El Borak and Other Desert Adventures

by Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard is famous for creating such immortal heroes as Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn. Less well-known but equally extraordinary are his non-fantasy adventure stories set in the Middle East and featuring such two-fisted heroes as Francis Xavier Gordon—known as “El Borak”—Kirby O’Donnell, and Steve Clarney. This trio of hard-fighting Americans, civilized men with more than a touch of the primordial in their veins, marked a new direction for Howard’s writing, and new territory for his genius to conquer.The wily Texan El Borak, a hardened fighter who stalks the sandscapes of Afghanistan like a vengeful wolf, is rivaled among Howard’s creations only by Conan himself. In such classic tales as “The Daughter of Erlik Khan,” “Three-Bladed Doom,” and “Sons of the Hawk,” Howard proves himself once again a master of action, and with plenty of eerie atmosphere his plotting becomes tighter and twistier than ever, resulting in stories worthy of comparison to Jack London and Rudyard Kipling. Every fan of Robert E. Howard and aficionados of great adventure writing will want to own this collection of the best of Howard’s desert tales, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artists Tim Bradstreet and Jim & Ruth Keegan.

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Pulp, Classics

594 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't surprised by the quality,mature writing i saw these stories was written late in his short career. I was surprised how free,natural his writing got with the non-fantastic stories of El Borak and co. I have much more respect for his writing ability now and not only his vibrant,vivid storytelling. Take away the fantasy pulp mannerism and he writes like Jack London.

Also now i understand why many of his fans see El Borak as their favourite. He is one of the best heroes i have read in any fiction.
Not only is he strong but he is really smart. He tries to use strategy and cunning before brute force,relentless like a force of nature. It never got unbelievable because of how gritty,grim,realistic the stories were in their nature,setting.

I also liked how clear I saw the Afghanistan gorges,other Central Asia setting,how realistic he wrote about the different peoples of those countries. Filled with respect for those places,peoples.
Well researched too I learned about things I didn't know about those people,countries in this stage of their history.

I rate 5 stars not because he is one of my favourite authors but because this is him at his top writing ability wise,storytelling,characters,plots,themes. The plots getting repetive is usually his weakness in his fantasy but not here.
He is more timeless than classic adventure writers he is compared to that I have read. If he didnt write great fantasy,horror he would be legendary for these stories.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories from mostly later in Howard's career (although the character "El Borak" was one he had dreamed up in his childhood). These are mostly longish stories (novella-length in some cases) following the adventures of Francis Xavier Gordon (a.k.a. El Borak "The Swift") amongst the wild tribesmen in the hills of Afghanistan, ofttimes caught up in the Great Game (i.e. trying to foil attempts by evil Russians, etc., to stir up the natives and oust the British). Unlike the Conan or Solomon Kane stories, there isn't really any supernatural element here -- just wild adventure and the occasional lost city (deserted or still inhabited) and fabulous treasure. And blood; lots and lots of blood gets spilled. These don't quite have the verisimilitude of, say, Talbot Mundy or Harold Lamb -- Howard's acquaintance with the Near East came entirely by way of books, and a lot of the landscape in the stories is not dissimilar to Texas and the American Southwest -- but they have almost irresistible momentum and Howard's undeniable gift for both setting and action.

The volume is rounded out with stories of a couple of other Americans wandering the Kurdish hills, a few fragments, and a nice, long essay putting the stories into context. Another fine collection.

[L.A. Pontes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like so many people, I met Robert E. Howard (though I didn’t know it was Robert) through the fabulous movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan. I was eleven back then and I used to skip classes and spend the whole afternoon watching session after session of the film. Did that a lot of times. Then came the comic’s series of the eighties and I had a neighbor who's brother bought all of them. He had a huge collection and they would pass on to all the brothers (eight!) for reading. I was welcomed with great warmth by his family and like one of the brothers I read a bunch of them. Only much later did I read the original stories and then I understood why Conan had become so huge. To me, Robert is a genius: his descriptions are unmatched in its clarity and graphicness, his characters are powerful and luring and his stories are imaginative and captivating. El Borak stories have all these qualities. Whenever I read it it’s like I'm seeing the rolling hills of the east with its lurking Afghan tribes and Gordon swiftly and stealthy riding through them like a tiger, with bursts of bloody action exploding whenever it’s needed or provoked. I have to say El Borak is right on top with Conan to me, though Conan is the biggest of them all.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read the stories many times. This time I listened to the audio. Still as great as ever! One of my favorite Howard characters!!!

[Austin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The El Borak Stories:

Swords of the Hills - 3⭐

The Daughter of Erlik Khan - 3.5⭐

Three-Bladed Doom - 3.25⭐

Hawk of the Hills - 3⭐

Blood of the Gods - 3⭐

Sons of the Hawk - 3.5⭐

Son of the White Wolf - 3⭐

I would say the Daughter of Erlik Khan is my favorite El Borak story, with Sons of the Hawk a close second. I would say all of them are good, but none of them quite amazed me or made me fall in love with them.

