard, of course, was also a fan of (and penpals with) his fellow "Weird Tales" contributor H.P. Lovecraft, and his short tale "Sea Curse" is a very well-done homage. Howard was fond of referencing Lovecraft's Elder Gods (such as Cthulhu) in his own stories, as well as Lovecraft's dreaded book "The Necronomicon," and likewise, Lovecraft would repay the favor by mentioning Howard's imaginary evil tome "Nameless Cults" in his own tales. The collection in question gives us two marvelous stories featuring Howard's infamous book: "The Black Stone," a marvelously written piece in which an ancient Hungarian monolith gives an explorer a glimpse of a horrible worship ceremony centuries ago, and its sequel of sorts, "The Thing on the Roof," in which another explorer in the Yucatan somehow arouses the wrath of a toad-shaped monstrosity.
In three of the stories here, men are vouchsafed a vision of one of their previous lives, via a knock on the head or magical influence. Thus, in "The Children of the Night," a man sees himself as a warrior battling the inhuman inhabitants of England who predated the Picts (in this story, a character mentions that the three greatest horror stories ever written are Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," Arthur Machen's "Black Seal"...and Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu"!); in "People of the Dark," a man sees himself as Conan the Reaver (NOT the same character that Howard is most famous for), battling a subterranean people, set against a love triangle dealing with a triple reincarnation (!); and in the oft-anthologized "The Cairn on the Headland," an Irishman flashes back to the time when he helped fight off the Vikings in the year 1014.
And speaking of stories that have been anthologized often, and for good reason, the collection also includes the wonderful tale "The Thing From the Mound," a Western/vampire hybrid story, as well as the truly frightening horror masterpiece "Pigeons From Hell"; this is the story that introduced readers to the female creature known as the "zuvembie," an even scarier proposition than a zombie, trust me! Continuing in the Western vein, the collection gives us "Black Wind Blowing," in which a modern-day Texas cowboy goes up against the monstrous cult known as the Black Brothers of Ahriman. Then there is the ubercreepy tale "The Fearsome Touch of Death"; the title story, "The Haunter of the Ring," in which a pleasant young woman is somehow being compelled to make repeated murder attempts on her husband; and "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," a tale very much in the sword & sorcery vein (the cover story of the 12/36 "Weird Tales"), in which two modern-day explorers in the Arabian desert discover a lost city, an invaluable gem...and its hideous guardian....
Howard, to expand his market for selling stories, and on the advice of his agent, Otis Adelbert Kline, began, in 1933, to write crime and detective fiction, but always included some grisly or macabre touch, of course. This collection gives us four such detective tales. In "Black Talons," an historian and a private dick team up to battle a pantherish killer from Africa. Howard would write 10 stories featuring River Street detective Steve Harrison, one of which is deemed lost forever, and the Wordsworth collection gives us three of these wonderful tales. In the senselessly titled "Fangs of Gold," Harrison pursues a Chinese murderer to a Southern bayou, where he witnesses a shocking voodoo ceremony. In "Names in the Black Book," Harrison and his allies, including a remarkably tough Afghani, go up against another Fu-like mastermind, Erlik Khan, and his criminal horde of Mongolians. And in the amazingly grisly "Graveyard Rats," Harrison tries to discover who has been killing four brothers one by one, and almost gets eaten alive by the titular rodents in the process, leading to this wonderful paragraph, which practically typifies pulp fiction in a nutshell:
"In a murdered man’s grave, his hand locked in the coffin of a headless corpse, with a thousand grey ghoul-rats ready to tear the flesh from his living frame!"
These three Harrison stories are so much fun, incidentally, that this reader is tempted now to splurge for the $40 hardcover "Steve Harrison Casebook," which includes all nine extant Harrison stories, and is currently available from the Robert E. Howard Foundation.
Howard, of course, may not be everyone's cup of tea, and those readers who relish polished diction and meticulous prose (a la the works of, say, Clark Ashton Smith), and who are easily put off by blood, torture, violence, grisly mayhem, monsters, battle carnage and suchlike, will probably have a tough time here. Howard's style is very much masculine, rugged and no-nonsense, and his tales proceed with a virile drive and an emphasis on fast-moving plot. For many, though, including myself, the man’s work is irresistibly fun, and this Wordsworth collection (despite featuring more typographical errors than any book should be allowed to have) proves to be a most excellent compendium of his legendary career. How nice to reacquaint myself with my old high school pal! More than highly recommended!
(This review, by the way, originally appeared on the Fantasy Literature website--http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ --a most excellent destination for all fans of Robert E. Howard!)
