by Gary Romeo A friend of the blog, David DuLong, reminded me that there was an article in Alter Ego #83 that mentioned that artist Gray Morrow did a Conan comic book some time in the 1950s that wa…

by Phil Sawyer Weird Tales: The Early Years This 468 page hardcover anthology was published a few months ago by PS Publishing. They are a publisher in England who specialize in fantasy and science …

by Gary Romeo I bought this book mainly with the intention of reviewing it here. I met David C. Smith at the 2019 Howard Days in Cross Plains and decided I liked the guy after the very briefest of …

by Bill Cavalier OK, yeah, I know…in the strictest meaning of the word, the Conan character in the 21 stories written by Robert E. Howard is indeed a murderer. In the Oxford Dictionary, murder is: …

by Phil Sawyer This 601 page Hippocampus Press paperback was published in 2020 and is edited by David E. Shultz and S.T. Joshi. I found it fascinating and very enjoyable. As Sprague used to say, I …

by Gary Romeo I’ve noticed that some Robert E. Howard pastiche authors have made use of real life personages and real life legends to, maybe, bring something new to Solomon Kane stories. Howa…

by Gary Romeo “The Get of Garm” appeared in Conan: Serpent War #1 – 4 (2020) in serialized installments. It is a reasonably entertaining story. The title sounds odd but has a mean…

by Gary Romeo I gave a thumb’s up review to Mr. Martinez’s pastiche novel, The Song of Belit. And I can see why the Robert E. Foundation members gave this book the Atlantean Award for 2…

by Gary Romeo This is the third James L. Richardson book I’ve reviewed here. The first two books featured what appeared to be AI art. This book’s cover is credited to Jean Carlos Esteve…

by Gary Romeo The book is better than the movie. Probably not much of a surprise in saying that. But the movie was entertaining. The book is quite long. 503 pages in the edition shown below. It con…

by Gary Romeo I first heard of Jack Scott from the dedication to him in Dark Valley Destiny. The Robert E. Howard biography gives thanks and elucidates the reader: “To Jack Scott, distinguish…

by Gary Romeo Most die-hard Robert E. Howard fans are aware that two poems by Howard were published in the 1933 anthology, Modern American Poetry. REH wrote a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith about the …

by Gary Romeo “Isle of Swords” is a highly competent pastiche of Robert E. Howard’s Cormac Mac Art stories. Bear in mind that none of the Cormac Mac Art stories sold in REH’…

by Gary Romeo Robert E. Howard first mentions his membership in the American Fiction Guild in a May 1932 letter to Tevis Clyde Smith. REH mentions that John Kelley of Fiction House has died (John B…

by Gary Romeo I visited the North American Cryptid Museum in Plano, Texas. I was reminded of all the gruesome monsters that Conan has encountered over the years. I think Robert E. Howard (and most …

by Phil Sawyer I am going to mention several books about Robert E. Howard but concentrate on L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Miscast Barbarian: Robert E. Howard” which is Chapter 6 page…

by Gary Romeo King Kull encounters Thulsa Doom in this new Heroic Signatures e-book. Kull is presiding over various disputes and hating every minute of it until a raven-haired warrior woman breaks …

by Gary Romeo Michael Myers, the screenwriter of The Whole Wide World, and Aurelia Wilder co-hosted a presentation at Howard Days for the 40th anniversary of the film. The presentation used web con…

by John McPherson Robert E. Howard, pioneer of the sword & sorcery genre, died by suicide in Cross Plains, Texas on June 11, 1936. On the 90th anniversary of his untimely death, a dozen aspirin…

by Gary Romeo Mark Finn’s essay “The Saga of Conan’s Steward” appeared on the official conan.com website on April 11, 2025. His article divides L. Sprague de Camp’s ro…

by Gary Romeo It is June and Dallas is hot. I’m typing this a little after midnight and its 84 degrees outside. It was in the high 90s all day long. I didn’t bother going out today. Ins…

by Gary Romeo In the December 1924 issue of Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright proposed in The Eyrie (the editor’s column) that someone should write a good story set in prehistoric times where a …

by Vincent Darlage, Ph.D. Matt John’s “Faces of Doom” in Savage Sword of Conan #14 uses the character of Nestor, a Gunderman mercenary mentioned in Robert E. Howard’s untitled synopsis that later b…

by Gary Romeo Castle of Frankenstein was a hipper version of Forry Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. This particular issue was published in 1965. I was 8 years old. I remember seeing it…