The Kirby O'Donnell Stories:

Gold From Tatary - 2.5⭐

Swords of Shahrazar - 3⭐

The Trail of the Blood-Stained God - 3.25⭐

This book also features the story the Fire of Asshurbanipal, which I've read before in Howard's Horror Story collection, so I skipped it this time around.

Overall, I enjoyed Howard's desert adventure stories as I do most of his work, but they definitely aren't among my favorite of his tales.

[Vincent Darlage · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first story is "Swords of the Hills." This story was previously published as "The Lost Valley of Iskander." The current title is the one REH gave it. It starts out in media res. Gordon, AKA El Borak, is awakened by an attack. He's identified as a physically strong, robust American in the Afghan mountains in the second paragraph. In the third paragraph, we know what Gordan is doing - he's been entrusted to deliver a packet of papers. The economy of REH's writing is fantastic. None of it feels like an info-dump, yet we get the information we really need in just three paragraphs. It never feels like exposition. This is an under-appreciated quality of REH's writing.

All in all, the story feels very much like an ERB Tarzan novel, where Tarzan discovers a lost Roman settlement in the jungle, or a half-dozen similar situations. Basically, it's a lost world story. The king of this lost world is Ptolemy, and he is jealous of reports of Gordon's strength. Time has basically stopped here, and these Grecian descendants still live as the Greeks of Alexander's time lived.

This is one of the things I feel these "lost world" stories often fail at for me. It would be interesting to see a different 2,000 year development than a stagnant culture, but I also understand the appeal - it allows for a time-travel story without actually time-travelling. It lets the author explore a time he finds fascinating without having to actually move his characters through time.

"The Daughter of Erlik Khan" is next. This one was published during REH's life. It was published in the December 1934 issue of the pulp magazine Top-Notch. REH shows a deft hand at description and characterization in this story. Even without a supernatural menace, the physical and mental menaces in this story are palpable and clearly dangerous. I loved that REH's El Borak was nearly defeated by exhaustion.

The unlikely twist survival of a foe was reminiscent of an old serial, but it lead to a wonderfully told battle. This was a much better story than the first. Action-packed and fraught with danger and mystery. Unlike the first, this story, as I mentioned, was sold and I can see why. It has a lot of action, a lost city, tense moments, intrigue, exotic cultures and locales, and interesting characters. Gordon has physical limits and met them. His personality is more strongly developed in this story, too. He is driven by self-assurance and duty. He is almost single-minded in his dogged pursuit of that duty. He is ruthless, promising torture and death to anyone in his way or not helping him.

One thing I like about REH's heroes is that they do not doubt themselves or what they are doing. They just do. They just are.

"Three-Bladed Doom" was the first El-Borak story I ever read, in the form of a black-spined Ace paperback. It is a sprawling epic of a story. It is violent and filled with plots and counterplots, advantages won and lost, plans that worked and plans that did not.

First off, Robert E. Howard did his homework regarding this region. He throws in real history and real peoples. This book involves the Great Game, which was the name given the rivalry between the 19th-century British and Russian Empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet. The only real fault I have for this story is that it could do with a map. The text gives description upon description of the layout of the city, the fortress, the various gardens, but... seriously, someone needs to draw a map. I wonder if this is why it was never published in REH's lifetime. It does get a bit confusing toward the end.

"Hawk of the Hills" is one of my favorite El Borak stories. It really plays into the Great Game. It features Geoffrey Willoughby, a British diplomat as well as El Borak himself. This story had intrigue, plots within plots, wonderful descriptions of the landscape, lots of violence, and interesting characters. I thought REH's focus on Willoughby was excellent, as it let El Borak be nearly superhuman without damaging the stakes in the story.

Not a lot in terms of character development, but that's not what we read REH for. We read his stories for the adventure, and this one has it! However, it is quite the character study in terms of the contrast between Willoughby and El Borak's approaches to problems. Willoughby favors diplomacy and El Borak has a more hands-on approach centered on vengeance and violence.

"Blood of the Gods" is next. Francis Xavier Gordon (El Borak) is in Arabia this time. I liked that the jewels were a MacGuffin only for Hawkston. El Borak was only interested in warning his friend that Hawkston was coming. El Borak wasn't seeking the jewels and didn't actually care about them one way or the other. He cared about his friend. It really showcased El Borak's character.

It was interesting to see El Borak in a desert environment as opposed to his usual haunts in Afghanistan. I liked that his foe was basically a British counterpart. Unlike El Borak, though, Hawkston is motivated by greed. Even though the battle at the end was short, that felt realistic to me. Just the slightest of errors and BOOM! One person is dead, and the other merely wounded.