As for the tales themselves, Howard wrote in many different genres--although he almost single-handedly created the genre now known as sword & sorcery--and many of his genres are represented here. The collection kicks off with two tales dealing with a French werewolf named de Montour. "In the Forest of Villefore" serves as merely a short introduction, but its sequel, "Wolfshead" (the cover story of the 4/26 "Weird Tales"), is a tremendously exciting affair that transpires in East Africa, of all places, and gives the reader an explanation of how werewolves arose in the first place. Howard was a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard, and his story "The Hyena" is surely reminiscent of those two great writers. He was also a fan of Fu Manchu creator Sax Rohmer, and in the novella-length "Skull-Face," Howard does a Rohmer pastiche that is dead-on, replacing the Chinese supervillain with Kathulos, a diabolical mastermind posing as an Egyptian, but who is ultimately revealed to be (slight spoiler ahead) a survivor of the lost continent of Atlantis! This pulpy tale, crudely written as it is (it ran as a three-part serial in "Weird Tales" in late 1929), is still wonderfully entertaining, and remarkably, features the destruction of 1/10 of London! Howard, of course, was also a fan of (and penpals with) his fellow "Weird Tales" contributor H.P. Lovecraft, and his short tale "Sea Curse" is a very well-done homage. Howard was fond of referencing Lovecraft's Elder Gods (such as Cthulhu) in his own stories, as well as Lovecraft's dreaded book "The Necronomicon," and likewise, Lovecraft would repay the favor by mentioning Howard's imaginary evil tome "Nameless Cults" in his own tales. The collection in question gives us two marvelous stories featuring Howard's infamous book: "The Black Stone," a marvelously written piece in which an ancient Hungarian monolith gives an explorer a glimpse of a horrible worship ceremony centuries ago, and its sequel of sorts, "The Thing on the Roof," in which another explorer in the Yucatan somehow arouses the wrath of a toad-shaped monstrosity.
In three of the stories here, men are vouchsafed a vision of one of their previous lives, via a knock on the head or magical influence. Thus, in "The Children of the Night," a man sees himself as a warrior battling the inhuman inhabitants of England who predated the Picts (in this story, a character mentions that the three greatest horror stories ever written are Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," Arthur Machen's "Black Seal"...and Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu"!); in "People of the Dark," a man sees himself as Conan the Reaver (NOT the same character that Howard is most famous for), battling a subterranean people, set against a love triangle dealing with a triple reincarnation (!); and in the oft-anthologized "The Cairn on the Headland," an Irishman flashes back to the time when he helped fight off the Vikings in the year 1014.
And speaking of stories that have been anthologized often, and for good reason, the collection also includes the wonderful tale "The Thing From the Mound," a Western/vampire hybrid story, as well as the truly frightening horror masterpiece "Pigeons From Hell"; this is the story that introduced readers to the female creature known as the "zuvembie," an even scarier proposition than a zombie, trust me! Continuing in the Western vein, the collection gives us "Black Wind Blowing," in which a modern-day Texas cowboy goes up against the monstrous cult known as the Black Brothers of Ahriman. Then there is the ubercreepy tale "The Fearsome Touch of Death"; the title story, "The Haunter of the Ring," in which a pleasant young woman is somehow being compelled to make repeated murder attempts on her husband; and "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," a tale very much in the sword & sorcery vein (the cover story of the 12/36 "Weird Tales"), in which two modern-day explorers in the Arabian desert discover a lost city, an invaluable gem...and its hideous guardian....
Howard, to expand his market for selling stories, and on the advice of his agent, Otis Adelbert Kline, began, in 1933, to write crime and detective fiction, but always included some grisly or macabre touch, of course. This collection gives us four such detective tales. In "Black Talons," an historian and a private dick team up to battle a pantherish killer from Africa. Howard would write 10 stories featuring River Street detective Steve Harrison, one of which is deemed lost forever, and the Wordsworth collection gives us three of these wonderful tales. In the senselessly titled "Fangs of Gold," Harrison pursues a Chinese murderer to a Southern bayou, where he witnesses a shocking voodoo ceremony. In "Names in the Black Book," Harrison and his allies, including a remarkably tough Afghani, go up against another Fu-like mastermind, Erlik Khan, and his criminal horde of Mongolians. And in the amazingly grisly "Graveyard Rats," Harrison tries to discover who has been killing four brothers one by one, and almost gets eaten alive by the titular rodents in the process, leading to this wonderful paragraph, which practically typifies pulp fiction in a nutshell:
"In a murdered man’s grave, his hand locked in the coffin of a headless corpse, with a thousand grey ghoul-rats ready to tear the flesh from his living frame!"
These three Harrison stories are so much fun, incidentally, that this reader is tempted now to splurge for the $40 hardcover "Steve Harrison Casebook," which includes all nine extant Harrison stories, and is currently available from the Robert E. Howard Foundation.
Howard, of course, may not be everyone's cup of tea, and those readers who relish polished diction and meticulous prose (a la the works of, say, Clark Ashton Smith), and who are easily put off by blood, torture, violence, grisly mayhem, monsters, battle carnage and suchlike, will probably have a tough time here. Howard's style is very much masculine, rugged and no-nonsense, and his tales proceed with a virile drive and an emphasis on fast-moving plot. For many, though, including myself, the man’s work is irresistibly fun, and this Wordsworth collection (despite featuring more typographical errors than any book should be allowed to have) proves to be a most excellent compendium of his legendary career. How nice to reacquaint myself with my old high school pal! More than highly recommended!
