Robert E. Howard Readers discussion

I'm rereading El Borak and Other Desert Adventures and will post my reviews and comments about the stories here. Feel free to add your reviews and comments to these stories as you see fit.

The first El Borak I ever read belonged to my younger brother: Three-Bladed Doom. I had already discovered Conan, and he had found this book (probably around 1987-1988), and I read it, finding it interesting because I finally got to read the story that "The Flame Knife" was based on.

I rediscovered El Borak a long time ago at Indiana University, somewhere between 1990-1994. Bloomington, Indiana has some excellent used bookstores, and in them I found Son of the White Wolf and The Lost Valley of Iskander. I distinctly remember reading the latter in the halls and lecture rooms of IU.

Years later, Del Rey/Ballentine published the volume I am rereading here. I read it back when it came out around 2010-2011, but I never gave it a proper review. So I am going to reread it, and review it now.

I understand REH was understandably influenced by Talbot Mundy and Harold Lamb for these stories, but I've read very little of those authors so I can't really comment on any direct parallels.

My collection of El Borak books includes:

The Lost Valley of Iskander - 1986 Ace (black spine)
The Lost Valley of Iskander - 1979 Berkley
The Lost Valley of Iskander - 1976 Zebra
The Lost Valley of Iskander - 1974 FAX Collector Edition

Son of the White Wolf - 1987 Ace (black spine)
Son of the White Wolf - 1978 Berkley
Son of the White Wolf - 1977 FAX Collector Edition

Three-Bladed Doom - 1987 Ace (black spine)
Three-Bladed Doom - 1979 Ace (white spine)
Three-Bladed Doom - 1977 Zebra

Blood of the Gods, and Other Stories - 2005 Girasol Collectables

The Early Adventures of El Borak - 2010 The REH Foundation

and, of course, the one I am re-reading and review here:
El Borak and Other Desert Adventures - 2010 Del Rey / Ballentine

Some random El Borak stories can also be found in:
The Best of Robert E. Howard: Crimson Shadows - 2007 Del Rey / Ballentine
The Best of Robert E. Howard: Grim Lands - 2007 Del Rey / Ballentine
The Last of the Trunk - 2007 The REH Foundation

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. I think it was first published in the FAX Collector Edition, The Lost Valley of Iskander.

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.

Gordon's full name is Francis Xavier Gordon, and the man hunting him is Gustav Hunyadi, an international adventurer from Hungary, named for the Hunyadi family, one of the strongest of the noble houses of medieval Hungary. We also learn that Gordon is known throughout Asia, from Istanbul to China.

Gordon falls into a ravine and is knocked unconscious. We find out what is in the packet of papers and why Hunyadi is after him (Hunyadi is going to create an empire in central Asia by fomenting religious wars). His hunters find him, and a gunfight ensues, starting an avalanche.

Gordon then comes across a trapped man, blonde in a tunic with a sword. His name is Bardylis of Attalus. Here Gordon displays a feat of strength. They went down "The Road of Eagles," a tough descent. Turns out this Valley of Iskander was a colony of Alexander the Great. It is here I think that REH falters a bit. He doesn't build up a sense of mystery or give us time to wonder. Gordon simply realizes super quickly that Iskander is a corruption of Alexander.

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.

Vocabulary: Pathan - a member of the Pashto-speaking people of Afghanistan, NW Pakistan, and elsewhere, most of whom are Muslim in religion.

REH's vocabulary always impresses me. I'm known among my friends for my high level of vocabulary, but I often have to look up words when reading REH stories, especially his historical fictions.

The king of Attalus must be the strongest person in the city. This seems like a ridiculous rule. I don't even think there is a word for this kind of rulership. Kraterocracy, perhaps? Maybe kratocracy? I don't know. This is a weird conceit in the story. REH is very focused on physical feats as defining the hero, here. This is a weak point in the story because it doesn't make sense.

I liked that Gordon suffered from the blow to his head that knocked him unconscious. Many books have characters knocked out from blows to their head, and they often suffer no hindrance afterwards, so this was a welcome thing when REH described that it still bothered him. A lot of authors don't realize that a blow to knock someone out takes just fractionally less power than a blow to kill, and there is no way to really gauge this until after the fact.. and even if it does knock them out, they are going to suffer the effects of a concussion. Kudos for REH for trying to reflect this kind of effect after he escaped capture.

