whose adventures were brought together as Tigers
of the Sea(1974), Hawks of Outremer(1979), and
Cormac Mac Art(1995). Andrew J. Offutt added
five novels about Cormac, two of them in collabo-
ration with Keith Taylor and the best of which is
The Sign of the Moonbow(1977). The last signifi-
cant recurring Howard hero is Solomon Kane, who
varies a bit from the standard Howard protagonist.
Kane is a 16th-century pirate, more cultured and
restrained than Conan or Kull and more likely to
use his wits than his fists as he solves occult mys-
teries from England to Africa. Kane’s stories have
been collected in one volume as Red Shadows
(1968), in three volumes under different titles be-
tween 1969 and 1971, and in two volumes in 1978
and 1979. Their latest incarnation is as The Savage
Tales of Solomon Kane(2004).
In addition to his heroic fantasy tales, Howard
wrote a fair number of supernatural or occult sto-
ries. Many of these were set in the Cthulhu Mythos
universe created by H. P. LOVECRAFT. Howard’s
horror stories are collected in Skull-Face and Others
(1946), Wolfshead(1968), Pigeons from Hell and
Other Weird and Fantastic Adventures(1976), and
Cthulhu—The Mythos and Other Kindred Horrors
(1988). These include several acknowledged clas-
sics such as “PIGEONS FROM HELL” (1938), “THE
CAIRN ON THE HEADLAND” (1931), and “THE
DARK MAN” (1932). A few of his works such as the
short novel Almuric(1939) and “THE GARDEN OF
FEAR” (1934) use science fiction devices, either
other planets or the distant future, but the tone is
that of fantasy and the technology is indistinguish-
able from magic.
Howard’s influence on the writers who fol-
lowed him was not because of the novelty of his
themes and settings, which were not original with
him, but the manner in which he presented his
stories. His plots are exciting and fast paced, his
settings exotic, and his prose lucid and evocative.
The resolution of the conflict is often remarkably
clever, particularly in his best stories. The rough,
uneducated, even crude barbarian hero would be-
come a permanent fixture in fantasy fiction, al-
though few writers rose to Howard’s level of
execution. Although his stories are often relent-
lessly violent and are sometimes tinged with racial
prejudice, his faults are generally forgiven because
of his superior ability to tell an exciting and en-
grossing story.“The Howling Man”Charles Beaumont
(1960)
Satan, or the devil, rarely makes a personal appear-
ance in horror fiction, probably because his powers
are so immense that it would be difficult to create
a situation in which the protagonist could win
without some form of divine assistance. Charles
BEAUMONTproduced with this story one of the few
worthwhile exceptions. The protagonist is David
Ellington, the son of a wealthy American family
who travels to Europe supposedly to broaden his
education. He is engaged in a bicycle trip across
Germany when he falls seriously ill and wakens to
find himself in St. Wulfran’s, a remote monastery.
Although the monks are solicitous of his health,
they watch him constantly, and he is not allowed
to leave his room unaccompanied.
Each night David’s sleep is disturbed by the
sound of a man howling somewhere in the build-
ing, a disturbance that none of the monks admits
hearing. As he regains his strength he is more cer-
tain than ever that this is not a hallucination, so
he eludes his watchers one evening and finds a
small cell whose occupant, a nondescript but hag-
gard-looking man, is the source of the uproar. The
prisoner insists that the monks are crazy and that
they have imprisoned him for the previous five
years for committing adultery. When David con-
fronts the abbot, the latter insists that they are not
holding any man prisoner and that no man has
been screaming during the night. The being to
whom David spoke is actually the devil himself,
imprisoned so that humankind only need suffer
from its own faults rather than those instigated by
Satan.
Predictably, David remains skeptical, waits for
an opportunity, steals the key, and sets the prisoner
free. The monks express their disappointment but
no anger, and David leaves, feeling puzzled and
more than slightly confused. He does not feel
guilty until a few years later, when he sees a news
story about Adolf Hitler’s sudden rise to power in
Germany and recognizes the man, if it was a man,
who he liberated. The war eventually ends, and in“The Howling Man” 169