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Rating: 
Summary: A pulp master gets his literary due.
Review: This is a really excellent collection of essays, not at all the kind of prententious, smug pseudo-academia that has been passed off as literary criticism for the last thirty years or so. The book is worth the cover price for one essay alone: George Knight's "Robert E. Howard: Hard-Boiled Fantasist". In my opinion, Knight nails Howard's place in fantasy fiction perfectly: As the equivalent of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and the "Black Mask" gang of hard-boiled mystery writers, who, to paraphrase Chandler's description of Hammett, took murder out of the drawing room and dropped it back into the alleys where it belonged. Howard's grim, blood-and-thunder stories about Conan, Solomon Kane, Kull, etc. did very much the same thing for heroic fantasy writing. Read Knight's essay for more details, and the rest of the book as well. An indispensible book for Howard afficianados.
Rating: 
Summary: For the Serious, Critical Howard Fan
Review: If you are looking for the typical book reprinting the works of Robert E. Howard (REH), this is not for you. But if you are a student of his work, if you are truly interested in what others have to say about his writings, this is a must have.Howard is lucky enough that occasionally his admirers turn a critical eye toward his work, and often such serious reviews and studies of his work leave you wondering, "what if he had not killed himself?" This is just such a work, one that leads you to see REH as far more than just the man who created Conan. This book is the work of a number of writers, who all have one thing in common: a very serious interest in Howard's work. It is the definitive critical anthology on the writings of REH. The essays, by such individuals as fantasy writer Fritz Leiber, the poets Donald Sidney-Fryer and Steve Eng, the Howard bibliographer Glenn Lord, Dennis Rickard, George Knight, and Ben Indick, critically survey REH's fantasy, westerns, poetry, and supernatural horror tales. The book includes an annotated bibliography of Howard's books as well as an appendix listing all the volumes known to have been in Howard's personal library.
Rating:
Summary: A Critical Appraisal of Robert E. Howard
Review: In the past, Robert E. Howard was derided by critics as being just another cheap hack writer. However, as this book demonstrates, Howard was actually a very good writer whose works were mainly limited to pulp magazines since the "respectable" magazines would not even consider stories with barbarians like Conan or Kull as the hero. This book is a must read for all Howard fans as well as fans of fantasy fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A Critical Appraisal of Robert E. Howard
Review: In the past, Robert E. Howard was derided by critics as being just another cheap hack writer. However, as this book demonstrates, Howard was actually a very good writer whose works were mainly limited to pulp magazines since the "respectable" magazines would not even consider stories with barbarians like Conan or Kull as the hero. This book is a must read for all Howard fans as well as fans of fantasy fiction.
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