by Gary Romeo This is the second collection of stories using Robert E. Howard’s characters by Stephen Gaspar. I enjoyed his first collection, 3 Blades Against Darkness, and I enjoyed this one…

by Gary Romeo This is a tale of young Kull, while he is still a slave in Valusia. He is trying to earn his freedom so he can make a name for himself in King Borna’s army. It is a decent premi…

by Gary Romeo Howard Phillips Lovecraft is practically synonymous with Weird Tales. This was HPL’s first professional magazine sale and set him on the course for being a regular contributor t…

by Phil Sawyer This Hippocampus Press 799 page volume was published in 2017. I was fortunate enough to purchase the hardcover edition. Nowadays there are two paperbacks at $30.00 a piece. “Da…

by Brian Kunde This review both treats the title indicated and is a tribute to its late publisher—late in the sense of deceased. The publisher is SF Gateway, a UK publisher of (mostly) ebooks, a di…

by Gary Romeo This is the third book recommended by comedian Anthony Jeselnik that I’ve reviewed. None are related to Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, or Lin Carter in any way. I risk al…

by Gary Romeo When L. Sprague de Camp was preparing the Conan series for Lancer Books he had to do his due diligence. Famously, there was the eventually settled dispute between him and Martin Green…

by Steve Replogle Author John Jakes died in 2023 at ninety years old. He had a very prosperous writing career. Most readers knew him as the incredibly successful author of the Kent Family Chronicle…

by Phil Sawyer This 417 page Arkham House book was published in a 3,000 copy edition in 2003. I have not read it for a long time so I recently sat down and read the whole book and found it very enl…

by Gary Romeo In a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. January 1930, Robert E. Howard writes: “… Have you sold anything lately? And by the way — I wish you’d give the address o…

by Gary Romeo The latest e-book from Titan doesn’t break any new ground. It is told in the first person and lacks any weird or magical element. Both of these things have been done before. &#8…

by Brian Kunde Given the attention paid here last July to the various biographies of Robert E. Howard published over the years, I thought it might not be amiss to address the very earliest. No, I d…

by Gary Romeo This is the second book recommended by comedian Anthony Jeselnik that I’ve reviewed here. Both books are off-topic for this blog. (Choose an item from the menu, if you want to r…

by Phil Sawyer I still remember the first fantasy books I read as a youngster. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings paperbacks with the Barbara Remington covers and the Lancer Conan paperbacks with…

by Gary Romeo The Blade of Conan, Ace Books, 1979 and The Spell of Conan, Ace Books, 1980 feature articles from multiple authors focusing on Robert E. Howard and Conan the Barbarian. L. Sprague de …

by Gary Romeo The last two “Shadow Thrillers” were by James Patterson and Brian Sitts. This latest book sports a new author. I never thought I’d miss Brian Sitts. The first two Sh…

by Gary Romeo The latest Heroic Legends e-book features Solomon Kane and has a twist of Celtic folklore. The “whitethorn” (or hawthorn) is a sacred tree that is a gateway between worlds…

by Gary Romeo Ok, I’m going to say it… Game of Thrones was the best on screen fantasy since John Boorman’s Excalibur. As much as I like Robert E. Howard and Conan the Barbarian I …

by “Indy” Bill Cavalier I’ve always thought that one of the very best things about Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age is how it draws on a good many historical cultures and environs and th…

by Gary Romeo A new unauthorized Conan adventure has appeared. It is available from Amazon for .99 cents if you choose the economical Kindle version. Since .99 cents isn’t much, I bought it a…

by Gary Romeo Fabian Nicieza has written a new Bran Mak Morn adventure for Titan Comics’ The Savage Sword of Conan magazine. Short works probably do not need reviewing. But not every REH fan …

by Vincent N. Darlage, PhD. Part 3 will cover additional books by Fred Blosser: Ar-I-E’ch and the Spell of Cthulhu, Western Weirdness and Voodoo Vengeance: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard&#82…

by Gary Romeo This is the second Tim Waggoner Conan adventure I’ve read. This e-book is obviously less ambitious than his novel, Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God, but I found this more intrigu…

by Gary Romeo Bran Mak Morn plays a part in this unauthorized adventure that borrows characters and concepts from Robert E. Howard’s “Worms of the Earth.” Tim Curran has written o…

by Vincent N. Darlage, PhD. I read this back in 2017, but I didn’t review it, so when I decided to read and review the Fred Blosser works that I have, I decided to reread this and give it a p…

by Gary Romeo DMR Books is definitely a resource fans of classic pulp/fantasy fiction should check out. Of primary interest to Robert E. Howard fans were my last two acquisitions from this publishe…