David’s Comments (group member since Dec 08, 2008)

David’s comments from the Robert E. Howard Readers group.

I was there, my fourteenth in a row. It was a good weekend, bustling but not too overwhelming. There had been rain a few days before so it was not too blazing hot. Chuck Hoffman is a good guy to hang with. We sat around the pavilion talking about underground comix.

Lovecraft is not for all readers, his style can be difficult. That said I like his work. Especially the Dreamland stories.

I don't know if anyone mentioned this upthread, but there's a Cimmerian cameo in The Shadow Out of Time.

I have to second the recommendation for Wolf of the Steppes. For Mundy, I might just be a renegade and go with The Ivory Trail (though the Tros series is dear to my heart).

Howard definitely read & enjoyed both Lamb & Mundy. He occasionally incorporated an element from their work into his own, but REH really had his own voice. While his juvenalia is all over the map (Rider Haggard motifs show up in some El Borak tales from the '20s), he was writing the works in this volume at the peak of his powers.

I've rad a lot of both Mundy & Lamb: Khlit, Tros, good stuff!