Ptolemy choosing to attack Gordon feels forced. Again, making the King of Attalus a position that requires supreme physical strength is nonsensical. This should have been a trial with actual evidence.

Gordon is declared king after he defeats Ptolemy. He then leads the Greeks against his enemies. The final battle is described in typical REH flourishes and genius. It's well described and is a furious battle.

All in all, while I enjoyed the story, I can see why it wasn't published during his lifetime. In some serious areas, it felt juvenile and not well thought out, but it also showcased some of REH's writing strengths.

I do wish they had just kept the title as "The Lost Valley of Iskander." It tells me more about the story and is instantly identifiable. I get the desire to go back to REH's original intent, but... sometimes that approach isn't the best. There are a lot of stories that REH titled "Swords of [fill in the blank]":

Sword of the Hills
Swords of Shahrazar
Swords of the Northern Sea
Swords of the Purple Kingdom
Swords of the Red Brotherhood

And of course this volume has "Hawk of the Hills." Having "Sword of the Hills" and "Hawk of the Hills" just feels like almost the same title.

Plus, we all know the story as "The Lost Valley of Iskander" already. I would bet that, except for the most devoted REH scholar, that if you asked someone what they thought of "Sword of the Hills," they'd say, "What? Remind me what that one was about."
"The Lost Valley of Iskander," you'd helpfully reply.
"Ah! Yes! Well, let me tell you..."

"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. The story sold for $230 and after Kline Agency got their share, Howard earned $195.50. Keep in mind that $195.50 in 1934 is worth $4,620.40 today!

Vocabulary: Hangul - Kashmir stag

Francis Xavier Gordon, AKA El Borak, is out in Mongolia somewhere with two other guys (and servants, etc). The two guys seem bent on going someplace dangerous without informing Gordon. Turns out they are going to the sacred city of Yolgan. They needed Gordon to get them through Afghanistan, but now they don't need him. They don't want to fight him, though, so they plan to pick a fight with him and get him to just leave. Unfortunately, they are overheard by one of Gordon's servants, and the men kill the servant. So they just decide to leave and take all the mounts, leaving Gordon on foot.

Gordon finds a group of bandits, kills their leader, and takes command. They track the two white men. Gordon found out the white men used a symbol to cow the inhabitants into leaving them alone, and they used that symbol to get the priests to let them into their sacred city.

Using a local disguise, Gordon sneaks into the sacred city. He meets Yasmeena, who knows him and thinks he is there to rescue her. He goes to learn the plans of the priests and the white men, but they manage to steal Yasmeena away. He follows and great fights ensue.

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.

Yasmeena was interesting. El Borak wasn't there to rescue her. She also wasn't white: she was half Kirghiz, half-Indian. She didn't want to live a peaceful life as someone's wife. She needed rescuing and sent for El Borak, but the white villains had intercepted her call for help, and decided to kidnap her and sell her back to her estranged husband who was going to beat her to death with a slipper. She keeps going from one bad situation to even worse ones. Here, she is worshipped as a goddess and the priest doesn't like how much power she has over the common people. This is a theme we see a lot in Howard; however, having the girl actively seek out this role in the first place seems less common. She wasn't kidnapped, or tricked, or hired for the role. She was out looking for power and adventure, but now feels trapped (and, frankly, just wants different power and adventures now).

This story would be converted to a Conan tale in the pages of Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan 234-235, called "The Daughter of Raktavashi."

I've been super busy lately, so it took me some time to get back to this book.