"Sons of the Hawk," formerly known as "The Country of the Knife," was an excellent tale. I may be breaking convention here, but I like the old title better. It starts off with violence, and our main character is quickly introduced: Stuart Brent. A college buddy of his was attacked outside of his room in San Francisco and dies after telling Brent to go to Afghanistan and give a message to El Borak. He is given secret passcodes to get through British Intelligence and other officials. Brent travels to India and makes his way into Afghanistan.

I really liked this story. It was action packed, had a lot of intrigue, lots of plans that fall awry or just don't work out as planned, a couple of plans that do work, and just a great atmosphere. Yes, every ridge is knife-edged in these stories, but it does paint a very exact picture, I think. The "twist" of Shirkuh being El Borak is so clearly telegraphed that it doesn't come off as a surprise at all. Maybe to a first time reader, but I am not so sure about that (I don't remember if that surprised me or not - that was over thirty years ago). But that's okay because I rather liked the disguised El Borak's dealings.

"Son of the White Wolf" involves the Turkish part of World War I in 1917. A mutinous faction of Turks renounces Islam and takes up the worship of the White Wolf, returning to pagan ways. REH did a great job of capturing the spirit the area and the characters involved. He knows how to capture the feel of battle, the emotion of hate, and how to navigate plans that don't work as planned, but still turn out alright.

"Gold from Tatary" (AKA "The Treasure of Tartary") was a fast-paced short story featuring Kirby O'Donnell. Right off the bat we get the difference between him and El Borak. Francis Xavier Gordon was not greedy and had no interest in treasure. Kirby O'Donnell, however, is a treasure-hunter. There's a lot less political intrigue regarding the Great Game, too. I thought it was a thrilling story. The weak ending, though, really hurts it and makes it not up to the standard the El Borak stories had set. It is shorter than the El Borak stories, making it a quick and furious read. It is almost all action. I liked that Kirby wasn't just a photocopy of El Borak, though the story takes place in the same regions that El Borak operates in.

"Swords of Shahrazar" is a sequel to "Gold from Tatary" (AKA "The Treasure of Tartary"). REH didn't write straight out sequels very often, and this is one of them. It doesn't just reference the previous story; the previous story informs and creates the situation Kirby O'Donnell finds himself within. Strangely, this story was published earlier than the previous tale... and in a different magazine altogether. I don't think I've ever seen an explanation for how this came about. If you read just one of the magazines, you'd only get half the story. If you read both, you'd get them out of order...

Not a bad story at all, and with the reveal of what the papers contained, includes elements of the Great Game that the prior story didn't have. I can see why this is not an El Borak story. I don't think El Borak would have handled any of this in the same way. Sure, Kirby O'Donnell shares many traits with El Borak and other REH heroes, but he's a little greedier and a little less on the ball. Howard does his usual good job at making us care for the main character, as well as creating tension. At every turn, the reader wonders how O'Donnell will get out of the situation. REH also does a great job with the supporting cast as well. One of the men with O'Donnell feels he owes O'Donnell his life, and he offers some rarely seen levity in the story when he thinks O'Donnell is mortally wounded (he isn't) and drags O'Donnell back to safety while all O'Donnell wants to do is regain his footing and rejoin the fight - but all the dragging and carrying he is undergoing prevents him! It is humorous and heroic at the same time, because this Afghan honestly believes O'Donnell is wounded and needs help. While humorous, it isn't written in a tongue-in-cheek style - it plays out quite heroically and the Afghan isn't written as a fool. It was an excellent and memorable scene.

"The Trail of the Bloodstained God" never saw publication during REH's lifetime, having been rejected by at least five pulp publications. Honestly, I can see why. There isn't much to this story. Kirby O'Donnell is again looking for treasure. Although there is tension with the constant rogues-alliances being formed, Kirby never really seems in danger or anything. The end happens too abruptly. Like I said, I can see why this one failed to sell in multiple markets. It's okay, but it really falls short of REH's better stories.

"The Fire of Asshurbanipal" stars Steve Clarney, another American in the deserts of the Middle East. The version in this book is REH's original version, which did not sell. Although it mentions the Necronomicon (and thus is a Mythos tale), nothing supernatural happens in this version of the story (REH would later rewrite the tale, with supernatural Mythos events at the end, and sold it to Weird Tales). Clarney is more of a gunman than a swordsman. He gets shot and captured. Indeed, without a fortuitous moment at the end, he probably would have been killed by his foe. He does not come across as invincible as El Borak or Conan or many of his other heroes.

The friendship between Clarney and Yar Ali was fun to read. I don't know if Yar Ali is intended to be the same character as El Borak's friend, Yar Ali Khan.

[J.G. Keely · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not necessary to have been to a place in order to write about it--indeed, even those who spent years there, or who were born and raised there, or who are of that very culture can still show biases just as deep. After all, as I'm sure you're tired of hearing, The East is a fantasy, just as any unified notion of Europe or America is a fantasy--or really a collection of competing fantasies--and just because someone is born and lives in America does not mean they have an unbiased view of it--quite the opposite.

