The Blood of Belshazzar

Robert E. Howard

Once it was called Eski-Hissar, the Old Castle, for it was very ancient even when the first Seljuks swept out of the east, and not even the Arabs, who rebuilt that crumbling pile in the days of Abu Bekr, knew what hands reared those massive bastions among the frowning foothills of the Taurus. Now, since the old keep had become a bandits hold, men called it Bab-el-Shaitan, the Gate of the Devil, and with good reason.

The Conan Saga

Robert E. Howard

This collection contains all of Robert E. Howards Conan the Cimmerian stories published during his lifetime, contextualized with biographical details of their author. His Conan stories feature a young barbarian warrior who carves himself a kingdom and rules with a degree of wisdom and justice. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legendary Hyborian age. Collected together in one volume are besides the poem Cimmeria A Poem and the essay The Hyborian Age Conans World Robert E. Howards tales of the legendary hero, as fresh and atmospheric today as when they were first published in the pulp magazines of more than eighty years ago: The Tower Of The Elephant, Rogues In The House , Shadows In The Moonlight and so many others.

The Country of the Knife

Robert E. Howard

This early work by Robert E. Howard was originally published in 1936. Knife Country is a novel from the El Borak series of Texans in the early 20th century in Afghanistan. Very interesting book.

The Daughter of Erlik Khan

Robert E. Howard

The tall Englishman, Pembroke, was scratching lines on the earth with his hunting knife, talking in a jerky tone that indicated suppressed excitement: I tell you, Ormond, that peak to the west is the one we were to look for. Here, Ive marked a map in the dirt. This mark here represents our camp, and this one is the peak. Weve marched north far enough.

The Devil in Iron

Robert E. Howard

The fisherman loosened his knife in its scabbard. The gesture was instinctive, for what he feared was nothing a knife could slay, not even the saw-edged crescent blade of the Yuetshi that could disembowel a man with an upward stroke. Neither man nor beast threatened him in the solitude which brooded over the castellated isle of Xapur.

The Exploits of Buckner Jeopardy Grimes

Robert E. Howard

This having happened to me I sat still on my brother Bills horse, because thats the best thing you can do when a feller is pinting a cocked.45 at your wishbone. This feller was a mean-looking hombre in a sweaty hickory shirt with brass rivets in his leather hat band, and he needed a shave. He said, Who are you? Where you from? Where you goin? What you aimin to do when you get there?

The Gods of Bal-Sagoth

Robert E. Howard

...Shipwrecked on a mysterious island, two sailors find traces of a lost civilization and memories of their own impossible part in it! ...The last words of an operatic tenor bring the music of hell to the man who destroyed him....Turlogh OBrien, mighty Gaelic warrior who serves no master but gold and blood, battles for a kingdom against the fearful ancient gods of Bal-Sagoth. All together for the first time in The Gods of Bal-Sagoth.

The Grisly Horror

Robert E. Howard

The silence of the pine woods lay like a brooding cloak about the soul of Bristol McGrath. The black shadows seemed fixed, immovable as the weight of superstition that overhung this forgotten back-country. Vague ancestral dreads stirred at the back of McGraths mind; for he was born in the pine woods, and sixteen years of roaming about the world had not erased their shadows.

The Hills of the Dead

Robert E. Howard

In a world ruled by piracy, stalked by vampires, peopled by cities of the inhuman, he stood tall amid the terrors of the Dark Continent. Kane, a man of savage and unconquerable courage, strode deep into the jungles, forever slashing his diamond-edged rapier as evil guided the creatures of the night toward him. Wicked whispers of death touched him. Haunted horrors of the world beyond life reached for him. But Kane never halted his march, for he would never rest until the final, epic duel between light and dark was waged...and won.

The Hour of the Dragon

Robert E. Howard

The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind in the chamber. Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the green sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right hand of each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish light. Outside was night and a lost wind moaning among the black trees.

The Iron Man

Robert E. Howard

The Iron Man has fought since time immemorial -- with but one thought in mind -- to get to his foe and crush him. The centuries, the costumes, the weapons are different. The object is the same. The gore and savagery of Howards tales of the ring is little removed from those exploits of Conan and Kull and Bran Mak Morn.It is common knowledge that Robert E. Howard was a boxing enthusiast, and his fellow author H. P. Lovecraft tied Howards interest in sports directly to his love of primitive conflict and strength.."In The Iron Man are three of Howards best tales of the ring -- certainly tales of primitive conflict and strength which are collected in book form for the first time.

The Isle of Pirates Doom

Robert E. Howard

The long low craft which rode off-shore had an unsavory look, and lying close in my covert, I was glad that I had not hailed her. Caution had prompted me to conceal myself and observe her crew before making my presence known, and now I thanked my guardian spirit; for these were troublous times and strange craft haunted the Caribees.