"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 story starts with Gordon mediating a dispute between the ruler of Afghanistan and Baber Khan, who is the chief of the Ghilzai tribesmen. When the ruler of Afghanistan is attacked by an Assassin using a three-bladed knife, Gordon investigates. The knife, as a tell-tale sign of the cult, reminded me of the 1982 movie, “Conan the Barbarian,” where the King of Zamora feared a double-fanged dagger. I’m pretty sure this story is where that idea came from. Gordon discovers the hideout of the Assassins, the hidden city Shalizahr, high up on a plateau in the Hindu Kush range. He discovers a stolen Indian princess, and a Shaykh who had reformed the original Assassins, which originally ruled there in the 13th Century. But this Shaykh is not the real power in Shalizahr. Gordon nearly bluffs his way in, but the true power is a Russian Cossack who knows who Gordon is. Gordon is thrown into an area of ravines and gulches where a monster lurks. Gordon slays the beast, a type of ape, described to be the source of the Yeti legends. Gordon sends one of his friends out of the gorges to bring the Ghilzai to sneak in, and sets into motion a way for this to work. This plan fails, though, as the friend fails to meet the Ghilzai in time, and attacks the city in a less advantageous manner, but it is timed to give Gordan a chance to escape from a tower he was trapped within. But his friend did find other tribesmen allied to the Ghilzai, and brings them in through the secret route. The battle at the end is one of the more frenzied and bloodied combats ever described by REH. It is truly a spectacular read.

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.

This is the longer version of the story. He also shortened it considerably (and this version is at the end of the book in the "miscellanea" section).

Although this was my first El Borak story, it wasn't the first time I read a version of this story. L. Sprague de Camp rewrote it as a Conan story. I first read the version known "The Flame Knife" in the Lancer Conan the Wanderer. As a collecter, I also have the Conan version published in the Gnome Press Tales of Conan and the Esteban Maroto illustrated Conan: The Flame Knife.

I prefer the El Borak original. I remember re-reading it in college back in the early 1990s, finding copies in the used bookstores of Bloomington, IN.

I'm also going to go out on a limb here and say that I miss the old paperbacks. I am not fond of the trade paperbacks put out by Del Rey/Ballentine in terms of their size and handling. They are hardcover sized, but are paperbacks. I wish they would repackage them in smaller regular paperbacks, but with the texts (and art) used in these large trade books. I'd break this one into four smaller paperbacks, and get them out in the bookstores.

Anyway, I really enjoyed "Three-Bladed Doom."

great recap of this awesome adventure story, Vincent! My first exposure to it was also the Esteban Maroto illustrated Conan: The Flame Knife. I loved that particular book, but yes, this is the true tale and well worth the read!

I LOVE Esteban Maroto's illustrations, in general, in "The Flame Knife" and in "The Treasure of Tranicos." I wish he had done illustrated versions of some of the more pure Robert E. Howard, like "People of the Black Circle" or "Red Nails" but I am glad we've at least got these!

Vincent wrote: "I'm rereading El Borak and Other Desert Adventures and will post my reviews and comments about the stories here. Feel free to add your reviews and comments to these stories as you se..."
I've been wanting to put my two cents into the Talbot Mundy/Harold Lamb mention.
I have actually read a great deal of Talbot Mundy. In particular his Jimgrim stories of James Schuyler Grim, an American Adventurer in the Middle East and India that was the subject of many of Mundy's stories. Also his novel, "King of the Khyber Rifles(1916)" whose protagonist was Captain Athelstane King was a friend of Jimgrim who also had many other acquaintances who obviously inspired REH. Even names like Yasmina were used by Howard.
As for Harold Lamb I have read a lot of stories of Khlit who was a cossack, the protagonist of some great short stories. I've also read some of his non fiction books about the Crusades, etc which would have had a huge impact. Both of these authors had spent time in the Middle East, and environs so they must have captured REH's fancy. One other inspiration I would have to add is the real life Lawrence of Arabia. I read that the book by Lowell Thomas "With Lawrence in Arabia" also gave him a lot of inspiration on writing about that part of the world with El Borak. BTW Lawrence was a good shot with a Colt 45 and apparently always carried it with him.
REH was a more exciting writer than either Mundy or Lamb. Lamb wrote some great biographies of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, etc that for sure inspired REH's desert adventures and crusade stories.
"Writer Talbot Mundy[2] created a lot of his works on the basis of the Theosophical assumption that various forms of occultism exist as evidence of the ancient wisdom that is preserved at the present time, thanks to the secret brotherhood of adepts."
Hence books like "The Nine Unknown", "Caves of Terror", The Devil's Guard", "Jimgrim", :The Lion of Petra", and "Om, The Secret of Ahbor Valley".
I recommend them but REh is the best for sheer action and adventure.

Awesome, Michael! Thank you for all that!