But then, Howard never pretended he was writing anything but fantasies. Certainly, he spent a lot of time reading, taking notes, getting his details down, forming an understanding of culture and history--but he could still only prevent his own view on the subject, his own experience and philosophy.

In some ways, his views could be short-sighted--particularly his views of racial and cultural 'types'--but there is also a grand thrust of the human spirit in his works which often raises him above mere prejudice--and the thrill of his prose doesn't hurt, either.

Of course, as with all his works, there are problems with his style--he is always somewhat uneven--and it's the same problems: as each short story was meant to be separate there's some recycling of descriptions, and themes, some redundancy in presentation. As always, he picks a certain animal and bases half his metaphors around it: for Conan, it's the panther, for Solomon Kane, the Lion, and for his desert heroes, the wolf.

It works best in Conan, where we can take it as a sort of 'Homeric epithet'--a nod to the purposefully repetitive cadence of epic poetry--but there is no such excuse for stories about cowboys in the Khyber. He also repeats uncommon phrases in a way that makes them stand out unnaturally--such as 'beetling cliff' or 'hell-burst' only a couple of paragraphs apart, or even using the same word within a sentence:

"with a moaning cry the Jowaki released him and toppled moaning from the wall"

And of course, there's the fact that every cliff is 'knife edged', every silhouette 'etched against the sky', every muscle 'corded'. The most frustrating part about Howard's writing is that these are such simple errors to fix--the sort of thing that would have been, if he'd had a competent editor, and that it's clear from other passages that he's entirely capable of perfectly lovely, effective passages:

"Crumbling pinnacles and turrets of black stone stood up like gaunt ghosts in the grey light which betrayed the coming of dawn."

Or this speech about a cursed ruby:

"how many princes died for
thee in the Beginnings of Happenings? What fair bosoms didst thou adorn, and what kings held thee as I now hold thee? Surely blood went into thy making, the blood of kings surely throbs in the shining and the heart-flow of queens in the splendor."

It would be remarkable to see a Howard story where he maintained the care and skill he takes with such passages throughout the whole tale.

Yet his works are not just about well-put phrases, but quick and balanced plots, which Howard had a gift for. His tales are always exciting, always moving, always with some thrust of clear motivation to lead us from one scene to the next, full of odd characters and curious coincidences and hardships to test our hero.

It is interesting, as noted in the critical essay that accompanies this collection, that each of his desert heroes has a different approach to life, different desires and motivations for what he does. Some are scoundrels, some men of deep moral fiber. It's the fact that he succeeds so often in many areas of storytelling, from the prose to the structure to the characters, that raises him above other writers of the pulps--and indeed, above many modern-day genre authors, for all the sophistication of years that they can call upon when writing their story, where Howard had to make much of it up as he went along.

But then, that may also be the source of his power as a writer: that he wasn't writing a 'known subject', pre-defined and set up with a hundred different tropes that allow any hack to construct such a story 'by the book'. Howard instead had to piece his stories together from real histories, from classic adventure writers, and from legitimate authors of literature, which tends to give them much more depth and variety than simply following a standard model.

So, if the East is a fantasy, then what is Howard's fantasy? Not surprisingly, it is the fantasy of freedom, of a man making his own way in the world, unfettered by arbitrary social concerns. When the American Southwest becomes too civilized, crowding out the adventurer to make space for the cattle rancher and the homesteader, Howard's heroes go to Arabia, to Afghanistan--to places where life is not defined by train schedules and banking firms, but by will to survive, by camaraderie, and where the system of governance is the tribe and the warlord.

It is, for Howard, a place much like the ancient Hyborean world of Conan, a pre-modern world where the industrial revolution has not reshaped everything for convenience and assembly labor. Yet he can set his stories in modern times, with guns and trains and bombs, using modern characters with modern concerns, but still able to tell the same tales of valiant personal combat, where one man, alone, can make a difference.

It is the same fantastic life that men like 'Chinese' Gordon, Lawrence of Arabia, and Richard Burton made for themselves--mixing fact, fiction, and self-mythology into lives that sound like they belong in fiction, not history. Howard's desert heroes have direct antecedents as well: white men who worked as soldiers and warlords in the 'Great Game' of the colonial powers as they struggled for control of central Asia--men like Josiah Harlan and Alexander Gardner.

It's certainly not difficult to see why such tales appealed to Howard, who was fascinated by the man out of his element, the clash of culture--as well as the mutual coming together of disparate cultures. There is, of course, a less flattering tradition of such stories as delivered by writers like Haggard, of the White Savior who out-nobles the Noble Savage--luckily Howard's characters, being loners with little interest in leadership roles, are less prone to this than many of their contemporaries.

