Released in 2004, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane collects most if not all of Robert E. Howard’s Puritan hero. The book is part of a line of paperbacks from Random House spotlighting Howard’s stories. Most know Robert Howard from his much more famous hero Conan the Barbarian but Howard’s prose is just as fluid, just as exciting, and fun in his Solomon Kane tales. There are those who would argue that Solomon Kane is actually far superior to Conan as a hero in that Kane is driven and determined to do good and make the world a better place. Conan may be physically stronger but Kane is just as cunning and has a far more sophisticated intellect.
Like Conan, Solomon Kane has also been adapted into film, comics, and even board games. His adventures are intensely fun and full of swashbuckling action. Kane usually carries a rapier and two flintlock pistols, is dressed in black, and is tall and thin. He presents a very foreboding yet romantic figure in Howard’s stories. . .and of course is far more civilized than Conan.
Among the best stories featured in this paperback are The Skull in the Stars, which is a sort of creature feature meets ghost story, and Wings in the Night, in which Kane stumbles onto an entire village that has been wiped out by a supernatural threat.
Robert E. Howard is certainly among the ranks of the best American writers who have ever lived, up there with the likes of H.P. Lovecraft, David Drake, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