(This review, by the way, originally appeared on the Fantasy Literature website--http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ --a most excellent destination for all fans of Robert E. Howard!)
June 22, 2021
Very well written and imaginative short story collection. Runs the gamut from detectives, vampires, werewolves, Lovecraftian cosmic horror cults and a lot of past life/ancestral regression. I will definitely check out Howard’s Conan The Barbarian books, by all accounts his central achievement.
July 23, 2011
All this talk of "gritty fantasy" made me want to get back into some classic REH!
I read this slowly over the course of about five months and loved every second of it. This is a surprisingly dense book--thin pages and small type. The stories range from the pretty good to the extraordinary. REH fans and anyone interested in classic pulp fiction are hereby assigned this book.
I read this slowly over the course of about five months and loved every second of it. This is a surprisingly dense book--thin pages and small type. The stories range from the pretty good to the extraordinary. REH fans and anyone interested in classic pulp fiction are hereby assigned this book.
November 1, 2020
This edition is edited, the racism of Howard is significantly trimmed down, you should be aware of this, I don't like the fact that it isn't mentioned in the introduction. A book is meant to be read in the way the author intended, racist or not...
P. S. There are whole sentences missing, granted the sentences described awful racist stuff, but again...
P. S. There are whole sentences missing, granted the sentences described awful racist stuff, but again...
August 31, 2015
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The Steve Harrison stories dragged a bit but I couldn't read the others quickly enough.
December 31, 2023
With Howard there is indeed the odd bit of ‘of its time’ unfortunate furniture to navigate in his fiction. And yet, Howard’s tense prose, tightly plotted stories, and pacing show why he has been such a huge influence on the fantasy and horror genres. These are pulp treats, tales from a unique period not just in genre fiction but in American literature itself.
April 17, 2013
Just love Howard and these overlooked works come in a superbly edited edition - shame it isn't in hardback)
March 21, 2022
Robert E Howard, most famous as the creator of Conan the Barbarian, was a writer for hire. Almost exclusively, he wrote for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. As such, he was often writing to order, and to strict deadlines. Therefore, it is not surprising that when his modern-day (i.e. those set in the 1920s/30s) stories are collected together, a reader can spot many recycled ideas and themes.
Race memory is a favoured trope, with the hero receiving a blow to the head and reliving the exploits of a distant ancestor, before awakening and utilising this newfound knowledge gained from second-hand memory.
Also on display is the rampant racism of the period. Interestingly, Howard's modern-day stories often portray Oriental characters as the villains, leaving African characters to be the antagonists in his fantasy stories. I suspect he was instructed to write something in the vein of the Fu Manchu stories that were popular at the time. He also displays a soft-spot for Afghan characters, portraying them as fierce, loyal and noble partners of the heroes.
Regardless of setting, Howard's heroes are all cut from the same cloth as Conan; they are tall, rangy, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, scorning education and civilisation in search of adventure and wild, untamed lands. Similarly, the women are all young, beautiful, long-limbed and supple (that last word gets used a lot!)
Reading Howard's stories is like eating a slice of rich chocolate cake; highly enjoyable as a guilty pleasure. However, after the second slice, you really don't want any more for a while.
Race memory is a favoured trope, with the hero receiving a blow to the head and reliving the exploits of a distant ancestor, before awakening and utilising this newfound knowledge gained from second-hand memory.
Also on display is the rampant racism of the period. Interestingly, Howard's modern-day stories often portray Oriental characters as the villains, leaving African characters to be the antagonists in his fantasy stories. I suspect he was instructed to write something in the vein of the Fu Manchu stories that were popular at the time. He also displays a soft-spot for Afghan characters, portraying them as fierce, loyal and noble partners of the heroes.
Regardless of setting, Howard's heroes are all cut from the same cloth as Conan; they are tall, rangy, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, scorning education and civilisation in search of adventure and wild, untamed lands. Similarly, the women are all young, beautiful, long-limbed and supple (that last word gets used a lot!)
Reading Howard's stories is like eating a slice of rich chocolate cake; highly enjoyable as a guilty pleasure. However, after the second slice, you really don't want any more for a while.
August 12, 2020
A large collection of REH's weird tales, all with some kind of supernatural bent. Werewolf stories, west Texas stories, swamp stories, Middle Eastern stories, detective stories, past-life regression stories, British gentlemen stories, and tales of old Ireland are all represented here. REH references Lovecraft often, mentioning the Necronomicon as well as some of the Old Gods: Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, and Gol-goroth even makes a personal appearance a time or two. REH's homage to Sax Rohmer is here with his Dr. Fu-Manchu inspired "Skullface", as well as his answer to Lovecraft's claim that no horror story could be set in the South, "Pigeons from Hell". There is even a direct connection to Conan the Barbarian, but that comes in the ring from "Haunter of the Ring" and not the story with Conan the Reaver. Probably the best edition of REH's weird stories available, with all the best stories collected in one place.