Overall, these stories possess less depth and variety than the Conan stories, but they are largely well-crafted, apart from Howard's little bad habits, and perfectly enjoyable.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The scripting and the prose is always excellent in a Robert E Howard story. Somehow he combines poetic language along with a primeval expression of violent action. All good there.

The problem with these stories is that the characters lack motivation. I know what Conan wants in life, I know what tortures Bran Mak Morn. El Borak doesn’t have this. His goal is to get the treasure, go to the place, get the thing, etc. This is fine for throwaway adventure stories and they work just fine in a vacuum. But when the character motivations compare unfavorably to the simplicity of Burroughs, you’ve got problems.

This is worth it for Howard fans but don’t expect to find your new favorite Howard characters here.

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as it pains me to give such a rating to work by Robert E. Howard, I found this to be the weakest of the (not insignificant amount of) material I've read by him. It's clear from the writing that Howard has only read of the Middle East in books, and has used his imagination to fill in the details the books didn't provide. This, to me, is the greatest drawback of these stories: they just don't ring true. The broad strokes of Howard's imagination don't do justice to the Middle East, and the characters frequently stray into charicatures practically waiting for Howard's inevitably American heroes to triumph over.

His characters are much the same. His heroes are Americans posing as Arabs who fit in well with the local populations but always have that Texan adventuring spirit. They're brave, honorable, sly. Not too big, but immensely strong. They're fantastic shots and superb swordsmen. They're more or less the same character, save for some differences in motivation and the scope of their imagination. Only the hero of the final story, "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," stands apart as a small-minded, treasure-seeking American who never claims to be anything but that--and is, in my opinion, a more realistic hero.

His supporting characters are all cast from a limited number of molds. Virtually all of them are tall, hawk-faced, hairy, and prone to bursts of powerful emotion. They're fanatically loyal or very treacherous, or else they have the kind of cunning that drives them to work together with the hero until they finds an opportunity for treachery--treachery inevitably foreseen by the American. Howard's villains, whether British, Arab, or Russian, (or, in one case, Hungarian) are greedy, arrogant, and talented swordsmen. And no points for guessing what happens to them at the end.

Despite these criticisms, Howard writes stories that still managed to grip me, though to a lesser extent than most of his other work. His fast-paced, action-packed stories get the job done, but they felt formulaic and lacking the fire of emotional investment. At this point in his career, I imagine he was writing mostly to the market, having refined his formula for selling his work and getting his checks. Perhaps my greatest complaint is that most of the best stuff here is done even better in some of his other stories.

There are a few standouts, though, and I would recommend "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" and "Sons of the Hawk," the latter of which I enjoyed the most of this lot.

[Deborah Sheldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Solomon Kane, really liked Conan, but only just liked El Borak, a.k.a. Francis Xavier Gordon, the stocky yet thewed Texan adventurer. My problem was twofold: firstly, El Borak has plot armour so he's never in any real danger; secondly, the other characters are underdeveloped so you don't feel any investment in their fates because they're interchangeable and indistinguishable. Same goes for the bad guys. I kept mixing up my Baba Khans, Afdah Khans and Yusef Shahs. Was Abd El Khafid a person and Rub El Harami a city, or the other way around? In the end, without wanting to resort to taking notes, I just let the stories wash over me. Fun, but instantly forgettable because I could never quite remember who was who and what the hell was going on. (That said, I've recently bought two more Robert E. Howard collections. His writing style is so engaging!)

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of stories about one of the less well known of Robert E. Howard's characters. Fantastic fast paced action in the far east at the turn of the 20th century as only Howard can write it. This book has the stories as they were originally written, unedited for PC or space. Excellent action read, highly recommended

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert E. Howard is best known as the creator of Conan, of course, as well as other character series such as Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and others. El Borak, I feel, should be right up there among his famous and influential creations. Francis Xavier Gordon, an American gunfighter adventuring in early 20th century Afghanistan is known as “El Borak”, a somewhat mystical nom de guerre that translates as “the swift” and indicates his deadly speed with gun and sword and fast thinking under pressure.



Howard wrote the El Borak tales over nearly 20 years, encompassing almost the entirety of his relatively short writing life. In fact it is largely accepted that El Borak was his first creation, perhaps first developed when Howard was only 10 years old. The stories definitely show Howard’s growth as a writer, each tale honed a little sharper as we make our way through this collection of seven stories.

This book also contains all three Kirby O’Donnell stories and one Steve Clarney story (the only one there is, as far as I know, although he also wrote another, supernatural version of this story). All three men are very similar: skillful American adventurers, but with subtle differences, especially in motivation and outlook. There is no fantasy in these stories but rather they can be considered sort of like pulp “westerns” taking place in the Middle East.

The book includes excellent artwork, a couple of story fragments and a fascinating essay about these stories and characters by David A. Hardy entitled, "Gunfighters of the Old East".

I’m very happy to have this book in my collection. These are must read stories for fans of Robert E. Howard.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Howard at his best -

[Jon Merz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic over-the-top gritty fiction from one of the absolute best. I loved it.

