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The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert E. Howard
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 26205
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0345461509
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780345461506
ASIN: 0345461509
Publication Date: June 29, 2004
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Product Description
With Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard created more than the greatest action hero of the twentieth century#8212;he also launched a genre that came to be known as sword and sorcery. But Conan wasn#8217;t the first archetypal bradventurer to spring from Howard#8217;s fertile imagination. brbri#8220;He was . . . a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan. . . . A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things. . . . Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect#8212;he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane.#8221;brbr/iCollected in this volume, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Gary Gianni, are all of the stories and poems that make up the thrilling saga of the dour and deadly Puritan, Solomon Kane. Together they constitute a sprawling epic of weird fantasy adventure that stretches from sixteenth-century England to remote African jungles where no white man has set foot. Here are shudder-inducing tales of vengeful ghosts and bloodthirsty demons, of dark sorceries wielded by evil men and women, all opposed by a grim avenger armed with a fanatic#8217;s faith and a warrior#8217;s savage heart.brbrbiThis edition also features exclusive story fragments, a biography of Howard by scholar Rusty Burke, and #8220;In Memoriam,#8221; H. P. Lovecraft#8217;s moving tribute to his friend and fellow literary genius.br/i/b
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Tales so alive, you almost have to check yourself for wounds October 27, 2008
Dressed in black with the tall slouch-hat typical of Puritan fashion, and armed with sword, flint-locks, and, later, an ancient carved staff, Solomon Kane stalks the 16th century world from the remote reaches of Europe to the bloody decks of the high seas, and into the deepest, darkest African jungles. Whether it be a witch-cursed monstrosity, hell-spawned vampire, mutant throw-back, or just a wicked wretch of humankind, Solomon Kane will fight with equal determination and enthusiasm to see good triumph.br /br /Robert E. Howard's tales are so alive, you almost have to check yourself for wounds. Between the lines broods an ancient feeling of melancholy that lends such realism to the writing. And the beautiful, sweeping illustrations in this book by the award-winning artist Gary Gianni bring that classical story-telling feel to the fore-front.br /br /As with all of Howard's heroes, Solomon Kane is larger-than-life, fearless, and inherited of an ancestral fighting prowess and unconquerable spirit. But Kane's adventures are the product of his fanatical obsession to root-out and destroy evil in any form. He seeks no personal reward -- only claims to do the will of God. However, despite his staunch Puritan faith, his inner demons are almost as dark as those he combats. He is a man of violence, filled with a wander-lust to seek out what he judges as evil with a determination and recklessness that is psychotic.br /br /What makes Solomon Kane so endearing to read is, on one hand, Solomon Kane is the archetypal swash-buckler -- much like a character from a Robert Louis Stevenson adventure story. On the other hand (probably the left because left-handedness was once thought to be of the Devil), Kane is as foreboding as what he faces -- most often horrors as nightmarish as anything Edgar Allen Poe ever created.br /br /Reading these stories in this format is like a journey back to my childhood -- when the jungles of an old Tarzan movie were more real than anything documented on the National Geographic channel, and when a horror-comic hidden in a text book at school would make me too scared to sleep that night. It reminded me of when I was too young to be allowed to read such violent and terrifying tales but did so anyway because I knew therein were hidden truths of adventures still left in this world that my parents didn't want me to know about.