March 20, 2019
Though some of the stories in this collection are campy and uncomfortably racist, others are classics that rival the best of Lovecraft. Standouts include "Graveyard Rats," "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," and "Pigeons from Hell," which despite the terrible name is one of the greatest horror shorts I have read, period. Definitely worth a read if you are like me and enjoy Lovecraftian horror.
August 14, 2022
Although Howard's horror writing occasionally shifts away from the macho posturing which characterises most of his writing, ultimately the undercurrent of racial animosity which pollutes much of his work seeps in here too. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
July 28, 2018
Not all of them are good stories..the best IMO are "The Black Stone" and "The Fire Of Asshurbanipal"
October 27, 2025
A brilliant collection of short stories
January 17, 2017
To be honest, I doubt many would challenge me when I say that If we hadn't read any Conan stories, we would not have bothered to pick up a copy of this book by the same author. Well to be even more franc, the sole reason this book exists is due to Conan the reaver of Cimmeria. there were a whole bunch of people writing for weird tales and similar magazines in the early 20th century but save for Robert E. Howard and H.P Lovecraft they have all vanished from the public memory and only those who look can find the rest. Does that mean the book (or should I say collection) was bad? Not at all, it was worthwhile for several reasons.
Several of these stories have aged surprisingly well and if one keeps in mind that all of these (except when explicitly stated otherwise) took place in the 1920ties and 30ties they turn into glimpses of a bygone time. I was particularly surprised by the knowledge this man had for his time. Ahriman, Odin, Picts, Voodoo, far eastern mythos and a lot more, all of it dramatized and or demonized to some extent but still. One gets an idea of what kind of knowledge the writers and readers of the underground US pulp scene had, the same crowd that embraced Mr Crowley and early satanism and made the path for 1960 occult interest.
this aided a lot in setting the mood of the stories, most of which gripped quite quickly and several did in fact gave me chills (a feeling I have rarely experienced when reading horror novels/stories). But even if they can quite easily be read by someone who has never read or heard of Conan, I do believe some knowledge of the world of Conan does add to the fun of reading these stories. I always smiled when Stygian as an adverb was brought up and some descriptions of tiger like brawlers, cunning rogues or sinister shadowy power hunger individuals always made me think of the well read Conan collection I have in my library. Even Conan and Thot-Amon make a sort of Cameo in two stories to my delight.
And then there is Lovecraft, Robert's penpall and fellow Cuthulluh mythos writer, Robert only did a few stories in the setting of Cuthulluh but I found them intriguing for his different approach. While Lovecraft clearly believes in a sort of pointless to resist against the cosmic horror to be the core of the mythos, Robert does not follow that idea. His characters rise to fight and resist and are far from helpless. One clearly sees an influence of background here, Lovecraft was at home in new England and it's small towns and gloomy cities, filled with melancholic people. Robert E Howard from boomtown Central Texas on the other hand gives us self reliant though but resourceful countrymen and brawling but cunning detectives ready for action. Besides the mythos stories we get a few historical stories (involving shapeshifters), a bunch of detective/justice dark mystery stories, several reincarnation stories and a few man stumbling onto something they should have left alone stories. All of which the endings surprised me to some extent and gripped my attention to the very end.
Off course there is the elephant in the room, racism. When discussing authors of this period in time one has to address it. We do get a lot and I mean a lot of non western characters with Latino's, Afro Americans, Middle-Easterners, Sikhs, Afghans, Chinese and Mongols all making an appearance. So Diversity points for Robert E Howard (even if women are reduced to damsels in distress with a few noted exceptions. But racism, well on the one hand he writes in clichés, with voodoo practices and opium dens as well as a sort of veil of oriental danger that reminded me of Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom. On the other hand I never got a feeling of looking down or inferiority added to these characters. Afghans of all people are consistently described as heroic and honorable while the more evil and despicable characters get clear motives for their actions. So I would say that Robert E Howard wrote in easily recognizable stereotypes for an audience accustomed to them but unlike Lovecraft the WASP (white Anglo Saxon Protestant) is not as explicitly presented as a superior being and is in fact equally limited or guided by certain cultural patters which does give Robert a leg up compared to his penpall (we even get a name dropping of Franz Boas father of modern anthropology). I would identify Lovecraft as a racial thinker/writer (a person who believes people differ due to biological differences ) while Robert E Howard would be a cultural thinker/writer (a person who believes people act and think differently due to their differing cultural background and living conditions). All which makes Robert E Howard a writer I find a lot more easily to digest as a modern reader then his contemporary Lovecraft even if his deterministic interpretation of culture is a bit outdated.