[MBybee · Rating 5 out of 5]

El Borak is one of Howard's best characters.
I truly hope Hollywood never discovers him.

[Eamonn Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Down in the west Texas town of El Paso was born Francis Xavier Gordon, known by repute from Stamboul to the China Sea. Muhammadans called him El Borak, the swift. They feared and respected him. An evil Hungarian called Gustav Hunyadi may be his match. This villain is plotting to send a howling horde of fanatics against the Indian border and plunge Central Asia into a religious war.

El Borak has papers proving the plot and is taking them to Fort Ali Masjid, but a group of the fanatics is out to stop him. He has not one chance in ten thousand of getting out alive! ‘Swords Of The Hills’ is a ripping yarn set in the days when we British ruled India and noble, square-jawed American adventurers exercised their lean ‘thews’ and fighting skills to help us out. The first story in this book, ‘El Borak And Other Desert Adventures’, very much sets the tone for the rest of it.

In ‘Three-Bladed Doom’ you have to make an effort to get the characters straight in your head right from the start. El-Borak (Francis Xavier Gordon) is subject to an assassination attempt in the streets of Kabul. He has been to see the Amir to plead the case of Baber Khan who is accused by others of sedition. El-Borak has promised to defend him against the charges but Baber Khan fears for his life and won’t come to Kabul to stand trial. El-Borak sneaks off in the dead of night to try to persuade him.

Naturally, things get complicated with more terrifying tribesmen barring the way of our noble hero. Then he goes to track down the Hidden Ones, an assassination cult who have made an attempt on the life of the Emir. They are hidden in a lost city in the mountains. There’s a ‘slender and supple’ girl, too, kidnapped from India, who needs rescuing. El-Borak is death on legs and so terrible is his reputation that he can frighten bandits into submission just by telling them his name but even he needs some help to fight a whole city full of villains. ‘Three-Bladed Doom’ is about a hundred pages long.

Howard sometimes told the hero’s tale through the eyes of a lesser man. Conan was seen through the eyes of Balthus in ‘Beyond The Black River’. In ‘Sons Of The Hawk’, the story opens with Stuart Brent finding a fatally wounded man on his doorstep. With his dying breath, Dick Stockton tells Stuart he must go to India, then to Afghanistan and find Francis Xavier Gordon. He must tell him that the Black Tigers have a new prince. They call him Abd el Khafid but his real name is Vladimir Jakrovitch. He is to be found in Rub el Harami, the Abode of Thieves, and then Dick dies.

Stuart Brent is a gambler, not an adventurer, but he has a code. He’s British, after all. Stockton is an old school chum and his last will must be done. So it’s off to Afghanistan, where he is captured, chained and spat on by beastly tribesmen who are carting him off to Rub El Harami as a slave when a mysterious lone rider fearlessly approaches. It’s El Borak, of course, but he identifies himself as Shirkuh. Clever that. A lot of these outlaw types don’t want to work for a living. ‘Sons Of The Hawk’ then develops along the usual lines of sword fights and treachery.

‘Hawk Of The Hills’ is a tale of treachery in Afghanistan. Treacherous Afdal Khan and his Orakzai henchmen have slaughtered Yusef Shah and several other Afridi tribesmen during what was meant to be a peaceful supper. El Borak scarcely escaped with is life and dodged his pursuers by scaling an unscalable cliff that no man had ever scaled before.

After a bit more fighting, he escapes and begins a blood feud with Afdal Khan that sees villages burned and many slaughtered. Geoffrey Willoughby is sent by the English Secret Service to end the feud which threatens the rich Persian caravan trade with India. Much of the story is told from Willoughby’s point of view. Howard often views his heroes through the eyes of a secondary character as it would be immodest of them to constantly ponder how great they are. The twists and turns are good and the ending is quite clever.

There are seven El-Borak stories altogether, the bulk of the book which explains his name on the cover. The other adventurers featured are Kirby O’Donnell and Steve Clarney. Although not totally dissimilar to El-Borak in that he’s not an overweight clerk working in the colonial office, Kirby O’Donnell is slightly different. Lean of thew, compact and powerful, he has blue eyes instead of black. He battles a bloodstained path through ‘Gold From Tatary’, ‘Swords Of Shabrazar’ and ‘The Trail Of The Blood-Stained God.’

Steve Clarney, ‘hard and tough as a wolf’, is allotted just one story, ‘The Fire Of Asshurbanipal’ which seems familiar. Perhaps it was adapted as a Conan story for comics by Roy Thomas It’s the old lost city with forbidden treasure yarn. The jewel gives the story its title. The place it’s hidden might well be the City of Evil spoken of in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Alhazred, a nod by Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, his ‘Weird Tales’ peer.

