414 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345461506
In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of
Robert E. Howard; The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, illustrated
by Gary Gianni, was the second volume to be published. All of the tales
featuring Howard’s uncompromising and unstoppable Puritan crusader are to be
found here, again printed in the order they were written and published: Skulls
in the Stars, The Right Hand of Doom, Red Shadows, Rattle
of Bones, The Castle of the Devil, The Moon of Skulls, The
Blue Flame of Vengeance, The Hills of the Dead, Hawk of Basti,
Wings in the Night, The Footfalls Within and The Children of
Asshur, along with the poems The One Black Stain, The Return of
Sir Richard Grenville, Solomon Kane’s Homecoming (and a variant), a
fragment of a story called Death’s Black Riders, a short biography of
Robert E. Howard and notes on the original Howard text and a moving In
Memoriam by H. P. Lovecraft to his friend and fellow literary genius.
I think I have always liked Solomon Kane as much (if not more) than
Conan, no doubt because of his semi-historical status in our own world. In many
ways our dour Puritan protagonist is a prototypical swashbuckling hero-type –
just what one would expect from a pulp novelist from back in the day – but in
many other ways he isn’t, what with all of the occult horrors and mythical
races he encounters and combats (most sinister of all is his left-handedness,
once thought to be devilish in itself – and I know you picked up on my play of
words, you clever foolscap, you). But one thing Kane has in common with Conan
is his larger-than-life status, being suitably fearless and totally bad-ass as
he travels the world – especially Darkest Africa, circa the 17th Century
– fanatically rooting out evil in all of its guises, as any good Puritan would.
But as with all good, well-rounded characters, Kane isn’t perfect, as we see
him battling his personal demons; a Man of God who is also a man of violence,
Kane in an interesting conundrum as he seeks to quell his inner conflict with
an outer crusade against Evil.
If you are a fan of old-school pulp fiction and semi-historical characters and events (Sir Francis Drake even makes an appearance!), then I think you’ll really dig Solomon Kane, written by a master of the genre. Not all of the tales are of equal quality, to be sure, but I never once felt cheated by any of the tales here told (always a risk with any anthology). These are some of Howard’s best works (perhaps he felt liberated from Conan?), with vivid imagery as Kane fights duels in England, pursues bandits in France, slaughters flying beasts in Africa and strikes at ghosts and demons and what-not. But it is always Kane’s zealous pursuit of justice in contrast with Conan’s happy-go-lucky wandering that makes such an impression. Howard could write long and absolutely outstanding curses and loud and blood-curdling booming threats, but few cut so deep as Kane’s quiet statement of fact as he stands over a dead, desecrated child: “Men shall die for this”. You believe him when he says it.
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