Product Description

Robert E. Howard is the world-renowned author of the Conan series and the stories that were the basis of the recent Kull movie. He also was one of H.P. Lovecraft's frequent correspondents, and an author of many pivotal Mythos tales. This book collects together all of Howard's Mythos tales, including the tales that originated Gol-Goroth, Unausspreclichen Kulten, and Friedrich Von Junzt.

Included in this collections are several fragments left behind by Robert E. Howard which have been completed by a variety of authors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #404068 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Publisher
This book has been long anticipated by readers of H.P. Lovecraft and Call of Cthulhu players alike.

Customer Reviews

5 stars for the book, ZERO stars for Amazon!
Part of the Chaosium series of HPL "Call of Cthulhu" books, so... an inexpensive edition full of excellent stories.
Do NOT, however, waste your time trying to order this from Amazon. I waited something like 4 months for this one, and Amazon, all the while, kept sending me "we're trying to get it" emails. Finally, they gave up.
I immediately ordered the same book from our local Barnes and Noble, and guess what... I had it withing 10 days!
Classic, meaty and manly tales of horror, cheap edition, what else can you ask? Oh, I know, you can ask that if Amazon advertises it, they should actually make an attempt to get it.

The "other" Robert E. Howard
Most readers are aware of Robert E. Howard as the creator of Conan The Cimmerian
and possibly even Solomon Kane or King Kull, but this collection features some really amazing rarely collected weird fantasy all in the fairly thin veneer of "Cthulhu Mythos stories" the most likely genuine one in the collection being "The Black Stone" from which the collections tittle is derived. Don't get me wrong These are all Howard at his best, But there's no way you're going to tell me "Skull Face' is a "Mythos" story!
Still Lovecraftian or not this is probably the single best REH collection on the market for sheer variety and value. Highly recommened.

Skull Face and Others
Horror was clearly not a strong point with Robert E. Howard. Proper horror requires a certain frailty of hero, someone who is confronted with something far beyond their powers, beyond their ability to come to terms with. Howard's heroes, however, are all rough-and-tumble fighters, quick to swing and axe or fire a pistol, and never giving into such weak emotions as fear or terror. Not exactly a viable protagonist for a horror story.

However, in "Nameless Cults," Howard showed himself a capable blender of Lovecraft's otherworldly Mythos and his own brand of barbarian triumph. Much of the mythos connections are quite dubious, being only a word or two. A man shouting "yog sothoth" as he dies is enough to add it to the collection.

Stories such as "Worms of the Earth," with Howard's Pictish king Bran Mak Morn, "The Shadow Kingdom" with Kull, and "The Gods of Bal-Soggoth" featuring the Irish adventurer Turlogh Dubh O'Brien, showcase the best of Howard's style, pitting his rugged sluggers against achievable and defeatable cosmic horrors. These stories work very well, and they are clearly Howard stories, not an attempt to mimic a Lovecraft story.

Other stories, such as "Dig Me No Grave," "The Black Bear Bites" and "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," are rousing adventure stories with a supernatural flair, in tune with an Indian Jones movie. This is true pulp fiction. The bayou-set "Skull Face," is on of the best Howard stories I have read, and it is a shame that it gets bogged down in it's own racism, detailing the attempt of a black men to join together and overthrow white men in a global insurrection.

Less successful are Howard's attempts at Lovecraftian-style fiction. He doesn't have what it takes to tell a viable story of book-learned fellows sitting around the fire. Stories like "The Thing on the Roof" and "The Hoofed Thing" are less successful, mediocre works at best.

Worth noting, the cover is terrible, and I am not sure why they picked this image. It has nothing to do with the contents, not even in tone. I put off buying "Nameless Cults" for sometime, based on this silly screaming mouth. I am glad to know that it is the cover that is bad, not the book.

While not on par with his Conan stories, where Howard was an inspired writer, "Nameless Cults" is still an excellent book with enough good stories in it to outweigh the bad. While the Bran Mak Morn and Kull stories are available elsewhere, the book is worth getting for "Skull Face" alone, if you can stomach the racism.