As Steve Tompkins points out in his useful and interesting introduction, El Borak is really a western hero, a gunfighter of the untamed frontier moved to the wild east for his adventures. Like Natty Bumppo, in ‘The Last Of The Mohicans’, he is as wily and clever as the natives he battles and, like any Howard hero, he’s possessed of incredible stamina, enormous courage, and the great strength of those mighty thews. Kirby O’Donnell and Steve Clarney are cut from the same cloth, also the material from which Conan was made.

In the days before television or even popular radio, the masses took their pulp adventures in print which at least had the benefit of expanding our vocabulary and making our brains work a little. These stories are worth preserving but, like all strong medicine, best taken in small doses which is why it took me a year to read the book.

Eamonn Murphy

[Κεσκίνης Χρήστος · Rating 5 out of 5]

Από όσο διάβασα, αυτές οι ιστορίες είναι από τις πιο ώριμες του Howard και αυτό φαίνεται. Η γραφή του, χωρίς να χάνει τον αυθορμητισμό που μας έχει μάθει ο συγγραφέας (πώς θα ήταν ποτέ δυνατό κάτι τέτοιο;), είναι πιο μεστή και ο συγγραφέας αναλύει πράγματα που θέλει, χωρίς να χρειάζεται να τα πει άμεσα. Πάντα ο Esau Cairn (Almuric) και φυσικά ο Conan θα είναι στην καρδιά μου, όπως και οι υπόλοιποι ήρωες του Ηoward, αλλά σίγουρα και ο El Borak (aka Francis Xavier Gordon) αξίζει μία θέση στην καρδιά των οπαδών του συγγραφέα! Έστω και αν έρχεται στην τελευταία θέση, είναι στην τελευταία θέση του καλύτερου πρωταθλήματος (πένας, συγγραφέα κτλ)

[Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost as good as Howard's other big names, but not quite.

The setting is relatively realistic this time, with most of the stories taking place in Afghanistan or the Arab world during the time of the "the great game" for control of Central Asia between the British and Russian empires. The three characters - Francis Xavier Gordon, Kirby O'Donnel and Steve Clarney - are all American adventurers of Irish and/or Scottish descent (Howard stresses the point repeatedly) whose exceptional abilities propel them to the top of the tribal hierarchies. They make a name for themselves as treasure hunters, tribal leaders and even government agents.

While the premise is excellent, the execution is not -as good- as in some of Howard's more well-known works, such as Conan, Bran Mak Morn or Solomon Kane. First off the three characters Gordon, O'Donnel and Clarney come across as so similar as to be completely interchangeable. Howard could easily have stuck with his most used character (Gordon) for all of the stories and they'd be no different. Second, these stories all tend to start in medias res with rather complicated backstories that are explained in retrospect by the characters in long paragraphs. This is a rather clumsy way of setting up a story. My third and final gripe is how all the conflicts tend to be resolved in exactly the same way; a shootout followed by a duel where the vastly superior strength and precision of the main character always triumphs. In fact I'd say these characters are so unbelievably skillful it ends up detracting from the suspense.

I'd recommend getting this collection for fans of Howard who want to read all his major works, but for people unfamiliar with Howard I'd recommend starting with the far superior Conan stories, or even Solomon Kane or Bran Mak Morn if one prefers a historical setting over fantasy.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book that I happened upon at Half Price Books in Greenfield that I wasn't even aware was a collection.
The bulk of the stories feature El Borak or Francis Xavier Gordon, a Texas born American adventurer in the Middle-East. A character based most likely on a Wisconsin born ( Yah!) man reared in a town called Saint Xavier in Texas who ended up in Central Asia becoming a rebel, bandit chief, and wanderer.
The stories mainly center around Gordon's dealing with one or two main baddies, plots involving gun running, kidnapping, and a particularly vicious villain wanting to create a new race. I liked how Gordon was portrayed as an average type of man in build ( when compared to say Conan or Kull ) but with great strength, cunning, and skill.
The book also includes stories featuring two more Howard characters Kirby O'Donnell and Steve Clarney and an excellent overview of Howard, the origins of the stories, characters and work called "Gunfighters of The Wild East" by David A. Hardy at the end of the book.

[Daniel Mccallister · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you read a few Howard stories, you'll notice many of the characters are similar. That being said, Howard was such a good writer that he could just keep cranking out fascimilies that had their own sparks. These stories are a lot of fun. Borak is an American adventurer living in Afghanistan at the turn of the 20th century. Lots of intrique, plots, lost civilizations, and action!! Very much in the mold of the pulps of the 20s and 30s, and of course Indiana Jones. Good times!!

[Jeremiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of Weird Fiction, this collection was not as enjoyable for me as the horror and sword and sorcery tales that I love by Robert E. Howard. That being said, these were enjoyable tales and perfect for anyone who enjoys adventure stories without any supernatural elements.

[J.A. Flynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't love the main guy, El Borak. I did however enjoy the short stories that came after his tale. Totally Indiana Jones type stuff that is not something I'd typically read, but Howard always lures me in with his amazing pros.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much like a western for my tastes. I like the way Howard writes, and seems to research his locations, and cultures. I just didn't care for this modern book.

