The Robert E. Howard Omnibus

by Robert E. Howard

97 short stories and novellas DRM free, active table of contents for easy navigation.

Conan
1 Gods of the North
Queen of the Black Coast
Shadows in the Moonlight
A Witch Shall be Born
5 Shadows in Zamboula
The Devil in Iron
The People of the Black Circle
The Pool of the Black One
Red Nails
10 Jewels of Gwahlur
Beyond the Black River
The Hour of the Dragon
The Hyborian Age

Boxing
1 Alleys of Peril
Blow the Chinks Down!
Breed of Battle
Champ of the Forecastle
5 Circus Fists
Cupid vs. Pollux
Dark Shanghai
Fist and Fang
General Ironfist
10 Night of Battle
Sailors' Grudge
Sluggers on the Beach
Texas Fists
The Bull Dog Breed
15 The Iron Man
The Pit of the Serpent
The Sign of the Snake
The Slugger’s Game
The TNT Punch
20 Vikings of the Gloves
Waterfront Fists
Winner Take All
Alleys of Darkness
Apparition in the Prize Ring

Detectives
1 Graveyard Rats
Fangs of Gold
Names in the Black Book
Skull-Face
5 The Tomb's Secret

Fantasies
1 Almuric
The Treasures of Tartary
The Voice of El-Lil
The Valley of the Worm

Kull
1 The Shadow Kingdom
The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune

Bran Mak Morn
1 The Lost Race
Worms of the Earth

Cormac Fitzgeoffrey
1 Hawks of Outremer
The Blood of Belshazzar

El Borak
1 Hawk of the Hills
The Daughter of Erlik Khan

Wild Bill Clanton
1 She Devil
The Purple Heart of Erlik

Historicals
1 Lord of Samarcand
Gates of Empire
The Lion of Tiberias
The Shadow of the Vulture
5 The Sowers of the Thunder

Horror
1 People of the Dark
Black Canaan
Moon of Zambebwei
Black Talons
5 Black Vulmea's Revenge
The Cairn on the Headland
The Fearsome Touch of Death
The Haunter of the Ring
The Hyena
10 The Fire of Asshurbanipal
Pigeons from Hell

Solomon Kane
1 Solomon Kane
Skulls in the Stars
The Moon of Skulls
Wings in the Night
5 Rattle of Bones

Westerns
1 A Gent from Bear Creek
Cupid from Bear Creek
Evil Deeds at Red Cougar
Guns of the Mountains
5 High Horse Rampage
No Cowherders Wanted
Pilgrims to the Pecos
Pistol Politics
Sharp's Gun Serenade
10 Texas John Alden
The Apache Mountain War
The Conquerin' Hero of the Humbolts
The Feud Buster
The Haunted Mountain
15 The Riot at Cougar Paw
The Road to Bear Creek
The Scalp Hunter
War on Bear Creek
The Vultures of Whapeton
20 While Smoke Rolled

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Adventure, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Nook

First published July 1, 1977

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

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good collection of Howard's stories. I was familiar, obviously with Conan, King Kull and Solomon Kane, but didn't realize how many boxing and western stories he had written.
Throughout all the stories I would swear he had never met a woman the way he writes them.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Used a 1/29/2019 audiobook credit to get 35 hours of all his publications. I became interested in his Conan books admittedly mainly due to the cover art by Frank Frazetta back in the 70s but enjoyed reading the sword-craft adventure books even with the macabre filled storylines. There is some biographical info at the beginning which is interesting. Should check into H.P.Lovecraft who had some influence on R.E.H. Starts with the "The Shadow Kingdom" written when he was 20 years old. 2/6/2019 Finished "The Shadow Kingdom" which was about this warrior type king having to deal with serpent men who using magic took on the form of others and hid their snake heads. 2/6/2019 Started "Red Shadows" which is the first Soloman Kane story (11K words). I know there are various authors who took up the Conan character stories and discovered that Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time author) was one of them. I plan to read some of his books in the future.
Anyway here is the list.
Red Nails (1936)
The Hour of the Dragon (novel) (1936)
Shadows in Zamboula (1935)
Beyond the Black River (1935)
Jewels of Gwahlur (1935)
Conan: A Witch Shall Be Born (1934)
The People of the Black Circle (1934)
The Devil in Iron (1934)
Queen of the Black Coast (1934)
Shadows in the Moonlight (1934)
Gods of the North (1934)
Rogues in the House (1934)
The Pool of the Black One (1933)
The Slithering Shadow (1933)
Black Colossus (1933)
The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
The Scarlet Citadel (1933)
The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)
The Hyborian Age (1938)
Rattle of Bones
Red Shadows
The Shadow Kingdom

[John Cottingham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert E. Howard

A pulp fiction icons greatest works. I,of course, was familiar with and enjoyed the stories of Conan the barbarian, Solomon Kane and other weird tales; but I did not know what a true bad ass was until I met Breckenridge Elkins, A gent from Bear Creek. These humorous hillbilly western stories are priceless. I highly recommend this collection.