I bought two Mundy books in hopes of giving him a shot:
Yasmini the Incomparable
King of the Khyber Rifles

I have three Lamb novels:
Charlemagne
Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men
Harold Lamb THE CRUSADES The Flame of Islam International Collectors Edition Mi

I haven't read them yet. I don't even know if those are the best works to start with.

I'll look for the Lawrence of Arabia book you mentioned. Thank you!

"King of the Khyber Rifles" is probably his best. It was made into a movie in the 1950s with Tyrone Power but a different story for the most part. Yasmini is in it. She is in several of his stories.
"With Lawrence in Arabia" was published in 1924. I have an old paperback copy from 1960. I bought it used. Originally published in 1924. You can listen to it on Audible. Might be hard to find the book.
Harold Lamb: The Crusades is in two parts. The Flame of Islam is part 2. Iron Men and Saints is Part l. It is very good. Harold Lamb wrote screenplays for these kinds of movies in the 40s-50s. The Crusades, The Buccaneer, Samson and Delilah, etc. Check out IMDB.
I have Charlemagne and Genghis Khan and others. I need to reread them! He was a very good historian.

Oh, good info to have! Thank you! I'll look for part 1 of The Crusades. I had no idea I only had part 2. I found it in a used bookstore.

Audible is fine. I'll do that!

"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.

An Orakzai rogue named Afdel Khan betrayed El Borak and began a tribal feud in Afghanistan, disrupting trade for both Britain and Russia. The story starts with El Borak barely escaping from that betrayal and vowing vengeance. Thus began the war between the Orakzai and the Afridi.

Geoffrey Willoughby and Sueiman (a Punjabi Muslim pretending to be Willoughby's servant, but is actually part of the English secret service) arrive to talk peace terms with El Borak. Afdel Khan has convinced the British he wants peace, so Willoughby was sent. El Borak, of course, is wise to the ploy and will not suffer peace so long as Afdel Khan lives. El Borak knows the Amir of Afghanistan is working with the Russians behind the British's back... and he knows Afdel Khan is totally working for the Russian's benefit.

Things go badly for Willoughby. His "servant" is killed in a night attack by his own Orakzai escort, but El Borak guessed this would happen, and had his own Afridis rescue Willoughby. They get trapped, but El Borak knows how to get out of the trap, and everyone retreats to El Borak's mountain castle.

Through various means, Willoughby gets a one-on-one meeting with Afdal Khan, who reveals he is a true rogue and is about to kill Willoughby (and blame El Borak), but El Borak foresaw this too and is there! He kills Afdal Khan, ends the feud, and all is well.

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.

I'm a Doctor Who fan, and sometimes I get asked who my favorite Doctor is. I usually reply that the Fourth Doctor is, but he wouldn't be the one I would want to travel with; I'd want to travel with the Third Doctor. Why? Because the Third Doctor always had a plan. No running about, making up stuff as he went along, the Third Doctor had a plan. Well... so does El Borak. He is always planning, always predicting, always thinking. He's different from a lot of REH characters in this manner. El Borak has a plan. Always. I love that about this character. He is always steps and moves ahead of everyone else, playing them like pawns. Hidden plans and secret agendas are hallmarks of Francis Xavier Gordon, AKA El Borak.

You also get more of El Borak's background, and how he grew up in the country that Geronimo terrorized, and knew how Geronimo did it. I liked that little bit of information.

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.

I really like this story. Originally published in Top-Notch Magazine in 1935, this is one to seek out and read if you like his adventure fiction. There is a reason it is one of the stories in The Best of Robert E. Howard: Crimson Shadows.

"Blood of the Gods" is next. Francis Xavier Gordon (El Borak) is in Arabia this time. A friend of his, Dirdar, is tortured to reveal where another friend (nicknamed Al Wazir) is, a friend who knows where a treasure known as "The Blood of the Gods" is kept. Another friend, Salim, witnesses the torture of Dirdar and Dirdar's betrayal, and shoots Dirdar, and is shot in turn. Salim escapes and warns El Borak, then dies. El Borak takes a shortcut to warn his friend, Al Wazir.