[Ira Livingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this even more than the Conan series. Howard's raw form of action and adventure is a very fast read.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is great fun, full of incredible action and amazing settings. I never got started on Conan, but I may have to give that a second try, because Robert E. Howard's writing here is brilliant.

Most of the stories are about an American in the Middle East who is known as El Borak, though there are a few stories with other heroes. El Borak is an admirable character--one who is fearless, capable, intelligent, and honorable (in a certain way). Most of the people in these stories are rogues and bandits, and El Borak often allies himself with them for various reasons, even if they were trying to kill him a page earlier, but he never betrays or abandons them once he's made a deal. He'll kill an enemy in an instant, but if they agree to work together he can be completely trusted.

It's "honor among thieves"--except he really has it.

Central Asia provides fantastic settings for these stories. Wide open lands, towering mountains, and hidden valleys are home to a variety of ethnicities with long histories filled with legends and mysteries. It's perfect for a sort of wild West tale told even bigger, and Howard makes the most of it. The action in his stories is intense, the characters are ambitious, and the plots are just complex enough to make it all work.

The language, sparse in action scenes but luxuriant elsewhere, is alive with color and energy, and there is so much life in these stories. It may be pulp writing, but it shows genuine genius, a skill much to be envied. He only lived to be 30--imagine if he had enjoyed a few more decades of life and writing.

(Yes, the writing is problematic in some places, as one might expect to find in pulp fiction of the era. Still--it was less than I anticipated. I found it very entertaining in spite of certain failings that probably are more awkward than offensive, but readers will judge for themselves.)

Recommended for adventure readers and Robert E. Howard fans.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over 500 pages of desert adventures. If Conan had lived in 1915, traveled throughout the Middle East with a rifle, and been a foot shorter, he would have been Francis Xavier Gordon, aka El Borak. El Borak is known as the best man with any sort of weapon from the Sudan to the China Sea. He can track an eagle through the desert, go farther without food and water than a camel, appear and disappear like a djinn, and wherever he goes the blood of his enemies flows freely. The story usually begins with something like "El Borak woke to the sound of a silk clad foot on the carpet and his panther like reflexes saved his life." He saves damsels in distress, avenges foul murder, and saves entire nations from being overthrown.

These are basically American Western tales but set on the other side of the world, mostly Afghanistan at the beginning of the 20th century. Much local color and some barbarian savagery, but no magic or supernatural happenings. Lots and lots of sword fighting and knife fighting and large battles involving native tribesmen and bloodthirsty thieves. All very fast paced, and El Borak is an amazing character, the western adventurer gone native who is accepted as a brother to some and hated as the most dangerous enemy to others.

Included are three related tales of Kirby O'Donnell. He is also a western adventurer like El Borak, also an unequaled fighter with gun or blade, but unlike El Borak he is a thief by nature. Good stories, notable due to the fact that they are linked together specifically, which rarely happen in REH's works.

The original unpublished version of "The Fire of Asshurbanipal" is here as well. This is the version before the addition of Tsathoggua, and it suffers from the lack.

These are just really good stories, and El Borak has become my second favorite REH hero after Conan himself.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

El Borak is not my favorite REH character, and so those stories don't always strike the necessary literary chords for me. In this volume, however, there are a few gems. And just because they don't resonate with me, does not mean someone else might love them. So I, nonetheless, certainly recommend this collection. The introduction, written by former REH scholar, Steve Tompkins, is all on its on worth the cover price of the book, but readers get Howard too, so it's a win win.

[Silvere · Rating 4 out of 5]

The West meets East fusion of these stories is well executed. Describing these tales as Westerns set in the Middle East does not do them justice. Robert E. Howard's writing remains primal, yet eloquent at the same time. All the Francis "El Borak" Gordon stories are solid and Gordon himself is really memorable. The version of "The Fire of Asshuranipal" that appears in this book is just exciting as the other version which goes full Lovecraftian. Look forward to reading this again in the future.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Including all of the tales of Francis Xavier Gordon AKA El Borak, as well as those of Kirby O'Donnell and Steve Clarney, Howard delves into the mysterious Middle East of his imagination.
Every bit as action-packed and bloody as his fantasy stories, these adventures of Americans who have "gone native" in the wilds of Afghanistan and surrounding environs are sure to please R.E.H. fans.
While O'Donnell and Clarney are treasure seekers, El Borak's motives remain largely unexplained, seeming to fight merely for the loyalty of those he encounters and just for the love of adventure.
Once again, great fun from the creator of Conan.

[Michael Tedin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of short stories is grand adventure in the classic style. It's a bit dated in its stereotypes of central and south Asian cultures. Many of the tropes might be considered cliche but these stories are the ones that created the cliche so I'll cut some slack.