So overall very interesting, intriguing and chilling stories both for fans of the author, the period, the dark mystery setting and lovers of no guts no glory type of characters.
Several of these stories have aged surprisingly well and if one keeps in mind that all of these (except when explicitly stated otherwise) took place in the 1920ties and 30ties they turn into glimpses of a bygone time. I was particularly surprised by the knowledge this man had for his time. Ahriman, Odin, Picts, Voodoo, far eastern mythos and a lot more, all of it dramatized and or demonized to some extent but still. One gets an idea of what kind of knowledge the writers and readers of the underground US pulp scene had, the same crowd that embraced Mr Crowley and early satanism and made the path for 1960 occult interest.
this aided a lot in setting the mood of the stories, most of which gripped quite quickly and several did in fact gave me chills (a feeling I have rarely experienced when reading horror novels/stories). But even if they can quite easily be read by someone who has never read or heard of Conan, I do believe some knowledge of the world of Conan does add to the fun of reading these stories. I always smiled when Stygian as an adverb was brought up and some descriptions of tiger like brawlers, cunning rogues or sinister shadowy power hunger individuals always made me think of the well read Conan collection I have in my library. Even Conan and Thot-Amon make a sort of Cameo in two stories to my delight.
And then there is Lovecraft, Robert's penpall and fellow Cuthulluh mythos writer, Robert only did a few stories in the setting of Cuthulluh but I found them intriguing for his different approach. While Lovecraft clearly believes in a sort of pointless to resist against the cosmic horror to be the core of the mythos, Robert does not follow that idea. His characters rise to fight and resist and are far from helpless. One clearly sees an influence of background here, Lovecraft was at home in new England and it's small towns and gloomy cities, filled with melancholic people. Robert E Howard from boomtown Central Texas on the other hand gives us self reliant though but resourceful countrymen and brawling but cunning detectives ready for action. Besides the mythos stories we get a few historical stories (involving shapeshifters), a bunch of detective/justice dark mystery stories, several reincarnation stories and a few man stumbling onto something they should have left alone stories. All of which the endings surprised me to some extent and gripped my attention to the very end.
Off course there is the elephant in the room, racism. When discussing authors of this period in time one has to address it. We do get a lot and I mean a lot of non western characters with Latino's, Afro Americans, Middle-Easterners, Sikhs, Afghans, Chinese and Mongols all making an appearance. So Diversity points for Robert E Howard (even if women are reduced to damsels in distress with a few noted exceptions. But racism, well on the one hand he writes in clichés, with voodoo practices and opium dens as well as a sort of veil of oriental danger that reminded me of Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom. On the other hand I never got a feeling of looking down or inferiority added to these characters. Afghans of all people are consistently described as heroic and honorable while the more evil and despicable characters get clear motives for their actions. So I would say that Robert E Howard wrote in easily recognizable stereotypes for an audience accustomed to them but unlike Lovecraft the WASP (white Anglo Saxon Protestant) is not as explicitly presented as a superior being and is in fact equally limited or guided by certain cultural patters which does give Robert a leg up compared to his penpall (we even get a name dropping of Franz Boas father of modern anthropology). I would identify Lovecraft as a racial thinker/writer (a person who believes people differ due to biological differences ) while Robert E Howard would be a cultural thinker/writer (a person who believes people act and think differently due to their differing cultural background and living conditions). All which makes Robert E Howard a writer I find a lot more easily to digest as a modern reader then his contemporary Lovecraft even if his deterministic interpretation of culture is a bit outdated.
So overall very interesting, intriguing and chilling stories both for fans of the author, the period, the dark mystery setting and lovers of no guts no glory type of characters.
May 20, 2024
A terrific collection of short stories from one of the original and best authors of Lovecraftian, swashbuckling, and pulp fiction. A fun, creepy read.
March 7, 2017
There's lots of barriers in the way of truly enjoying a lot of these stories. Howard's blinkered view of the world as being backwards and barbaric is pretty offensive by today's standards, but he does have a good eye for mystery and the supernatural. I generally like his style better when he's dealing with murder mysteries and classic horror. Wolfshead and The Black Stone became instant favourites because they're drenched in mysticism and have an otherworldly quality to them that's a joy to read. Just a shame a lot of the stories refer to ancient man as "mongoloids" and portray Arabs as evil, conniving tricksters, hell bent on destroying the Western world.
August 23, 2015
A hugely diverse collection of weird fiction by the grand master of quick-paced, erudite pulp fiction. Haunter of The Ring: And Other Tales is a truly magnificent collection, and its influence is clearly felt today; (clearly many unspectacular screenwriters have been filching from Howard for years!) Interestingly, these stories are less Lovecraftian than I was initially led to believe; the full-blooded, steel-thewed thrust of Conan and Solomon Kane is more evident, which, for me, is an absolute boon; but the palpably eerie stories therein that were suggestive of the Mythos were absolutely outstanding.