On the trail of the Blood of the Gods is an Englishman named Hawkston, a man as renowned in Arabia as El Borak is in Afghanistan. He doesn't know the short way to the caves where Al Wazir lives, so he has to take the known but longer route. El Borak races along the shorter route but comes to bad luck. A random Bedouin shoots his racing camel. El Borak returns fire and kills the Bedouin, but his horse runs off. El Borak has to hoof it on foot. He comes to an oasis and kills the Bedouins there, but they kill their own camels to keep El Borak on foot. El Borak continues his journey but is surprised the rest of the Bedouin clan isn't on his heels.

He does make it to Al Wazir's caves before Hawkston, which surprises him, and he is still surprised the Bedouins aren't after him. Al Wazir, in the meantime, is a madman and has to be tied up. Hawkston appears, but without any of his men. Turns out he came upon the same oasis and the Bedouins thought Hawkston killed their clan members and they killed all of Hawkston's men. They weren't on El Borak's trail because they were on Hawkston's trail. I thought this was a neat twist, a realistic twist of fate. However, now the Bedouins had them both trapped. El Borak uses strategy to hold off the superior numbers.

After the Bedouins are defeated, Hawkston and El Borak duke it out. Hawkston shoots at El Borak, but El Borak managed to hit Hawkston's gun with his tulwar, screwing up the aim so it hit Al Wazir. They have a blazing swordfight, and all is well in the end.

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.

This story was first published in Top-Notch, the month after Hawk of the Hills appeared.

"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. Yes, it may not be the title REH gave it, but at least it comes from the text and doesn't sound like the other titles. We already have "Hawk of the Hills" and "Son of the White Wolf," and "Sons of the Hawk" just sounds like these two combined. Further, who are the "Sons of the Hawk" of the title? The title just doesn't fit anything happening in the story. Also, I am just used to this story being "The Country of the Knife."

Anyway, I am just grousing. My first encounter with this story was as a much-modified, freely adapted version in The Savage Sword of Conan #11, where it was called "The Abode of the Damned." Later in college, I read it as "The Country of the Knife" in various versions of the "Son of the White Wolf" paperback, and then in the Girasol Collectable "Blood of the Gods and Other Stories."

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.

He eventually gets captured by men working for the man who was the subject of Brent's message. He is being taken to Rub el Harami, a city of thieves, the home of the Black Tigers, an elite unit of the city. En route, a stranger arrives.

Here REH is falling back on a familiar trope of his, having his heroic character in disguise. Readers familiar with his work will recall Bran Mak Morn's disguise as Partha Mac Othna, for example. Here, El Borak is dressed as a youthful desert dandy named Shirkuh, a Kurd. His disguise is excellent, and REH doesn't tell us for a long while that this El Borak. Although we don't know it yet, he is here because he heard that Stuart Brent was seeking El Borak with a message.

Shirkuh (El Borak) takes a liking to the prisoner, Brent, and promises to buy him at the upcoming slave auction. Under this ruse, Shirkuh is able to feed him and protect him a little bit (he doesn't want his future property damaged). Shirkuh manages to get Brent to tell him the message for El Borak, which changes Shirkuh's plans a bit.

They reach the city of thieves after Brent learns a lot of the culture and whatnot about the city. He also learns of the gold given to Shaitan in an ancient custom of devil-worship. Shirkuh has to kill a man to gain admittance to the city. Here we meet Alafdal Khan, who speaks on Shirkuh's behalf. A ruckus happens when men start throwing rocks at the imprisoned Brent, and Shirkuh uses his horse to knock one of the rock-throwers down. Unfortunately, this rock-thrower was one of Ali Shah's men, and he didn't like that his man was knocked down.

One of the problems with this story is that three important characters have names that start with the same letter: Alafdal Khan; Ali Sha; and Abd el Khafid. Each of these men are leaders of rival factions (Abd el Khafid is the ruler of this forbidden city, although each of these A-named characters becomes its leader for a short time). Two minor characters are also named with an A: Abdullah and Achmet). I think it is generally good advice to not have characters whose names start with the same letter, especially if the naming styles are foreign to the reader. I wasn't able to read this story in one sitting due to things going on around me, so I felt like I had to constantly look back to remember which was which. I didn't have to do that with the characters with different initial letters. I think this is a weakness of the story.

