The last time I covered Robert E. Howard was in my review of the El Borak stories and at the end of that post, I stated my intention to move on to Bran Mak Morn next. It has been almost two years since and I have not yet read these stories though I have continued to acquire the various collections of Howard’s work I can find. Most recently, I discovered the books published by the Robert E. Howard Foundation and have bought a few of the hardcovers and am still waiting on one more as of writing. These more or less fill-in the missing stories not published in the Ballantine/Del Rey paperbacks I’ve mostly been drawing from, though I expect I will also find some crossovers within. As of writing, they don’t seem to have publishing rights for the better known Howard stories but I must say that both the printing quality and the editing is excellent. One of the titles that jumped out was the subject of this review which I was initially reluctant to pick up as I wondered just how “spicy” these adventures would be. Someone familiar with the stories assured me they were not pornographic and so I added these to my collection too.
As evident from the slimness of the volume as well as in the introduction, Howard only briefly wrote in this genre and all of the stories within are very short — even by Howard’s standards. This volume is about 250 pages but includes earlier drafts and a few unfinished synopses to pad it out. Had these extras not been included, the text and printing borders could easily have been scaled to fit the entire collection into less than one hundred pages. Due to a combination of the shortness of the collection, my curiosity and the length of time between my last review, I decided to tackle these stories next.
What follows will not be as detailed as I’ve tried to be particularly with the more recent reviews, as this is the first collection of Howard’s work that I frankly wouldn’t recommend.
As it happens, reading these stories after El Borak fit well because the general setting and characters are much closer to these stories than any of the others I have read thus far. These are all contemporary (for Howard’s time), and there is nothing supernatural or other-worldly to be found within. Although not exclusively, a number of the regions El Borak would have ventured through are also present within the volume. Only the final story ‘Daughters of Feud‘ which is set within rural Indiana; or at least I think so as I could only find a ‘Whiskey Run’ township in this state and the area does appear to be mountainous as in the story.
All but ‘Guns of Khartum‘ and the story mentioned above feature the character Wild Bill Clanton who is introduced in the middle of a scuffle in the first story ‘The Girl on the Hell Ship‘ which is also represented on the cover art. Below is a description of Clanton as he is engaged in a fist fight with a member of the ship’s crew:
His opponent was as big as he—a broad-shouldered, clean-waisted, heavy-armed man with wetly plastered black hair, blue eyes that blazed with the joy of mayhem, and lips that grinned savagely even when, as now, they were smeared with blood.
At least outwardly, he is very similar to many of Howard’s heroes only there is little heroism in Clanton. I would describe him as a lecherous lout and he does little to add to this description in any of the stories that follow. He is out to make money, drink and fornicate with women and any good he does, is entirely incidental to these pursuits. Xavier ‘El Borak’ Gordon would certainly not approve of him as one of his methods of making money is smuggling weapons (including Soviet weapons), through British India into the ever-turbulent regions of Afghanistan. Unlike in an El Borak story where such a man would find himself with his nose broken by the butt of a rifle and his contraband confiscated or destroyed. Yet these details are only literary window dressings in his pursuit of various women — willing or otherwise. The story events I just mentioned are from ‘Murderer’s Grog’ which ends with him raping a woman who he was aggressively lusting after in the opening pages. Granted she is not a very nice woman and did double cross him but this doesn’t mitigate the evil he does to her in the story’s climax.
As for pornography, to paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, ‘I know it when I read it.’ These stories are certainly not pornographic by today’s standards but that is much like the unmarried, unemployed man in his forties, who still lives with his parents, calling the homeless alcoholic man outside his local shopping centre a loser. Sure, these stories aren’t as bad as what we have today but they’re still bad. While there is no explicit descriptions of sexual acts as now commonly found in fiction written for women, there are still a lot of heaving breasts, bodice ripping and sexual activity, more often than not, is said to follow. These encounters are also usually described in violent terms with grabbing, slapping and hitting preceding sexual acts. So again, while not explicitly pornographic by todays standards, they are still clearly written to incite lust in the reader. The introduction indicates that the stories that were published in Howard’s lifetime, were censored further than what is found in this volume. It seems odd given the obvious intention of stories like this that they were allowed to publish them at all. Surely the intention behind them should have been the main issue as they were clearly not written merely to entertain.
I honestly find myself disappointed that these stories exist at all as most of Howard’s characters I’ve covered up until now were nothing like Clanton. Love interests do not come into the Kull, Solomon Kane and El Borak stories, nor in most of his historical adventure stories. In Conan, they are certainly more present but incidental to the narrative rather than the purpose. Wild Bill Clanton actually makes the otherwise barbaric Conan seem like a gentleman by contrast.
As for their literary quality, Howard certainly elevates the subject material somewhat but this is akin to giving the aforementioned alcoholic a bottle of single-malt instead of the cheapest blended brand. His prose is wasted on stories like this and even then, these are still far from the best examples of his writing. It is also said within that these were written to be sold for money and the lack of passion in his otherwise competent prose is certainly evident. These are strictly curiosities for those that want to look into everything Howard wrote and I don’t recommend them.
On a final note, I realise my tone throughout might sound similar to one of the men censoring these stories almost a century ago but this is not my intention. I have to be careful to keep proper custody of my eyes as much as most men. While I don’t have trouble avoiding pornography, I still do occasionally, watch, read or see something I shouldn’t. Knowing the struggles men go through, I’m not willing to recommend anything that is designed to incite lust, however mild and even if written by Robert E. Howard.