Howard himself claims that he wasn't best equipped for writing Gothic horror, but I sincerely feel that this sublime collection wholly belies that fact; suggesting to me that it was a great shame indeed that he didn't write any more tales darkly befouled by the dreaded learning of Friedrich Wilhelm Von Junzt's'Unaussprechlichen Kulten'; his malefic tome ably translated by Lovecraft himself as 'Nameless Cults'.
Howard's supremely vivid imagination is highly sensual and seemingly limitless in scope; his fabulously exhilarating Canon is replete with some of the finest genre writing of all time; and yet, I sincerely feel that he hasn't received his due by the absurdly myopic literary cognoscenti.
This is one of those infernally rare books that I didn't really want to finish; since Howard's tremendous ability to grip me from the first page is only equaled by Clark Ashton Smith.Robert E. Howard was blessed with a rare talent; clearly a writer's writer; but outside of that, Howard had a genuinely uncanny ability to make the utterly preposterous and wholly bizarre appear entirely believable, and that is the greatest gift a weaver of fantastic fictions can possess.
Being from the UK I have no idea how Mr. Howard's sublime oeuvre is regarded in the US; I'd very much like to think that he is as highly thought of there as he is by me.
There really should be a Robert E. Howard award for achieving excellence in the fecund field of genre writing: maybe there is one? (that would be a cheery thought)Frankly, he had me with Conan, but recently discovering the myriad joys of 'Haunter of The Ring: And other Tales' proved to be a giddy revelation. I really enjoyed his Sax Rohmer pastiche 'Skull-Face', and can only bemoan that he didn't write more of them. And yes, 'Pigeons From Hell' really is as good as they say it is! Granted, my appraisal is absurdly gushing, for the prosaic reason that I find his work genuinely thrilling; and it doesn't surprise me that H.P. Lovecraft wrote so enthusiastically about Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith as they are both unmatched, and will, ultimately, prove to be more influential than even Lovecraft himself; due in no small part to their being superior prose stylists.
Howard himself claims that he wasn't best equipped for writing Gothic horror, but I sincerely feel that this sublime collection wholly belies that fact; suggesting to me that it was a great shame indeed that he didn't write any more tales darkly befouled by the dreaded learning of Friedrich Wilhelm Von Junzt's'Unaussprechlichen Kulten'; his malefic tome ably translated by Lovecraft himself as 'Nameless Cults'.
Howard's supremely vivid imagination is highly sensual and seemingly limitless in scope; his fabulously exhilarating Canon is replete with some of the finest genre writing of all time; and yet, I sincerely feel that he hasn't received his due by the absurdly myopic literary cognoscenti.
This is one of those infernally rare books that I didn't really want to finish; since Howard's tremendous ability to grip me from the first page is only equaled by Clark Ashton Smith.Robert E. Howard was blessed with a rare talent; clearly a writer's writer; but outside of that, Howard had a genuinely uncanny ability to make the utterly preposterous and wholly bizarre appear entirely believable, and that is the greatest gift a weaver of fantastic fictions can possess.
Being from the UK I have no idea how Mr. Howard's sublime oeuvre is regarded in the US; I'd very much like to think that he is as highly thought of there as he is by me.
There really should be a Robert E. Howard award for achieving excellence in the fecund field of genre writing: maybe there is one? (that would be a cheery thought)Frankly, he had me with Conan, but recently discovering the myriad joys of 'Haunter of The Ring: And other Tales' proved to be a giddy revelation. I really enjoyed his Sax Rohmer pastiche 'Skull-Face', and can only bemoan that he didn't write more of them. And yes, 'Pigeons From Hell' really is as good as they say it is! Granted, my appraisal is absurdly gushing, for the prosaic reason that I find his work genuinely thrilling; and it doesn't surprise me that H.P. Lovecraft wrote so enthusiastically about Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith as they are both unmatched, and will, ultimately, prove to be more influential than even Lovecraft himself; due in no small part to their being superior prose stylists.
February 22, 2017
From the creator of Conan, a sublime book of understated horror and mystery. Lovecraftian tales, tales of mystery from the East, or set in cowboy country, there's far more to RE Howard than Conan. For short stories which were written between 1925 and 1936, these, by and large, stand up exceedingly well. Some are a little overly straightforwards at times, but there's still plenty of unexpected delights.
