“The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales” shows the Great Robert E. Howard at his finest. As brilliant as his Conan stories are, as well as all the other genres he’s dabbled in, to me his comedy westerns are the cream of the crop.

I’d previously read about half of these tales before, so only read the ones that were new to me. Not a weak effort among them. Howard deserves more acclaim as a humoristic. I’ve never read another author capable of such a consistent high level of comedy.

All stories are fast-paced with simple yet effective plots that have a few surprises thrown in for good measure. Some may criticise the lack of variation, which to a degree is true, but despite a level of “sameyness” here and there, no tale fails to cause amusement.

A fantastic read. ( )

Wow. I never thought I would enjoy ridiculous tall tales as much as I enjoyed these. REH is a master and deserves far more credit in literary circles than he is given. These stories were FUN. I laughed and chuckled the whole way through. ( )

I'm pretty familiar with Howard's writing & read [b:A Gent From Bear Creek|443781|A Gent From Bear Creek|Robert E. Howard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1231662191s/443781.jpg|432548] featuring Breckinridge Elkins, back in the mid-70's when Zebra published it. I didn't realize then that it was Howard's first published novel since I was only familiar with his Sword & Sorcery through the Conan & Kull stories, mostly published by Lancer & often heavily edited, re-written &/or finished by DeCamp & Carter. I loved those stories & found that a humorous Western, while completely different, was wonderful. Yes, the man who wrote the brooding, intelligent barbarian sword swingers could also do a series of basically Pecos Bill stories that had me laughing until tears rolled down my face. (OK, I was a teen, it was the mid-70's & reading time was often chemically enhanced. We did have a large farm, after all.)

I also had no idea at the time that Howard had completed more humorous boxing & western stories than Conan stories (25 Steve Costigan, 22 Breckenridge Elkins & only 21 Conan) according to David Gentzel, who wrote the introduction of this book. [b:A Gent From Bear Creek|443781|A Gent From Bear Creek|Robert E. Howard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1231662191s/443781.jpg|432548] was basically a series of short stories, some already published, edited & with some additions to create an episodic novel. This book has the original short stories along with some others featuring similar heroes; Pike Bearfield & Buckner Grimes. The Bearfield stories are interesting because they're written as letters or telegrams between people, not just as straight narrations. It was an interesting way of telling the story & often added to the humor.

This is a great collection & I got it for under $5 delivered from Amazon. (I think it was $0.57 plus tax & $3.99 shipping. It was supposed to be used, but was brand new.) Well worth it at twice the price. Note that Gutenberg.au has many of Howard's stories available for free, it you want to just sample some. ( )

see http://www.sfsite.com/09b/rb208.htm ( )

I think it's inevitable that a Howard fan will at some point ask, "What if...?" I never wonder more about what might have been for REH than when I read the comical dialect westerns he was turning out at the end of his life. He seemed to be more at home in this genre even than in the sword and sorcery he helped to pioneer, and in writing them he managed to avoid a lot of the banalities that tended to mar some of his better known work - in the case of Conan, say, the gratuitous scantly clad damsels in distress and what have you. These yarns really are timeless, in the way that the best tall tales are, and they fairly scream for a complete collection like the Del Ray books. ( )