The Lion of Tiberias

Robert E. Howard

The battle in the meadowlands of the Euphrates was over, but not the slaughter. On that bloody field where the Caliph of Bagdad and his Turkish allies had broken the onrushing power of Doubeys ibn Sadaka of Hilla and the desert, the steel-clad bodies lay strewn like the drift of a storm. The great canal men called the Nile, which connected the Euphrates with the distant Tigris, was choked with the bodies of the tribesmen, and survivors were panting in flight toward the white walls of Hilla which shimmered in the distance above the placid waters of the nearer river.

The Lives of James Allison

Robert E. Howard

The tales of James Allison take place both in modern times and in the far past, in that time after the Hyborian kingdoms of Conan. Allison is a crippled Texan who lost a leg when his horse fell on him. To escape boredom and sadness he ventures into the past, exploring his previous lives as mighty warriors. All these ancestors were members of a migration of Aryans as they traveled the world in search of a homeland.

The Moon of Skulls

Robert E. Howard

A great black shadow lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of the red sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

The People of the Black Circle

Robert E. Howard

The king of vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling night the temple gongs boomed and the conchs roared. Their clamor was a faint echo in the gold- domed chamber where Bhunda Chand struggled on the velvet-cushioned dais. Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin; his fingers twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath him. He was young; no spear had touched him, no poison lurked in his wine.

The Phoenix on the Sword

Robert E. Howard

Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered men they disappeared in the darkness.

The Pike Bearfield Stories

Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard turned to writing comic and dialect Western tales only late in his career, but he found an immediate and continuously successful market for them, and they are in many respects his most accomplished and polished works. The Pike Bearfield Stories is a collection of stories in the western genre, featuring Pike Bearfield the character who lead well-intentioned lives of perpetual confusion, mischance, and outright catastrophe. It includes: While the Smoke Rolled, A Gent from the Pecos Shave That Hawg! , Gents on the Lynch, The riot at Bucksnort. They are reminiscent of traditional southwestern tall tales, told in dialect, featuring larger-than-life characters, swift action, broad satire, and wry humor. All stories are fast-paced with simple yet effective plots that have a few surprises thrown in for good measure.

The Pool of the Black One

Robert E. Howard

The Pool of the Black One is one of the original short stories starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan becoming the captain of a pirate vessel and encountering a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation.

The Saga of King Kull

Robert E. Howard

Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the sword and sorcery genre. From his fertile imagination sprang some of fictions most enduring heroes. Yet while Conan is indisputably Howards greatest creation, it was in his earlier sequence of tales featuring Kull, a fearless warrior with the brooding intellect of a philosopher, that Howard began to develop the distinctive themes, and the richly evocative blend of history and mythology. Kull is an exile from fabled Atlantis who wins the crown of Valusia, only to find it as much a burden as a prize. This collection gathers together three stories plus one poem featuring Kull The Shadow Kingdom, The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune, Kings of the Night and The King And The Oak.

The Scarlet Citadel

Robert E. Howard

The roar of battle had died away; the shout of victory mingled with the cries of the dying. Like gay-hued leaves after an autumn storm, the fallen littered the plain; the sinking sun shimmered on burnished helmets, gilt-worked mail, silver breastplates, broken swords and the heavy regal folds of silken standards, overthrown in pools of curdling crimson. In silent heaps lay war- horses and their steel-clad riders, flowing manes and blowing plumes stained alike in the red tide.

The Shadow Kingdom

Robert E. Howard

The blare of the trumpets grew louder, like a deep golden tide surge, like the soft booming of the evening tides against the silver beaches of Valusia. The throng shouted, women flung roses from the roofs as the rhythmic chiming of silver hosts came clearer and the first of the mighty array swung into view in the broad, white street that curved round the golden-spired Tower of Splendor.

The Shadow of the Vulture

Robert E. Howard

So thay brought the envoys, pallid from months of imprisonment, before the canopied throne of Suleyman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, and the mightiest monarch in an age of mighty monarchs. Under the great purple dome of the royal chamber gleamed the throne before which the world trembled gold-paneled, pearl-inlaid. An emperors wealth in gems was sewn into the silken canopy from which depended a shimmering string of pearls ending a frieze of emeralds which hung like a halo of glory above Suleymans head.

The Sowers of the Thunder

Robert E. Howard

The Sowers of the Thunder is a short story by Robert E. Howard (published in Oriental Stories, Winter 1932) that takes place in Outremer (the Crusader states) in the time of General Baibars and deals with the Generals friendly/adversarial relationship with Cahal Ruadh ODonnell, an Irish Crusader with a troubled past cut in the Howardian mold. Both the Siege of Jerusalem (1244) and the Battle of La Forbie feature in the plot.