Back when I was in my mid-teens, my older brother started buying and then
loaning to me a series of books about a big bruiser named Conan the
Barbarian. The original tales were by Robert E. Howard, of course, but
L. Sprague de Camp, the editor of the paperback series, had
gone to great lengths to put them all in some kind of consistent order
based on their internal chronology, and if I recall correctly he added
some Conan tales of his own to fill in the gaps and round out the series.
I read every one of them, and then I gave them back to my brother, and I
haven’t seen them since. Most of Howard’s other output was also available
in those days, and just as with Conan my brother bought them and I got to
read them. Just hearing the names brings back those days: Kull of
Atlantis, Bran Mak Morn the Pict, Cormac Mac Art…it was great stuff.

I read it all once, and never again, because I don’t have the books on my
shelves, and they haven’t been in print in years.

Then Forager
23 reprinted a post of his in which he contrasted Howard with Tolkien
to the latter’s detriment (a dispute upon which I will not venture an
opinion at this time except to say that Howard is pretty darned good and
Forager is still bananas), and that got me thinking about ol’ Conan and
his ilk. And so the next time I was at the bookstore I looked for Howard
and discovered that Chaosium (the outfit that publishes the Call of
Cthulhu roleplaying game) is republishing Howard’s fantastic fiction.
They had exactly one volume; and somewhat ironically, perhaps, it’s the
one major character of Howard’s that my brother never got to (not that I
recall, anyway): Solomon Kane, a stern Puritan of the 16th century.

Kane is a tall stern man; he wears black, naturally, with a broad
slouch hat, and his face has a dark pallor. I’m not sure how you have
a dark pallor, but the words were used in a number of the stories, and who
am I to argue? Kane’s the sort who will verbally rebuke those who offend
his morals with loose talk or blasphemies but he reserves his anger for
those whose crimes are considerably more active–at which point he begins
to regard himself more-or-less as God’s executioner. And once on the
trail he will pursue his quarry quite literally to the ends of the earth.

The tales were precisely the sort of thing I remember–swordplay, bold
speeches, inhuman fiends, and the like–with the striking difference that
the hero never gets the girl (well, he’s a Puritan after all). I enjoyed
them, certainly, though they didn’t seem quite as good as I remember
Howard’s other stuff being. But it’s so hard to tell, from this remove;
I was less discerning in those days, and that’s a sword that cuts both
ways. I really need to re-read some stuff I remember from before.

There were a couple of things I noticed that I know I would have either
missed or ignored had I read these tales way back then. The first is a
logical error: Howard describes Kane as always acting on impulse; a true
fanatic, he never considers the true reasons for his actions but just goes
straight ahead. And yet, isn’t it the hallmark of the true fanatic that
he always knows exactly why he does why he does, and can explain it to
you in great and appalling detail? In any event, Solomon Kane was first
envisioned by Howard while the author was still in his teens, and I think
it’s fair to say that the darkly pallid fellow owes more to Howard’s
imagination and youthful misconceptions than he does to any Puritan who
actually walked the earth.

The other issue is a shocking degree of racism. About half the stories
in the book take place in central Africa, and Kane several times runs into
lost cities once inhabited by proud races of a higher type than the
savage black negroes of Africa who have since replaced them.
It’s only fair to say that the proud races in question are not
presented as being less cruel than their successors; just more civilized
and racially more advanced.

The racial foolishness didn’t spoil my enjoyment, not the way it
would have if the stories were of a more recent vintage; I don’t regard
these stories as being about the real world anyway, and anyway they were
written in the 1930’s, a time when such sentiments were frequently held
about present-day Africans, let alone those in the forgotten jungles of
the 1500’s. Howard was, after all, a man of his day. But if you’re the
sort who is excessively bothered by this kind of thing you’ll want to
give the book a miss.