When most people think of Robert E. Howard, one name comes to mind: Conan. But he created some other great characters. Now, like H.P. Lovecraft, there are various tomes of Howard’s writing with massive crossover, and I know what a pain it is to sift through stuff you might already have bought or read. Del Rey is reissuing Howard’s series character stories – Conan, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Kull – but there are other publishers tackling more obscure tales, such as these…

BOXING STORIES by Robert E. Howard – Out on shelves, there are two collections of Howard’s boxing stories: this 2005 one and another called WATERFRONT TALES. For those interested, grab this one, since it’s cheaper yet printed on better paper.

An avid boxing fan and boxer himself, Howard loved writing these stories, which mainly star a sailor named Steve Costigan. All the stories are from Howard’s manuscripts with original character names and titles intact. When these were put out in the fight pulps, those were changed to be made more gripping for readers. You’re probably thinking, “How could Howard write stories that don’t just repeat themselves over and over?” Simple: exotic locales featuring those down on their luck.

You see Costigan get played for a chump and then the retribution he inflicts on those fine folks. The best example of this is “Waterfront Law,” in which Steve meets up with a manager of one of his foes. Said manager lays down a line of bull that would make P.T. Barnum proud. The scenes of the actual fighting would make some of the shots from RAGING BULL look like ROMPER ROOM –  some great sheer brutality.

In this collection, you get what Howard considers his best story ever: “Iron Men,” a tale of a boxer who seems unbeatable and just wants to keep fighting to support a secret. The story feels a bit O. Henry-ish and maybe a little melodramatic, but it’s still a great read in this superb collection of men beating up men. “Cultured Cauliflowers,” about how some upper-crust types try to pass off Costigan as a professor who likes to box, is one of the highlights, played for laughs and taking a piss out of the hoity-toity set. None of that FIGHT CLUB daddy-issue bullshit.

THE COMPLETE ACTION STORIES by Robert E. Howard – This is a 2001 collection of reprints from the old Action Stories pulp, but with two tales overlapping with BOXING STORIES: “Waterfront Law,” here called “The TNT Punch,” and “The Fightn’est Pair,” here changed to “Breed of Battle.”

But what will really show through is Howard’s racism. With a title like “Blow the Chinks Down!,” there is little left to imagination what that’s going to be about. But this is only the start of this collection.

After the five boxing tales, the rest of the stories all deal with a Western character named Breckinridge Elkins. He’s a dumb backwoods-type character, of whom a little goes a long way. These stories just repeat themselves over and over. Elkins is about one shade brighter than the mentally handicapped. He’s like Howard’s Costigan character without common sense or a vocabulary.

This collection is not going to win over new fans, that’s for sure. COMPLETE ACTION STORIES is recommended only for the hardcore fan who feels to need to have everything.

LORD OF SAMARCAND AND OTHER ADVENTURE TALES OF THE OLD ORIENT by Robert E. Howard – This 2005 collection contains probably the darkest stories Howard ever wrote, all originally written for another pulp that collapsed real quick: Oriental Stories. I’m taking a guess that if Howard didn’t kill himself, he would have continued down the road of historical fiction.

These stories are dark and grim in a noir sort of way. We’re talking cynical with a capital C. Most of them involve some sort of knight either on a mission to retrieve damsels or jewels, or other historical figures and their conquering ways. People like Genghis Kahn make a important appearance.

These stories are so well-researched you wonder why they are not more well known. As someone who spent a semester in college taking a class about the Crusades. I was just amazed by them. I highly recommend this collection to not only Howard fans, but any fan of historical fiction.

There are no wizards or giant monsters that Howard is known for here. The added bonus for this collection is that – like the Del Rey editions – it has fragments and unfinished stories as supplements. Some of them would have made great adventures. But sadly, that was never to be.

Next time: my tribute to the ladies. –Bruce Grossman

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BLOOD & THUNDER: THE LIFE & ART OF ROBERT E. HOWARD by Mark Finn