[Buddy Scalera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hefty collection of short stories in a wide range of genres. REH was prolific and versatile. Plenty of stories beyond Conan. If you enjoy this kind of pulp storytelling, this is a great place to start.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll probably keep chipping away at this collection for a while longer, or until Howard's style gets too irritating for me to continue reading, so this is mostly a review of the Conan stories which make up the first section of the collection.
I was somewhat surprised to discover that Arnie actually did a pretty decent job at portraying Conan - he really is a bit of misogynistic, two-dimensional thug. I was sort of hoping to be pleasantly surprised and find Conan using his charm and smarts to overcome challenges, but in the stories I've read so far, his typical solution to a problem is to beat the crap out of it with his broadsword.
And Howard's writing isn't exactly great either. Let's just say there's rippling biceps and heaving bosoms aplenty. Howard only know how to color his stories one way: neon purple.
And yet, despite the poor characterization, the thinly veiled racism and chauvinism, and the purple prose, I've found the Conan stories pretty enjoyable. Maybe it's a guilty pleasure thing? Or maybe it's that the stories/plots are actually pretty good. They're certainly not like the sub-tolkien fantasy that seems to dominate a lot of the genre (or did, back when I actually read a lot of fantasy). There's no quest for magical artifacts, or anything like that. And Conan's motivation for getting mixed up in the various adventures are certainly not heroic - he's either in it for the money, or just for the heck of it, cos he fancies a bit of a rumble. Many of the plots had a Lovecraftian feel to them, with Conan stumbling across forgotten civilizations of weird cults.
By no means is Howard a great writer, or Conan a wonderfully realized character, but I can see how he's been quite influential on the fantasy genre, if only as a bit of an antidote to the black and white Tolkienesque fantasy.

[Bill Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

No spoiler alert here. Conan the Cimmerian fight bad guy and win. Conan fight wizard and win. Conan get buxom wench and win. Story-wise there is no spoiler here, but the Conan character is far more complex than the movies and comic books portray. He is multilingual, can read, and understand rudimentary math.
I recently began reading Robert E. Howard’s stories after having stumbled upon an omnibus of them a couple of months ago at a yard sale. The Omnibus gave a brief overview of Howard’s short life (he killed himself at age 30) as well an exposure to characters other the Cimmerian.
Often considered the father of fantasy by some, Conan books are the second-best selling fantasy line behind only J. R. R. Tolkien’s middle earth adventures.
The stories are simple good versus evil modality with a soiled enthusiastic hero embracing a quest of his own making.
If there are any weaknesses in Howard’s stories, it is the sentence structure and some overly florid writing. Given the chance to use a small word, Howard goes to the large word. He overwrites. His use of pronouns is also confusing.
It is not uncommon for Howard paragraphs to say something like Conan and Megzorda fought like lions until he raised his sword. What? Who raised his sword? You see that kind of thing, it can be confusing.
Forgiving those two small distractions is easy given the quality of the adventures.

[Adam Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read this for the Conan and Solomon Kane stories. Generally quite good, classic pulp fantasy stuff. The Conan stories in particular are mostly external and despite the time we spend with the barbarian we never really seem to get to know him as a person. He's all brawn. The cliches of pulp "sword and sorcery" is also all over the place. There is no shortage of pale-skinned women in scanty clothing, all of whom Conan desires and often gets. They are almost infantile in their characterization, with Conan mansplaining all over the place, setting them on his lap or knee for a good talking to, clutching at his chest when in danger, and generally being helpless nuisances. Even when Howard introduces a female warrior who takes no flack from anyone and dislikes being rescued by men, she cannot resist Conan's obvious charms and finds herself liking the fact that he treats her like a helpless princess all the time. Still, there is a lot of fun to be had amid all the misogyny and occasional suspicious racist remarks. It was the 1930s, after all.

[Kent McDaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

RECENTLY PICKED UP THE ROBERT E. HOWARD OMNIBUS: 97 COLLECTED STORIES from the Kindle bookstore FOR $1.99. It’s an excellent deal if you like Howard. It contains three full-length novels: The Hour of the Dragon, Almuric, and a Breckinridge Elkins novel. It also contains the Conan short novel Red Nails; in fact I believe it contains all the Conan stories. In addition, it contains five Solomon Kane stories, four King Kull stories, twenty-four boxing stories, twenty Breckingridge Elkins stories (westerns), and a wealth of other material. I’d only read Howard’s Conan stories and Almuric previously, and I’m enjoying his other stuff a lot, particularly the Breckinridge Elkins stories, which are surprisingly funny. From Halcyon, the book features an interactive table of contents and seems pretty much free from typos. What a deal.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a heap of these stories from Howard. Not all of them by any means, but there is enough repetition in plotline, that I feel I can speak with some authority. There are only eleven Conan stories here (why are more not included?) - the rest are mostly set historically, if not entirely realistically in our world. Howard's pulp stories do draw me in though with their relentless movement. I enjoy the stoic hero and the conflict against evil (give me Conan, Solomon Kane; not so much his boxers and pirates), if not the stereotyped pictures of women (either helpless, conniving, or passionately violent) and of most racial and ethnic groups throughout history (and pre-history).

[Tom Cameron · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are going to call your collection an omnibus, you should think of including all of the stories that the person wrote. What is even more galling, there is no copy-write protection on any of the stories that are missing from this collection.

[David Stoneking · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this to have access to all the books whenever... but I'm probably not going to read the whole thing. Still. I enjoy the books a lot in a retro throwback kind of way

[Mikko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great gritty stories.

[Survive · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love REH.

[Árni Reynir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Þurrt, en afskaplega áhugavert samhengi fyrir scifi/fantasy.

[Orangereader · Rating 4 out of 5]

after finishing conan i tried a few but lost interest.