 Well done September 27, 2008
In many ways, Solomon Kane is R E Howard's most intriguing character. As dark and conflicted as his creator and as brilliantly conceived as one could hope, Solomon Kane leaps off the page in the stories and poems presented in this collection. As with the previous editions, the editors make no changes to Howard's work aside from cleaning up typos and deleting all pastiche material. As for the quality of the stories themselves, while all are readable, some are simply outstanding. Red Shadows (originally titled by Howard Solomon Kane but later retitled by him upon submission to Weird Tales) and Wings in the Night are the standouts here. Each shows Howard's puritan fanatic at his most vengeful, and each displays mistakes made by the protagonist, giving him a more human, identifiable feel. As an added bonus, the duel at the end of Red Shadows is simply breathtaking. All of the other stories, while not as accomplished as these two, are well worth the read. As is well known by connoisseurs of his work, Howard was an accomplished poet as well as a brilliant prose writer, and this shows both in the lengthy poems centering on Solomon (of which, Solomon Kane's Homecoming is the moody best) and in the shorter poems he appended to some of the stories. Adding to this wealth of riches is H P Lovecraft's In Memoriam, written shortly after howard's untimely suicide, as well as brilliant artwork capturing strikingly Howard's vision of 16th Century Europe and Africa. Unfortunately for some unaccountable reason, the editors did not see fit to provide us with an essay placing Solomon Kane in context of Howard's broader work or detailing to us the various physical, emotional, and economic situations that caused Howard to write his characters in certain ways as they have done with all the other collections in this series. For that reason alone, I can't give the book five stars. Still, for all the above reasons, this is a phenomenal read anyone willing to give it a try should enjoy.
Blood and Thunder! July 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is often lamented (esp. by the senior citizens) that "good-old" things of the past are not to be found nowadays, since the taste has gone to "dogs"! I do not belong to that age-group, but after reading works of R.E.Howard I am finding everything else, esp. the so-called "saga"-s/"chronicles"/"epics" that have flooded the fantasy market with their herculean size and very high percentage of broodings ponderings, absolutely stale. It is true that these works may not be politically correct as per the prevalent norms, but they are very high on entertainment quotient, for which purpose they had been written and they are read. The narratives are swiftly paced, the characters are drawn in bold strokes of white and (mostly) black with magnanimous splashes of red, and the descriptions are absolutely breathtaking. I don't know exactly how Howard had developed his vocabulary and syntactical style, but every time I read any of his works (esp. those concerning Solomon Kane) I am amazed anew as to why nobody else could ever attain the height that he scaled again-and-again. Dear readers, please give yourself a break from the masochistic pleasures of reading the works of the present-day pretenders, and read the originals. They will blow your mind!br /br /The only reason for which I deducted a star was because I had expected Del Ray to append the portions written by Ray Bradbury et.al. to complete the fragments left behind by Howard, and that expectation was not fulfilled. If you are not having any such expectations, then buy this book and give yourself a 5-star treat!
the good pilgrim June 1, 2008
Howard's Kane stories are much like his Kull or Conan... in short perfect for any Howard fan
Solomon Kane January 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Excerp from back of book; "With Conan the cimmerian, Robert E. Howard created more than the greatest action hero of the twentieth century-he also launched a genre that came to be know as sword and sorcery. But Conan wasn't the first archetypal adventurer to spring from Howard's fertile imagination.br /br /"He was a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan..A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things..Wayward and restless as the win, he was consistent in only one respect--he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane."br /br /Collected in this volume, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Garyl Gianni, are all of the stories and poems that make up the thrilling sage of the dour and deadly Puritan, Solomon Kane. Together they constitute a sprawling epic of weird fantasy adventure that stretches from sixteeth-century England to remote African jungles where no white man has set foot. Here are shudder-inducing tales of vengeful ghosts and bloodthirsty demons, of dark sorceries wileded by evil men and women, all opposed by a grim avenger armed with a fanatic's faith and a warrior's savage heart. br /br /This edition also features exclusive story fragments, a biography of Howard by scholar Rusty Burke, and "In Memoriam," H.P. Lovecraft's moving tribute to his friend and fellow literary genius.br /br /Other books to read are: Whole Wide World by Novalyne Ellis who was REH's girlfriend the last few years of his life and made into a DVD starring Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio as REH, Blood Thunder, The Life Art of REH by Mark Finn, The Last of The Trunk by Paul Herman, and The Black Stranger OTher American Tales that has the scariest story ever - Pigeons From Hell. All of REH works are great! Enjoy.
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