Solomon Kane

Red Shadows is the first of a series of stories featuring Howard's puritan avenger, Solomon Kane. Kane tracks his prey over land and sea, enters the jungles of Africa, and even faces dark Gods and evil magic -- all to avenge a woman he'd never met before.

He was a Puritan, who flinched not from the gates of Hell. Tall, gaunt, hollow-eyed in his opposition to the forces of darkness, he defied the devil himself. Kane, cold, steely-nerved duelist, snatched his long rapier from its sheath and thrust it into the heart of evil... Ghoulish laughter follows him. Foul horror haunts his way. Kane, a man whose blood quickens with adventure. Kane, a man more dangerous than a famished wolf.

First published in Weird Tales, June 1929. In Germany Kane meets a traveler named Gaston L'Armon, who seems familiar to Kane, and together they take rooms in the Cleft Skull Tavern.

A great black shadow lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of the red sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

Moon of Skulls collects Robert E. Howard's fiction and poetry published in Weird Tales Magazine from October 1929 to November 1930, plus one from Oriental Stories. These works represent literary stepping-stones to Howard's infamous Cthulhu mythos stories and his most famous character of all - Conan the Cimmerian - and ably demonstrate that each of Howard's stories improved and added to his formidable skills as a master of fantasy and adventure. Continuing the collection of Howard's fiction and poetry in order of publication, Volume Two of the Weird Works of Robert E. Howard picks up where Volume One left off - at one of the most startling and controversial Howard stories of all: Skull-Face, a potent combination of gothic themes and oriental mystique! Included in this volume are: "The Gothic Orient," by Mark Finn (introduction), "Skull-Face," "Dead Man's Hate," "The Fearsome Touch of Death," "A Song out of Midian," "Shadows on the Road," "The Moon of Skulls," "The Hills of the Dead," "Black Chant Imperial," and "The Voice of El-Lil." Edited by Paul Herman. Cover by Stephen Fabian.