Brent meets Abd el Khafid, ruler of Rub el Harami. He is actually a Russian named Vladimir Jakrovitch, who has bad blood with El Borak. This has elements of the Great Game of the period, but Vladimir isn't working for the Russian Empire: he has plans of his own. He reveals them all to Brent (so that we know them) as Brent will die soon.

Shirkuh (El Borak) makes a deal with Alafdal Khan to back him financially so he can buy Brent at the slave auction. Alafdal is hesitant until Shirkuh reveals who he is to Alafdal (in a way that hides it from the reader) and promises to make Alafdal ruler of the city. At the auction, Shirkuh and Abd el Khafid go head to head in a bidding war. Abd el Khafid simply shuts down the auction, which goes against custom, and riles the populace. Alafdal Khan fights and kills Abd el Khafid. He becomes ruler of the city.

Unfortunately, that person Shirkuh knocked aside with his horse shows up and reveals that Shirkuh is El Borak! Oh no! The city goes wild. Brent is freed by El Borak, but the riot separates them and Brent (along with Alafdal Khan) is captured by the forces of Ali Sha, along with Achmet, a man of Alafdal's, whose name also starts with an A).

El Borak escapes and holds a kid named Abdullah hostage (Abdullah, another A-name) to force his dad to get a disguise for him. Disguised as the Executioner of the Black Tigers, El Borak makes his way to the jail and kills the actual Executioner. He frees Alafdal and Brent and they escape the city, but Ali Sha is after them.

El Borak uses smoke signals to get his own men to help, but Ali Sha reaches them first. Ali Sha and Alafdal kill each other. Achmet also dies. Everyone but Brent and El Borak dies in a very bloody battle. Finally, before the bulk of Ali Sha's men arrive, Yar Ali Khan (a friend of El Borak) arrives with El Borak's men, and they ride off into the sunset.

Other than the sheer amount of characters with names that start with the letter A, 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.

I really enjoyed this story.

"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. These Turks slaughter a village, which leads El Borak on a path toward revenge. There is also a famous German secret agent, Fraulein Olga von Bruckmann, who gets captured. This kind of made me laugh. A "famous" secret agent? Seriously, famous secret agents aren't really all that secret nor effective (James Bond be damned).

There is considerable talk about Lawrence of Arabia, as he was active during this period. El Borak rescues the girl and leads the Sons of the White Wolf on a merry chase toward a Well. He expects to find allies there, but they left before he got there, and a rival Arab faction is there instead. He convinces this faction to help him, even though they want him dead.

There is a grand battle at the end, and El Borak has a swift battle with the leader of the Turks (El Borak means "The Swift" so a swift battle was appropriate). Oh, and it turns out the famous German secret agent is actually a daring British agent.

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.

This ends the El Borak stories in this volume. Three adventures of Kirby O'Donnell are next.

"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.

Vocabulary: Kindhjal - A straight-bladed dagger.

In this story, he is after a hoard of gold. The story starts in medias res, and O'Donnell is rescued by an unnamed Turk from an assassination attempt. O'Donnell was able, via his great disguise, to gain entrance into Shahrazar, a forbidden city where a vast hoard was hidden. He gets into scrapes and fights, and ends up on a roof, when the Turks attack the city, which gives him some time. He kills his foes, but ends up dumping the treasure down a great gulf into a body of underground water. The Turks attacking the city turn out to be led by the guy who saved him in the alley at the start of the story, and they become good friends.

I didn't quite buy into Kirby dumping all the treasure. Surely he would have secreted a portable amount on his person before pulling the trap switch. I also felt it was too pat of an ending. Also, why would someone build that kind of a trap in the first place? Accidents happen... and suddenly you are a poor man. A trope of the period I guess... not unlike the giant switch in "Bride of Frankenstein" that blows up the lab - why would anyone build that?

Other than that, 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...

Anyway, if you recall, Kirby O'Donnell dumped the Treasure of Tartary into the underground river (if you don't remember this, refer to the prior post). Well, he uses the same trapdoor to dispose of a body, but someone sees him do it and blackmails Kirby O'Donnell to do his bidding lest O'Donnell's patron (who is searching through the fort for the treasure) find out about O'Donnell's treachery.

Kirby O'Donnell, still disguised as a Kurd, goes out to do as he is bid. Somehow, I don't think El Borak would have found himself in this situation; I feel like El Borak would have killed the blackmailer where he stood. But I digress.