November 11, 2011
Whenever we think about R.E. Howard, certain mythical images of gigantic, brooding men, with "smouldering" eyes, automatically emerge. But in the process we tend to forget that Howard, under pressure from market conditions, had tried to expand his market by trying his hand in several genres apart from the "sword & sorcery" stuff, as well. Since he was a regular (if not the foremost) contributor to Weird Tales, and also a protege of H.P. Lovecraft, it was inevitable that he would create several horror stories that would fit the requirement of that magazine ideally, while retaining his own vitality and tight narrative structure. This book, with the incredible pricing provided by Wordsworth, is bursting at the seam with such stories. Amongst them there are numerous gems which we overlook while thinking about the mythical men from Atlantis, Cimmeria, Pictish Britain, and medieval Europe & Asia. There are solid "southern" horror tales, best represented by: "Pigeons from Hell" (alone worth the price of the book). There are Cthulhu-mythos tales like "The Black Stone" and "The Thing on the Roof". There are blood-curdling vampire stories and stories of ancient horrors that wait for the over-eager opportunist to stumble across them. There are adventure stories like "Fire of Asshurbanipal" and novella like "Skull-Face". There are....
Overall, the book is highly recommended for all lovers of pulp fiction who like their horrors to be horrific enough, and yet described in a lucid and tight English (something that the creator of Cthulhu could not achieve in his life-time), that also at a very-very reasonable price.
Overall, the book is highly recommended for all lovers of pulp fiction who like their horrors to be horrific enough, and yet described in a lucid and tight English (something that the creator of Cthulhu could not achieve in his life-time), that also at a very-very reasonable price.
December 22, 2015
Thank Crom for "Pigeons From Hell." This is a collection of tales from all across Mr Howard's career. The stories range from vignettes to full-blown thrillers spanning centuries and continents. But nothing really leaps out at you. They're readable and generally exciting but nothing feels really amazing, not like the Conan stories, or the really, really good Steve Costigan stories. Until you reach the final entry in this volume, the aforementioned Pigeons, which is a classic of the horror genre if ever I read one. It's the one story in this collection that raises it to the level of greatness. I know that "Skull-Face" has its admirers, but, for me. it was far too much melodrama and too little actual plot. The reincarnation stories are individually quite gripping, but when they are presented so close to one another, you can't help but feel a sense of deja-vu, and not in the way that Mr Howard intended. The stories centring around The Black Stone have their moments but without warning that these were more stories about the same thing they felt a bit samey. If there had been some separation in the contents pages about themes and characters, I might have felt differently. Even the mentions in the Introduction, helpful and informative though it was, gave only a hint of the thematic similarities between many of the tales. What I did enjoy was the display of range that these stories gave, but that's no good without readability or skill and while I'm interested in seeing how REH progressed as an author along his all-too-brief career, I would rather see a more exciting choice of stories.
January 11, 2014
The horror tales in this collection are a bit uneven. My favourite stories were probably "The Black Stone" and "Pigeons from Hell". The first is a very simple tale the success of which rests on a particularly ghoulish vision of an ancient sacrificial rite. The second is a wonderfully lurid tale of voodoo-enabled revenge.
I was also particularly fond of the Steve Harrison detective stories. Not so fond of "Children of the Night" and "People of the Dark", both of which were basically the same story (man hits his head and relieves a past life as a slayer of abhumans). And I'm still not sure how I feel about "Skull-Face", which was so over-the-top I couldn't help but enjoy it, but which was marred by amateur writing and some very silly characterisations.
Overall I liked this book, though. As someone who only really knows Howard from his Conan stories (which I love), it was curiously satisfying to wade through the demented, blood-soaked lunacy of some of his other, lesser-known works.
I was also particularly fond of the Steve Harrison detective stories. Not so fond of "Children of the Night" and "People of the Dark", both of which were basically the same story (man hits his head and relieves a past life as a slayer of abhumans). And I'm still not sure how I feel about "Skull-Face", which was so over-the-top I couldn't help but enjoy it, but which was marred by amateur writing and some very silly characterisations.
Overall I liked this book, though. As someone who only really knows Howard from his Conan stories (which I love), it was curiously satisfying to wade through the demented, blood-soaked lunacy of some of his other, lesser-known works.
October 23, 2011
This collection of Robert E. Howard's stories gives a good overview of the different genres Howard was writing in, ranging from Lovecraftian Weird Tales to pulp fantasy and thriller. Most of the stories are extremely racist - not much of a surprise, considering they were mostly written in 1930s.
What I found disturbing nevertheless, was the absence of any contextualising reference or explanation in the preface. Instead the M.J. Elliot sings the praises of Howard's influence on the pulp aesthetic and his genius, morning his premature death - not a word on the racist discourse underlying the stories. That to me is an unforgiveable oversight in a modern edition by a publisher like Wordsworth.
The stories themselves are mostly of average quality and nowadays only of interest to scholars and lovers of pulp & Weird Tales.
What I found disturbing nevertheless, was the absence of any contextualising reference or explanation in the preface. Instead the M.J. Elliot sings the praises of Howard's influence on the pulp aesthetic and his genius, morning his premature death - not a word on the racist discourse underlying the stories. That to me is an unforgiveable oversight in a modern edition by a publisher like Wordsworth.
The stories themselves are mostly of average quality and nowadays only of interest to scholars and lovers of pulp & Weird Tales.
