I've been a fan of Robert E. Howard ever since reading his Conan stories when I was a teenager.

This is a collection of some of his horror/weird fiction (this being R.E.H., several of the stories still had a strong adventure element, particularly The Fire of Asshurbanipal). It was nice to see Howard writing (and writing well) outside of the usual sword and sorcery he's most famous for.

These stories aren't everyone's cuppa, but I liked most of them. In a couple of stories (though not all of them as the book seems to imply) Howard played in Lovecraft's Cthulhu sandbox. While his tone was very different (his characters tended to have a little more fortitude than an average H.P. protagonist), his writing was much stronger. And the unlikely named Pigeons From Hell is a minor horror classic (and a lyric in a Pretenders song!). ( )