Kirby O'Donnell is bidden to find some papers that were found on a fallen Englishman. Kirby O'Donnell goes, and finds the mountain fort where the papers were located not occupied by the people he thought would be occupying it. Indeed, there is a battle going on. Kirby O'Donnell and his accompanying men take part in the battle and the day is won. However, the new occupant of this fort is treacherous and refuses to feed Kirby O'Donnell and his men because he doesn't want to kill men he has shared salt with.

Kirby O'Donnell is forewarned of this by another treacherous person (treacherous to O'Donnell's enemies, that is, not to O'Donnell), and turns the tide. He kills his foes and gains the papers, just to find out that the person blackmailing him is a traitor! The papers reveal this person is a spy and gives out the whole scheme. O'Donnell needs to get this to the English, but how? Luckily, the blackmailer is on the scene and tries to kill O'Donnell, but is instead killed by O'Donnell. That frees up O'Donnell to return to Shahrazar and convince his patron to send the papers to the English.

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. I also feel like the interesting predicament Kirby O'Donnell found himself in at the end was short-changed by the sudden appearance of the spy-blackmailer. Instead of forcing O'Donnell to make a dasterdly choice, he is instead allowed to fix his problem quickly with a simple solution.

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. His treasure map is stolen, but he rescues someone, and the people torturing the person he rescued accidentally turns out to be the same folks who stole his map. He is knocked out and befriended by a Persian who accompanies him in following him on the trail to find the treasure. Another Afghan tribe ambushes them, and Kirby ends up allied with the man who stole his map. The person he rescued turns out to be Yar Mohammed (who played a part in the last story, but doesn't seem to be the same character here - else this is a prequel), and the treasure ends up lost and everyone dead but for Kirby and Yar Mohammed.

I first encountered this story in a much altered form in Conan of Cimmeria, called "The Bloodstained God," in which all the characters are renamed by L. Sprague de Camp and Kirby becomes Conan. De Camp makes the treasure animate at the end of his rewrite, but this doesn't happen in this, the original story.

One big difference between Kirby and Gordon (other than the treasure-seeking focus) is that Kirby seems to always fight with two weapons, a sword in one hand, and a dagger in the other.

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).

Anyway, this is the non-supernatural version. It's not bad. Steve Clarney and his ally, Yar Ali, are likeable enough, and they are not as superhuman as El Borak or Kirby O'Donnell. Indeed, unlike O'Donnell, Clarney comes away with the treasure! 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.

However, Steve Clarney does live and gets his loot, some food and water, and lives to adventure on, although I don't think REH wrote any more adventures for this character (but the name does crop up again, in the The Shadow in the Well fragment & synopsis in Pirate Adventures - but REH often reused names).

"Three-Bladed Doom" also has a short version, and it is included in this volume. This is my first time reading the short version. I skipped it the first time I read this book, and I don't have it in any other volumes.

The first four chapters were largely the same, with some descriptions shortened. Chapter V (The Mask Falls) begins some bigger variances from the longer tale with the big fight scene. It's mostly the same until the "The sense of time is lost in the madness of battle" paragraph. Lal Singh wasn't dumped through a trap door and El Borak didn't fall into the gulch. The ape fight doesn't happen, El Borak doesn't get trapped in a tower, Lal Singh doesn't get lost going for help, and it basically just skips the last fight at the end.

This was the version that REH tried to sell, but it was rejected something like five times. His agent also tried to sell the long version, but it also was consistently rejected.

We are not quite done with Kirby O'Donnell yet. There is an Untitled Fragment at the end of this.

An abortive sequel to "Gold from Tatary" (AKA "The Treasure of Tartary"), this little fragment pits Kirby against Baber Khan. Again, I am not sure if REH is just reusing names he liked or if this is the same villain from Three-Bladed Doom. In this fragment, Baber Khan accuses Kirby of being one of the 12 guardians of the treasure. That's about it. It's a very short fragment.

And that, my friends, concludes my re-read of El Borak and Other Desert Adventures. Let me know what you think of these stories.

As always, you are welcome to read along, ask questions, comment with your thoughts or memories about the stories, or just talk about whatever if my reviews spark something you want to say.