May 11, 2009
The tales contained herein are of quite varied styles with similarly varied themes. Not many work as horror tales to the modern reader although some do still work very well and are still capable of sending a chill down the spine (such as "In the Forest of Villefore", "Horror from the Mound" and "The Graveyard Rats").
Others, while not particularly scary, are engaging and gripping reads (such as "Scarface") and some lack any aspect of the supernatural ("Fangs of Gold" and "Names in the black book").
Some, unfortuantely, fall pretty flat on all fronts (such as "The Thing on the Roof").
Most definitely the highlight of the collection, and the most scary story by far is "Pigeons from Hell", the closing story. Makes this collection worth reading just for this story.
Others, while not particularly scary, are engaging and gripping reads (such as "Scarface") and some lack any aspect of the supernatural ("Fangs of Gold" and "Names in the black book").
Some, unfortuantely, fall pretty flat on all fronts (such as "The Thing on the Roof").
Most definitely the highlight of the collection, and the most scary story by far is "Pigeons from Hell", the closing story. Makes this collection worth reading just for this story.
August 22, 2014
I enjoyed this book which was a collection of short fiction of Robert E Howard...the tales task on multiple genres from dark detective tales,tales of warriors as well as horror tales which make up the majority.
H.P Lovecraft fans will enjoy the use of mythology that is hinted at in some of the tales although the tales themselves are more than pastiche and are all of a good standard.
I'm not overtly aware of the Conan books although I have read a couple of short Conan ebooks...comparatively I remember them fondly and in particular the lurid description and body count...these tales seem however to have more substance with a mood being created before we enter the realms of descriptive wordplay.
All in all great fun and a good collection of pulp material from 'weird tales' and the like...
H.P Lovecraft fans will enjoy the use of mythology that is hinted at in some of the tales although the tales themselves are more than pastiche and are all of a good standard.
I'm not overtly aware of the Conan books although I have read a couple of short Conan ebooks...comparatively I remember them fondly and in particular the lurid description and body count...these tales seem however to have more substance with a mood being created before we enter the realms of descriptive wordplay.
All in all great fun and a good collection of pulp material from 'weird tales' and the like...
August 10, 2011
Barring a long and wordy review that Im not in the mood for - entertaining and gripping, typically Howard style of story-telling laced to the fullest with a pulp-fiction feel to it that personally I love.
But like all Howards work, the pulp style serves only to bring out and underscore the depth of his storytelling, filled with complex yet simple to understand characters and concepts. All fans of R.E.H. should give this a shot, quite different from the stories he is usually associated with, more akin to his Soloman Kane stories then anything - horror with some panache and at the same time an urgent rawness.
But like all Howards work, the pulp style serves only to bring out and underscore the depth of his storytelling, filled with complex yet simple to understand characters and concepts. All fans of R.E.H. should give this a shot, quite different from the stories he is usually associated with, more akin to his Soloman Kane stories then anything - horror with some panache and at the same time an urgent rawness.
October 25, 2017
Robert E. Howard works are the most versatile and imaginative that I’ve ever read.
Here we have a selection of his many horror tales. As much as I admire this gifted genius, his horror stories are my least favourite of all the genres he wrote. Some are brilliant and exciting, though on the whole I find them heavy-going; hard to digest. This could be down to him focusing more on creating an eerie atmosphere, when character focus would’ve been better.
That said, this is the best collection of his dark stories that I’ve read, and there’s more adventure and intrigue, with – on the most part – more emphasis on character than plot.
Here we have a selection of his many horror tales. As much as I admire this gifted genius, his horror stories are my least favourite of all the genres he wrote. Some are brilliant and exciting, though on the whole I find them heavy-going; hard to digest. This could be down to him focusing more on creating an eerie atmosphere, when character focus would’ve been better.
That said, this is the best collection of his dark stories that I’ve read, and there’s more adventure and intrigue, with – on the most part – more emphasis on character than plot.
November 24, 2014
I was a little disappointed in this one. Far too many of the stories were nearly identical (and Robert E. Howard liked the name Steve a little too much--nearly every story had a main character with that name) and a little too "dime store pulp" for my taste. Not that pulp is a bad thing, but in this case, it was pretty ham fisted (i.e. overly expository dialogue; more than one story involving a burly detective shooting up an opium den or something). Overall, not a terrible collection, but one I expected a little more from.
September 24, 2019
If you enjoy Howard's books, you'll enjoy this one. The stories are not quite as exciting as Conan or the Solomon books, but all of the stories were interesting and engaging and had a nice suspenseful supernatural flavor.
I read spooky books every September and October and I got halfway through this one last year when I did have to take a break, as Howard's writing can be slightly dry and repetitive, hence the four stars instead of five.
I read spooky books every September and October and I got halfway through this one last year when I did have to take a break, as Howard's writing can be slightly dry and repetitive, hence the four stars instead of five.
November 27, 2009
It was okay. I enjoyed the stories as I like all that pulp story stuff!
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