The Last Ride

by Robert E. Howard

Contents:

"The Last Ride"

"The Extermination of Yellow Donory"

"Knife, Bullet and Noose"

"The Devil's Joker"

"Vulture's Sanctuary"

"Law-Shooters of Cowtown"

"Gunman's Debt"

Genres: Westerns, Adventure, Fantasy

162 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1978

About the author

Robert 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.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of Howard's short Western stories. The stories here are serious and not much like his humorous Westerns such as the Breckenridge Elkins stories at all, though character names do seem quite similar. Howard only sold two of the seven, the title story to Western Aces where it appeared in 1935, and Vultures' Sanctuary (my favorite of the lot) to Argosy, where it was printed in 1936, a few months after his death. There is some casual racism extant, but much less than many of his works. (It was a staple of Westerns for generations to ridicule the Chinese cooks.) Howard wrote in many, many pulp genres, and his skill in action story-telling is unquestioned. This one is great for Louis L'Amour and William W. Johnstone fans. My Berkley copy is one of their series of Howard titles with a little medallion printed on the front cover that says: "Illustrated * Full Color Fold-Out Poster Inside" but they neglect to identify the artist anywhere... it was Ken W. Kelly.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 7 western stories by Howard, it wasn't my favorite. While I love his humorous westerns, these were serious & most were badly flawed. His description was about the only thing that saved them. Too much coincidence & lazy plotting coupled with threads that were just too big for the size of the story kept frustrating me. Several of the stories featured bandits with a hole-in-the-wall hideout & having them all piled together didn't do much for me.

I'd give each of the stories 2 stars, but as a look into Howard's westerns & for a couple of interesting pieces of information, I'll add another. This is part of a hunt for me. I've cataloged all my REH stories & books in a spreadsheet, based on a list from HowardWorks.com, which lists about 600 unique stories. In print or electronic format, I have 244 of them, don't want about 60, so have 332 left to locate - maybe, eventually.

"The Last Ride" - the title story was pretty typical, although the longest of all the stories. The action is pretty good.

"The Extermination of Yellow Donory" - is probably the best & most interesting story of the bunch. 'Yellow' means coward. What happens when a man faces his cowardice? Although the story ran a bit longer in some ways than I would have liked & the ending was over done, it was fun.

"Knife, Bullet and Noose" - a fun, Sonora Kid (Steve Allison) story with a bit of a twist. Overdone in some places, underdone in others, it was definitely worth the time to read it.

"The Devil's Joker" - the shortest story in the book & another with the Sonora Kid in the thick of things.

"Vulture's Sanctuary" - yet another hole-in-the-wall gang that our hero has to penetrate to save the girl. The ending was mildly surprising, if not particularly believable.

"Law-Shooters of Cowtown" features Grizzly Elkins. Unlike the Breckridge Elkins stories, the Grizzly stories are serious, but just barely. I could see the basis for Breckinridge in them. Grizzly is a huge buffalo hunter who uses a big Bowie knife or a Sharps, single shot .50 caliber rifle. This might have been the first I read & it was interesting, if very short.

"Gunman's Debt" - has John Kirby, a one-time character (I believe) as the hero, but Grizzly Elkins plays a strong part. This is quite possibly the worst one for having dying people making long speeches to set the record straight. It certainly could have been done better, but was still kind of fun.

[Gregory Mele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it said that at the time of his untimely death Robert E Howard was starting to turn his Focus from fantasy and adventure to westerns nothing in this collection of serious Western stories will make you think that was a great idea. Nothing wrong with them, but nothing really right, either.

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of Howard’s western stories. There are seven in total. The best are “The Last Ride” and “Vulture’s Sanctuary.” They all rely on lousy shooting by the bad guys and at least one misunderstanding or one flawed assumption.

June on the Range 2024 #1

[J.D. Sutter · Rating 3 out of 5]

More swearing than I prefer and a bit predictable but I enjoyed the story nevertheless.

[Kevin Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exactly what one would expect from a pulp Western written by Howard.

[East Bay J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never read any of Howard’s westerns as a kid so the stories in The Last Ride were new to me. Howard’s great gift of storytelling translates beautifully to the western genre. He could easily have made his name writing tales from the old west.

Something that struck me as unfortunate is that some of Howard’s racism comes through, once in his treatment of the dialogue of a Chinese cook and also by the repeated statements along the lines of, “Well, he’s a lowdown, dirty cuss but at least he’s white.” I suppose you could say Howard was a product of his times and let it go at that, but these instances of racism are so obvious. I haven’t read the Conan books in decades but I don’t recall these kinds of statements, perhaps because those tales take place in “an age undreamed of.”

Fortunately, the man could write. For example: “They ran full into a blast of lead that piled screaming horses and writhing men in a red shambles.” Writing like that is why I read Howard and will continue to do so. For hard hitting, fast paced adventure, this guy is the business.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The descriptive writing that characterizes Howard's stuff comes through here, so I did enjoy them. I must say I didn't expect it to be a collection of short stories, but a single novel. That was a bit disappointing; I was hoping for the story of 1 steel hard cowboy facing the western wildlands alone (basically a western Conan). In the end I'm glad I bought and read it, so that's all that really matters I suppose.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Robert E. Howard's western short stories. These are his serious westerns, as opposed to his humorous ones. I like these quite a lot.

[Keith B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I own all of REH's books. Re-discovered this collection and I think this is the first time I have re-read this since buying it as a teenager. His westerns have a great edge to them.